Muri to bring bond items to board meeting

Oct. 13—Ector County ISD Superintendent Scott Muri will bring several bond-related items to the Board of Trustees at their regular meeting this coming Tuesday.

During a Tuesday workshop trustees tasked Muri with providing proposals for a bond timeline, a bond committee structure and to help establish listening opportunities for trustees to talk with staff members and parents.

The structure of the committee includes what the committee should look like, what types of people and responsibilities should make up that committee and an advocacy plan "because they realized that we didn't have enough of our parents that played an active role in actually supporting the bond or voting for the bond."

"... We want to make sure that our parents are well aware of what's happening, so we'll be working on the development of an advocacy plan within the organization," Muri said during his media call Wednesday.

During Tuesday's workshop, board members talked about why the bond did not pass and next steps. The bond was in two propositions. For the first one, 76.51 percent, or 5,858 people voted against it and 1,799 or 23.49 percent voted for it.

For proposition 2, 73.43 percent, or 5,652 people voted against it and 25.57 or 2,045 people voted for it.

The total number of voters was 7,826 or 9.48 percent. There were 82,527 voters in Ector County in May.

"... The board of trustees has been listening to a lot of members of our community. They talked a little bit amongst themselves, reflected and they shared those thoughts, those ideas and those concerns and their words of guidance with me as the superintendent on Tuesday evening ...," Muri said.

He added that all the trustees are interested in pursuing another bond.

"The needs of our students have not diminished," Muri said. "In fact, ECISD has grown quite a bit from last year to this year and so we have overcrowded facilities and other needs, other academic needs that new facilities would provide for our students. The trustees were very interested in moving forward ..."

The first step is to identify a committee that reflects the community. The district has a demographic study under development, so the committee will look at the results of that.

"Then the board will advise. That will give me recommendations. We will work together as a team to hopefully create a structure of a committee and then we'll populate that with names — actual people that will fill those roles parents, again, students, staff members community members, etc. But the goal of the committee is to be reflective of the entire community — north, south, east and west — all demographics. All stakeholders should be represented on the committee itself," Muri added.

The committee will look at the results of the demographic study.

"They'll look at our growth; the number of students that we have. The demographic study will certainly help identify the locations of people that are moving into Ector County. All of these data sources will ... guide the committee, but ultimately that committee of community members, staff members and parents will provide a recommendation to the board of trustees," Muri said.

"At this point, everything is on the table. The committee hasn't even been formed yet. The board has not approved a committee structure, so it all starts by that committee coming together and looking at data and then making some recommendations," Muri said.

Asked if the Permian Strategic Partnership, with 19 members, is going to be involved, Muri said they have representatives within the community and so they could be represented on it.

"But again, we're way to early to make those decisions," Muri said.

Asked if the Odessa Accountability Project had offered to be part of the bond committee and been provided with data, Muri said if any individual or entity made a public records request the district has provided those.

"So if that organization or any individual has asked for data through the open records request opportunity, yes we provide that. I've not directly been asked, but the organization has I'm sure," Muri said.

ECISD this week had 11 districts visit from all over the state.

"We were asked this summer by the Texas Education Agency to host a convening of school districts and so we said we'd be happy to. This summer, we were asked to put this together and so we did and they're here today (Oct. 12) and tomorrow (Oct. 13)," Muri said.

The districts were here to observe and gather information.

"They're working together as a group and then learning about the work that we do as an organization.

Then the Texas Education Agency is facilitating these conversations," he added.

Next Wednesday is an early release day.

"Once a month, we provide an opportunity for our teachers and administrators to learn on their own, and so in order to do that, we dismiss our students for half a day. Next Wednesday is an early release day in ECISD so that we can provide some learning experiences for our teachers and our leaders," Muri said.

If parents are interested in knowing the exact time of the early release, Muri said to check the ECISD website or contact the campuses.

Muri also mentioned that ECISD received the 2022 Outstanding School District award from the Mexican American School Boards Association last Friday. ECISD trustees accepted the honor at MASBA's 2022 Conference in San Antonio.

"Our district has seen tremendous growth and progress over the last several years and this award is really recognition of that," Muri said in a news release.

"It is a testament to the work of the 4,200 ECISD employees," he added. "The teachers who serve the needs of our kids every day, the principals who provide guidance and then all of the support team members that we have from food services to transportation to curriculum and instruction to counselors and nurses. Everyone that plays a role in the lives of our kids.

"We are deeply grateful for the honor," he said.

MASBA is a voluntary, non-profit, statewide education association that has served local Texas school boards since 1970.