ECTOR COUNTY, Texas — Following a school board meeting Tuesday night, there is plenty of activity coming from Ector County ISD.
Part of that activity ranges from innovative leadership to challenges that still stem from the pandemic.
Tuesday night, the board of trustees made a budget adjustment that cut out $13 million.
This is mostly due to attendance rates having not rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, which has hurt the district’s funding from the state.
“We lowered the budget by $13 million but took fund balance money, and we’re spending that to make sure that we don’t lose any staff members and, ultimately, that students aren’t impacted by that cut," said ECISD Superintendent Dr. Scott Muri.
ECISD now has a gap moving forward in it’s emergency fund after being forced to pull money from it.
Attendance rates sit at 91.5% – down from 95% pre-pandemic – a reality that hurts students academically and the district financially, further emphasizing the importance for students to go to school every day.
“That $13 million translates into investments that we make in the classroom, and we’re not able to make those investments regarding materials and supplies and teachers unless we have those dollars, and so, again, encouraging our families to make sure that your children are attending school on a regular basis," said Muri.
A recent demographics report showed that enrollment will plateau before slightly dipping over the next five years.
Dr. Muri believes the pandemic affected the numbers used for the study, and with current overcrowding at multiple schools, patience will be needed.
“I think right now none of us really fully understand how the pandemic has affected the flow of people and decisions that individuals are making to move in a community or out of a community, so we certainly want to do it again for the next couple of years to make sure we have valid, reliable, accurate information," said Muri.
The district was recognized recently by the University of Virginia for innovative leadership regarding the great work they have done with teachers, including salaries, effectiveness and training that will better the students and the community.
“The University of Virginia study is a great opportunity for us to share the good work that our team is doing to positively effect the teachers in ECISD," said Muri. "So lot’s of people learning from that, and then again, even our own state legislature creating some legislative opportunities to enact some of this work into law in the state of Texas.”
Dr. Muri also said that the teacher shortage started impacting them before the pandemic, which actually gave them a head start in working on finding a solution to that problem.
Not only is the state legislature using the ideas from ECISD, but districts across the Lone Star State and the country are attempting to benefit from them as well.