With Ector County ISD officials and community members on hand, Odessans for Education announced its support for the upcoming school bond election set for May 7.
The political action committee can advocate for the bond where the school district cannot. The event was held at the Complex Community Federal Credit Union Operations & Training Building Community Room. The main speakers were co-chair Lorraine Perryman and Superintendent Scott Muri who reviewed reasons for the bond election.
The $398,255,000 bond issue will include two propositions — Proposition A for $215,255,000 for maintenance and life-cycle repairs/replacement for school district buildings for $130,255,000; construction of a new Career and Technical Education Center for $70 million; and classroom technology upgrades for $15 million.
Proposition B for $183,000,000 would be for a new comprehensive high school on 100 acres at Yukon and Faudree roads. The high school would have a 2,500 to 2,800-student capacity and be 6A.
Odessa and Permian high schools have about 4,000 students each.
“We are horribly overcrowded in ECISD and we have learned that that affects safety and security within buildings. It is unsafe to have overcrowded facilities …,” Perryman said.
She said the last time a high school was built in Odessa Dwight D. Eisenhower was president.
“We’re a growing district — elementary, middle school and high school — and we right now have the ability to accommodate growth at the elementary and middles because we can put portables there. That is not the right solution, but we have land on those properties to add more portables … so that’s what will happen …,” Muri said.
At the high schools, he said there is no space to add portables because their land is completely filled.
“That’s why we have 38 teachers on those two campuses that are floating because there is no room to add 38 portables on either one of those pieces of property. So that’s the ‘worst first’ scenario. The greatest need that we have because of our growth is at the high school level and that’s our why,” Muri said.
Perryman said the bond committee was well aware that ECISD needs more elementary and middle schools. She said three of the middle schools need to be replaced because of the facility condition and the age of the buildings, but “we can’t afford to do it all.”
“So from a community perspective, we had to decide what are we going to go for first and our high school principals were very impassioned about what their needs are. …They told a very compelling story,” Perryman said.
On the CTE side, Perryman said the facility that was in place before is very different from the one in the bond issue.
“That one only had the opportunity to go to that school and when you graduated, you graduated with a diploma from that school,” she said.
What the district learned is that students want choices. Most of them wanted their diploma to be from OHS or PHS. “So this is a hybrid where they can stay at their high school. They can graduate from their high school. They will go in and out in block scheduling for … about half a day to take their classes and go back. Then there are kids that can choose to spend the entire day, that is their home campus and they will graduate from that CTE facility. So kids get to choose, families get to choose where they want to go, how they want to do it,” Perryman said.
There are currently about 400 students who attend George H.W. Bush New Tech Odessa in what was the Career Center building and the rest are career and technical education students and administrators.
“What the technology is and what those kids need have changed. That’s what the new standard will be,” Perryman said.
Muri said the new high school will allow the district to have three high schools that are similar in size.
Perryman said about 1,000 students would come out of OHS and out of Permian to the new school.
It will take three or four years to build the new high school, so she noted that it will be full when it opens.
Ramon Armendariz said the whole bond is a lot of money.
“That’s $400 million at a time when inflation’s up to the highest it’s ever been. A lot of blue-collar workers can’t be here to hear your presentation. I had to take a few hours off mine … That’s all well and good, but that’s a lot of money just for 2,800 students and maintenance,” Armendariz said.
Perryman said the community would also be getting a career and technical center. Muri said there could be 400 students that are there full time and more than 1,000 would be coming in and out.
Muri said this could create space for up to 300 middle school students.
“And so that will alleviate all of the overcrowding that we currently have in the high schools we serve. In addition … the opening of the new CTE center will also create space in the existing CTE facility, so we’ll be able to take some middle school students from our middle schools and relieve some overcrowding that we have at the middle schools,” Muri said.
He acknowledged that it is a lot of money, but the longer they wait the more it will cost because of current economic conditions.
Committee member Charles Cotten said the problem is “we’ve kicked the can down the road so far we can’t kick it.” He noted that when the committee report was done, they found several million more dollars in needs than the proposed bond amount.
Muri said the report showed there was $881 million worth of maintenance needs and that didn’t include a single school.
Perryman and Muri noted that this bond will not cover all the school district’s needs, and to paraphrase Perryman, it’s just the first bite of the elephant. Officials have said this could be the start of a five-year bond cycle.
The ECISD website says district leaders anticipate this bond will create a tax rate increase of 15 cents and, for a home with a taxable value of $100,000, would equate to a tax increase of approximately $12 per month. There would be no tax increase on residence homesteads for taxpayers 65 and older, as state law dictates that the tax rate and the amount paid, on a residence, are frozen when that person turns 65 years old, applies for the exemption and is approved by the Ector County Appraisal District. ECISD gives local taxpayers a 20% Homestead Exemption, which is the maximum allowed by law.
Early Voting for the May 7 election will run from April 25 through May 3 and be held only at the Ector County Courthouse Annex, 1010 E. Eighth St.
