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| Ector County Independent School District eNewsletter |
6/2/2016
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The last day of school edition
Today is the last day of the year for all of our schools except Gale Pond Alamo Year-round magnet which is in session until June 21. Our high school graduation ceremonies will take place tomorrow and Saturday. Congratulations to the Class of 2016! What if hazardous weather strikes during the ceremonies at Ratliff Stadium? Follow this link to see the graduation schedules and the bad weather plans.
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Our Teachers of the Year!
Congratulations to Karen Hargrove (pictured first below) & Jennifer Arthur on their selections as Ector County ISD's Elementary Teacher of the Year and Secondary Teacher of the Year, respectively. Mrs. Hargrove is a 1st grade teacher at Blanton Elementary and is finishing her 15th year in ECISD. Mrs. Arthur is an 8th grade science teacher and science department chair at Nimitz Middle School and is in her first year with ECISD after eight years teaching in San Antonio.
Their selections were announced at Tuesday night's 2016 Outstanding Teacher Banquet where the nominees from each of our 43 campuses were introduced and honored. Congratulations to each one of our 2015-16 Outstanding Teachers! To see them all visit our Ector County ISD Facebook page. 
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Parkhill, Smith, & Cooper is the architectural and engineering firm that designed ECISD's three new elementary schools. Buice Elementary, Downing Elementary, and West Elementary opened last August, and PSC designed all three utilizing its 21st Century classroom design concepts. These schools foster a more social and collaborative learning environment while keeping student engagement as a central focus. PSC's award-winning 21st Century classroom designs are being used on several new elementary schools nationally and internationally.
But what do the students think about the buildings? Representatives from PSC spent time Tuesday and Wednesday this week interviewing students in all grades levels of all three schools. The results could impact the way future schools are designed or even change the way teachers teach on a daily basis.
"We thought it would be interesting to listen to those most directly impacted-the students," PSC firm principal Dan Hart said. "We shaped these schools around what we felt would help them thrive. We're excited to spend time with them and see how we did."
The students seemed to really enjoy the chance to offer their opinions as you can see this in this local news coverage of the kindergarten session at Buice (rhymes with mice) Elementary. 
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Willy Nilly & Thumper bring nearly 1,000
books to ECISD schools!
Jim Henry is a pioneer in the petroleum industry (think Henry Petroleum) but, at 81 years old, he has also co-authored (with Jimmy Patterson) a pair of children's book with more in the series of "The Adventures of Willy Nilly & Thumper" to come. His business model is built on a pay it forward scale - for every book he sells he will give one away.
Tuesday morning Mr. Henry and Mr. Patterson visited 10 ECISD schools delivering a total of 914 copies of the books to those campuses. The two then held a Meet the Authors/Book Signing event at Ireland Elementary. Thank you for such a tremendous donation to our schools!
These books were conceived as bedtime stories Henry told both his children and grandchildren for more than 40 years. The Willy Nilly & Thumper books are available at www.willynilllyandthumper.com, www.Amazon.com & www.barnesandnoble.com. Locally, they can be purchased at Barnes & Noble, The Ivy Cottage, the George W. Bush Childhood Home, Susie's South Forty
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Experiencing the Bee
Reagan Elementary student Gabriel Haley spent last week experiencing the sights and sounds of the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C.
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If you recall, Gabriel won the Odessa Invitational Regional Spelling Bee in March but it was an unofficial bee because we did not have an official local Scripps sponsor for the event. Still the local organizer, Bowie Middle School teacher Rhonda Haley (Gabriel's mom) raised money to send him to the National Bee as a junior reporter. In the picture below he is with former winner George Thampy (2000) who is a judge. Very cool!
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In addition to this eNewsletter, you can Follow us on Twitter, Like us on Facebook, and download our Mobile App available for iPhone & Android. Superintendent Crowe has a blog called Crowe's Chronicles that you can find at www.ectorcountyisd.org/blog.
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