Mike Morath, head of the Texas Education Agency, the entity that oversees all schools and districts in the state, went to Ross Elementary School Wednesday to see how Opportunity Culture was working there.
In his media call Wednesday, Muri said Morath’s visit was a chance to view Opportunity Culture, which helps prekindergarten through 12th grade districts and schools restructure to extend the reach of excellent teachers, principals and their teams to more students, for more pay, within recurring school budgets, the Opportunity Culture website said.
“We’re seeing pretty significant results in that environment, not only at that elementary school, but about 19 others in the community using that same strategy,” Muri said.
“The commissioner was very impressed with what we saw; very complimentary of our teachers and leaders and what’s happening in ECISD and really commented the progress that he’s seen this district make over the last couple of years. While he hasn’t been here on a weekly basis to monitor that progress, TEA, the Texas Education Agency, does monitor all schools and districts at the state level. He’s been impressed with the work that’s happening, and specifically he lifted up Ross Elementary today (Wednesday) and the incredible work of the teachers and administrators at that school …,” Muri added.
Morath said Ross should be proud of the work they have done.
“During my visit today, it was encouraging to see up close the improvements that have been made at Ross Elementary. In both reading and math, it is clear that Ross students are making important strides,” Morath said.
He added, “The school leadership and Ross teachers should be commended for the incredibly valuable work they are doing to grow young minds in Ector County.”
While Morath was here, he met with West Texas superintendents at the Region 18 Education Service Center.
“There were really two topics. The first was about the state accountability system and the next iteration. As many people may know, the A through F system is by law undergoing some changes and so he was talking about the new accountability system that will be rolling out in the state of Texas. …,” Muri said.
“The second part of the conversation was about literacy and how we as a state can improve the literacy level among all of our students pre-k through 12th grade because Texas continues to lag behind other states in the level of literacy of our students in other states,” he added.
On a separate item, trustees at the Jan. 18 board meeting met to deliberate on the proposed bond package.
The bond committee presented their recommendations to the board last week.
The board indicated that they support all the recommendations of the advisory committee, which are to build a new comprehensive high school to alleviate overcrowding on existing comprehensive campuses; adding a career and technical education facility to support the career and technical needs of students at the high school level; investing in technology; and maintenance and repair, making sure the buildings ECISD has are well maintained, Muri said.
The bond committee also recommended that the bond not exceed $400 million and to hold the bond election in May 2022.
“They’ll continue to deliberate over the next several weeks and hope to call a bond election at some point in the middle of February,” Muri said.
An election has to be called by Feb. 18, he noted.
Trustees also decided to appoint someone to fill the vacancy left by Position 7 member Nelson Minyard.
“We will talk more specifically about what that appointment process will look like as we meet together during the month of February,” Muri said.
During the February board workshop, the board will consider a timeline. Muri said the administration will bring a proposal to them to consider and it will include a timeline. A similar process was conducted about two years ago when Chris Stanley was appointed. He then ran for his spot and won.
On the subject of COVID, Muri said there were 351 positive cases Tuesday, which is the highest number since the pandemic began, Muri said.
“Any students or staff that display symptoms of COVID-19 we’re able to provide that test to students, so that 351 represents students and staff members that were tested yesterday (Jan. 18). Additional tests were given yesterday, but they were negative,” Muri said.
He added that the district doesn’t plant to close.
“We do have plans in case we get to that point. Our plan is to stay open. Our parents need us to remain open; our kids need us to remain open. We’ve seen the impact of school closure on the academic lives of our students. Then from a health perspective, we also see school as the safest place for our kids so for multiple reasons we are going to continue to remain open,” Muri said.
He said the only reason to close would be concern that there aren’t enough staff members.
“… We are closely monitoring every school in ECISD to ensure that they have enough staff members to safely operate, but if any school in ECISD is not able to safely operate simply because they do not have enough staff members at that point we would consider closure. But right now that is not something that we would consider in ECISD,” Muri said.
The district has had to consolidate classrooms because it has multiple teacher vacancies.
“We have had to pull groups of kids together, so multiple third grade teachers might have to pull their students together in one classroom. At the middle school and high school level, the same thing. Teachers during their planning (periods) cover other teachers’ classes, so it’s really not canceling classes. It’s really the double and triple coverage of different adults … in different schools so that we are able to monitor the progress of our students,” Muri said.
The district also strongly recommends mask wearing, has hand sanitizer available, sanitizes classrooms and buses at regular intervals and has installed air purifiers.
