Procedures, rules, routines and getting used to their campuses was the main goal for the first day of school Tuesday in Ector County ISD.
Superintendent Scott Muri visited several campuses such as Ireland Elementary, Bonham Middle School and George H.W. Bush New Tech Odessa. Media was invited to Bonham and the Odessa American followed him to New Tech.
Most prekindergarten through fifth graders started Tuesday, along with sixth and ninth-graders. The rest of the students will start Thursday.
“We learned during the pandemic that phasing students into the school year is a really good thing. We saw lots of happy kids today,” Muri said while at Bonham.
Bonham on Tuesday hosted sixth graders only. Muri said this is aimed at giving them a chance to transition in over the next couple of days.
“They get the run of the school themselves. They get to meet … all of the teachers in the building, get to really learn rules, procedures, processes and become acclimated in anticipation of the seventh and eighth graders joining them later in the week. …,” Muri said.
“Our high schools are the same way. Today’s the first day of school for ninth graders only. Tenth, 11th and 12th graders will join us on Thursday. Once again, freshmen get to learn all about their high school. They get to meet folks, understand rules, procedures, processes, so that when the rest of the students join them, they’re in healthy shape. We’ve had a great first day. I’ve been out and about; saw lots of elementary schools this morning. Saw a few crying kids, probably more crying parents today than crying kids. It can be, especially if it’s your oldest child, that separation when you drop them off that first day of school can be emotional. We have some teachers and administrators they welcome kids as we welcomed kids back to school. It was a healthy first day of school in ECISD,” he added.
At Bonham, students were told about restroom procedures, dress code and the campus’s three core beliefs of respect, responsibility and safety.
Despite the traumas endured, such as the pandemic and the mass shooting, ECISD has had a great three years, Muri said.
“We anticipate, based upon all of the data that we’ve seen, when our accountability results are released next week, we know that it’s going to be a good day for our community. A day unlike anything they’ve ever seen before. We’re excited to do that. This year, our opportunities to become even better. Our kids deserve for us to provide the highest caliber of academic experience for them. This year is all about leveling up. It’s about going from good to great. It’s about being the very best that we can do,” Muri said.
He added that safety and security are in the forefront right now in terms of making sure that students and staff members “remain as safe as they possibly can.” “We’ve instituted some new safety protocols, and again, those starting today. But we want to make sure that everyone is safe in the environment. We also want to make sure that we connect with our kids. Research says that when teachers and students maintain a healthy relationship that improves student achievement, and so we want to develop healthy relationships with the 33,500 kids that we serve this year,” Muri said.
“And then academic improvement, again, we’ve had three really great years. The goal is to be even better this year than we’ve ever been before, so continuing to make sure that everything from our graduation rate continues to rise, to make sure that the kids are growing academically at every level, pre K through 12th grade. We’ll be monitoring those data throughout the school year, so it’s to be even better than we’ve ever been,” he added.
Muri said there are teachers from 16 different countries in the district this year and the pay scale has improved.
“… They bring with them not only various languages, but also various cultures. It’s an exciting opportunity for our kids to meet and experience folks from other communities. Our teachers were also welcomed back with a significant pay increase,” Muri said.
He added that the district is excited about what the board of trustees did for teachers and hourly employees by raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
“… So over the last two years, we’ve had a $5 hourly rate increase for hourly employees …,” Muri said.
Asked about improving the dropout rate, he said there are several ways that can be handled.
“… When kids connect and develop healthy relationships, that’s really first and foremost. It’s difficult for a student to drop out of school when the people at school — the teachers, the administrators, the support professional — are folks that provide support for them; folks that develop healthy relationships with them. That’s really key, making sure that our kids can connect what they’re doing in school with life, making those connections between that algebra one class, if you will, and the job that I’m going to have in life. Our responsibility as educators is to connect school with the world of work and the world of opportunity … It is important that kids are made to attain success as they traveled throughout the school system. And our teachers and administrators are creating healthy, engaging environments for kids to help avoid that,” Muri said.
ECISD has a new partnership started last year with Acceleration Academies, which targets students that have already dropped out of school.
“We have lost some kids from the age of 16 all the way through 21. We’re now going back and getting those kids and bringing them back into the school learning environment,” Muri said.
ECISD Police Chief Todd Hiner spoke about school safety and security.
District police officers this summer underwent active shooter training and performed safety audit checks for doors on campuses to report any doors that are faulty.
Hiner said they also perform weekly audit checks to ensure that other safety procedures on the campuses to ensure that other safety procedures are implemented.
“… We want to instill the confidence with the parents and let them know that the schools are a safe place to send their kids,” he added.
Hiner said the audit basically is is campus specific.
