At the school board meeting on September 18, Trustees unanimously approved the largest-ever class size waiver to be submitted to the Texas Education Agency (TEA). TEA requires school districts to submit a waiver for all Kindergarten through fourth-grade classrooms that exceed the mandated 22:1 student-to-teacher ratio. On the waiver date - September 11 - ECISD enrollment was 29,661 or 1,424 more students than on the same day a year ago, the result of which is a total of 139 classrooms being listed on the waiver. There are three factors that determine how District administrators go about trying to relieve these overcrowded classrooms:

1. Find more space for additional classrooms on each campus. This year, only Blackshear Elementary had room for two new classrooms, therefore, two teachers were moved from low enrollment schools to Blackshear.
2. The availability of new teachers. Combined ECISD and Midland ISD hired more than 600 new teachers this year and ECISD has not received a new teacher applicant since the school year began.
3. If new teachers are recruited from outside the Permian Basin, they often cannot find housing; indeed several have turned down job offers because of the lack of housing.

Due to these circumstances and after discussions with principals, the District decided to hire 31 new instructional aides to help teachers across all elementary grade levels. All of the aides must meet Highly Qualified standards. The District has also seen a large increase in Pre-Kindergarten students and will hire two new PK teachers and look at options for opening another satellite PK classroom on an elementary campus.

Earlier this month LBJ Elementary held its Book Float Parade - an event that is always a hit. The kids pick a favorite book and then they and their parents build a float based on that book. The students and teachers dress up as their favorite characters, too! The parade route ran through the school's hallways. The photos below are just a few of our favorites.

The Odessa Education Foundation has been very busy since the start of school. Most recently, the Foundation presented a pair of scholarship checks to the University of Texas Permian Basin, each of them worth $14,000! The first presentation (pictured) was from Terra Metrics, LTD, in memory of Larry Ritchie. The second check was given in honor of Rino-K&K Compression, LTD. The money for this contribution was raised during the live auction at the Education Foundation's eleventh annual fundraising concert event featuring Kenny Loggins last May. The total of $28,000 will go into the Education Foundation of Odessa Scholarship fund which is designated specifically for ECISD graduates.

The Foundation, along with Cisco Equipment also gave $35,000 to Food 2 Kids - a program that supplies backpacks of food to needy children to take home for the weekend. The presentation took place at Goliad Elementary on September 20. Just like the scholarship donations to UTPB, Cisco Equipment, made the $35,000 gift to Food 2 Kids through the live auction at the Education Foundation's annual concert in May. The amount is enough to sponsor multiple schools for the entire year. In addition to Scott & Minka Sibert and their family, others on hand for the ceremony were members of the Education Foundation, students and staff from Goliad, ECISD Superintendent Hector Mendez, and Libby Campbell, the executive director for the West Texas Food Bank and co-founder of Food 2 Kids.
 

Also, on September 17 the Board of Trustees voted unanimously to do away with the tuition requirement for out-of-district students. In the past the District charged tuition on a sliding scale for students from outside of Ector County to attend ECISD. There are 117 out-of-district students in ECISD; last year, the District collected more than $47,000 in tuition.

However, when ECISD was named a Chapter 41 (property rich) school district this summer it became financially beneficial to waive the tuition. While being charged tuition, out-of-district students do not count in our attendance figures; without tuition those students do count in attendance and it means the District will send less money to the state because of the new Chapter 41 status. And, in fact, the amount of money the school district will keep is more than the amount of tuition collected.