“Some of our officers are assigned to those different locations and they have specific tasks that they’re there to look at like exterior doors, fencing, interior doors. Also, the weekly audits are there to make sure that the teachers are closing their doors within the campuses. Some of those things are things that are required from the state that just recently came out,” Hiner added.
The department had to make sure that all the procedures are done properly across the board.
There is a Standard Response Protocol that is identified by the Texas School Safety Center as as the standard response protocol for the state.
“Basically, that is your lockdown procedures. We train personnel and we also do drills every year, multiple times,” he added.
Several years ago, the ALERRT Training, which is Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training, was identified as the way to train for an active shooter situation.
“It was endorsed by the FBI, as well as the Texas School Safety Center. …,” Hiner said.
Hiner said there wasn’t complacency in ECISD about possible school shootings before the Uvalde tragedy.
“We’ve been prepared for many years, and we have been training our officers. ECISD has always taken safety and security seriously and put it at the forefront because you have to have a safe environment for your kids. We worked very closely with external law enforcement agencies, Odessa Police Department, Sheriff’s Department, DPS in coordinating our efforts as well. We have always taken that seriously and we have trained and prepared,” Hiner said.
He noted that there is a mandatory training in the form of a video that employees watch and have to check off that they have viewed it and understand it.
“There’s a questionnaire at the end of that to make sure that they are actually proficient at what to do in the event of a lockdown,” he said.
Hiner added that bus drivers have a radio system that allows them to communicate and get emergency personnel to their location as quickly as possible.
Bonham Principal Juan Dominguez said it’s beneficial to bring the students in, teach them the core values.
“The biggest thing is it’s a new school, new friends, new building. And so it’s our job to make sure that we bring down that anxiety level for them. We make them feel comfortable and welcome …,” Dominguez said.
He added that he is expecting 903 students and his No. 1 goal is to make sure the students are safe.
New Tech Principal Gerardo Ramirez said the tradition since they opened 11 years ago is to acclimate students during the first week of school.
“Our freshmen are going over our norms as a school — everything from cafeteria norms, common area norms; they do school tours. Because our model is so different, they learn about project-based learning, what it is, about our rubrics, our learning outcomes; the whole process of being a New Tech learner,” Ramirez said.
“It’s really an investment in our time before they hit the book, as it’s said. It’s essential. It starts us with a strong foundation, and then it breaks the ice, as well. You’ll commonly see team building activities. Every department here is covering different areas to make sure everything’s addressed,” he added.
Ninth-graders on Tuesday were following their bell schedules, going to all their class periods, getting to know their facilitators and the location of their classes.
Career and Technical Education shuttles will start Friday to Odessa and Permian high schools. Buses to Odessa College for dual credit classes will start the week after.
Muri said the majority of CTE students will be sophomores, juniors and seniors and they start Thursday.
Ramirez agrees that the staggered start helps youngsters.
“I think our freshmen are going to be the group that are a lot more nervous. They’re the ones that may be more anxious about school. They’re leaving middle school models and going into the high school and so it really gives us a time to get to know them, break the ice and just make sure they’re taken care of and they have everything that they need to start off. Especially with the pandemic, we had to change the way we did things, and now in a sense, we’re back to normal so reinforcing those normal practices again, is essential. We’re seeing that as a staff as well,” Ramirez said.
To get into NTO, you have to buzz in and be verified.
“Our classrooms are locked, so if teachers are teaching they’re behind a locked, secured door. Those are two of the main main security measures that we have, and we ensured you know that every classroom had a Bearacade and it was operating correctly, training staff with best practices for our drills, which is something we do every year. We always have emergency procedures in place, but there are some heightened measures this year,” Ramirez said.
He added that teachers are acclimated and students get it and have not pushed back.
“They understand. They want to do what’s best,” Ramirez said.
“Another big one is IDs because our buildings are used for multipurpose. It’s important for staff and then once we roll out IDs to our students officially, making sure that those are present and staff is aware of who’s in the building, where they’re going, checking in with us,” Ramirez added.
In the cafeteria, he said, there’s universal feeding for breakfast and for lunch, but students are inputting their ID numbers and once they get their ID’s they will be able to scan them.
“That helps reinforce that expectation — high school wide,” Ramirez said.
NTO Dean of Students James Porter said he has been checking on teachers to see how they’re doing.
Porter said Ramirez has set up mentor teachers if newer teachers need help.
“First year teachers came back a little bit earlier. They started like two days early,” Porter said.
He acknowledged that the students were nervous Tuesday. They don’t know where to go or what to do.
“They have that lost in the sauce look in their eyes. But I’m surprised seeing them just now in lunch, you can see them sitting with their friends. They find their friends very quickly,” he added. “They find their little groups.”
