District continues choice evaluation process

Apr. 5—Ector County ISD officials are closing in on the end of an evaluation period for their choice campuses, although it could take longer than the original three-year time period.

There are 13 schools of choice in the district. Many of them are elementary, but there is one middle school and three high schools.

A partnership with STEM was approved dur the ECISD Board of Trustees meeting March 29 which will add another choice campus.

The campuses that have the lowest enrollment of choice students are split between choice and neighborhood schools, Director of Planning and School Choice Chad Crowson said.

"Those include Blackshear, Travis, Zavala and Ector College Prep. That doesn't necessarily mean that we would look to do theme changes at those campuses first, but it's certainly true that the choice student enrollment is lower on a percentage basis at those campuses compared to our nine other choice schools that are made up 100% of choice students. And so, I think it's fair to say that there's greater interest in certain programs that traditionally have waitlists. Those campuses include Austin, Cameron, Reagan, Milam. Our three high schools always fill to capacity. So really, our schools are in pretty good shape enrollment-wise," Crowson said.

Ector College Prep is operated as an in-district charter school by Third Future Schools and has more than 1,300 students.

Some of the lower choice enrollment campuses are split by design because there are neighborhood students that have to have a seat there because they live in the neighborhood.

"The entire district makes up the geographical boundaries for any of those choice schools. Students have an opportunity to apply regardless of where they live, and they're put into our lottery system. If they're selected, then they get to attend. They could live right down the street from the school; they could live on the other side of the county. They're treated equally. No preference is given to students that live within a certain proximity to the school," he said.

If the May 7 bond passes, it would not have an impact on elementary choice schools. But if the bond passes, a new high school would mean rezoning the high schools, prompting a rezoning of the whole district, that could provide opportunities to rethink the way things are laid out where there are split campuses.

"But I've heard nothing about that; one step at a time.

The bond project has to pass, the construction has to be done. We're years away from anything like that. But I don't think that there's a direct impact on the choice schools work as a result of the bond package," Crowson said.

Superintendent Scott Muri mentioned at a recent board meeting that if a new career and technical education facility is built as part of the bond it could potentially open space for between 400 and 500 students at the current NTO (George H.W. Bush New Tech Odessa) campus. That could provide an opportunity for us to do something on a relatively small scale on that site. But again, that would be after bond passage, construction of the new CT facility and those students being moved to the new site," he said.

The goal currently is expansion of middle school choice options.

"One of the things that we've discussed is the addition of a project based learning campus for middle school students, sixth through eighth. That site would be a particularly good location for something like that because that is the type of work that middle school students need to do in order to be prepared for success at a campus like New Tech Odessa, and so it would seem to be a logical fit that we would try to do something project-based in that space if it becomes available," Crowson added.

In parent meetings, the district learned that they are most interested in ensuring that their students are prepared for college and a career in general.

"When we asked them about specific programs on campuses which motivate their child, the top two things that they told us was, number one, technology; and number two, projects. That's why you're seeing the focus in our work on the expansion of project-based learning opportunities because PBL necessarily involves both projects and technology. So it's a win-win for us as an instructional delivery model because it's what's our families are asking for," Crowson said.

He added that they are looking at a project-based learning model at the middle school level, but the interest in technology and projects was across the entire gamut of pre K through 12.

"So we may might also consider how we might supplement our current choice programming at elementary and high schools to incorporate additional project-based learning opportunities," Crowson said.

He also talked about an International Baccalaureate program at the elementary and middle school levels. Crowson said one of the things the community has wanted for a while is an extension of the IB program.

Officials recently presented a plan to expand IB options to include a middle years program, or an MYP. This would serve students in grades six through 10 as they prepare for the diploma program in grades 11 and 12.

"There's also a primary years program, PYP, for younger students that we don't have immediate plans to pursue but we're going to continue to investigate whether that might be an option in the near future such that students could enroll at an IB campus during the primary years and could conceivably continue into a middle years program, then a diploma program such that they would be in the International Baccalaureate program from their entry into school until graduation," Crowson said.

He noted that you have to design instructional experiences that are appropriate for the cognitive level of the child you're teaching.

"Certainly, we're working to provide high-quality instruction to our 3 and 4 year olds currently. Having an IB PYP (Primary Years Program) would just provide us a different way to look at instructing some of our youngest students," Crowson said.

Odessa High School has the only International Baccalaureate program in the district. Although parents have been asking for an extension, there aren't many students in the program OHS.

"We think that having an MYP (Middle Years Program) will help to expand the interest at the high school level because students that are already involved in IB work at younger grade levels we believe will continue that work ...," Crowson said.

Aside from Ector College Prep, Austin Montessori and Cameron Dual Language elementary schools have extended their programming through sixth grade. But after that, they transition to a comprehensive middle school for seventh and eighth grade.

Community feedback shows that there is "great interest" in expanding Austin Montessori through eighth grade.

"We've made that one of the long-term priorities that we have, and we'll look to see whether we can expedite that plan. They just expanded through sixth grade last year, so we're taking a careful approach to how we expand that that campus," Crowson said. "But there certainly is interest in expanding Austin.

"And while it didn't come up as often in our community feedback forums, Cameron does have a waitlist as well. And (board member) Donna Smith was the individual who asked about that at the at the board meeting. I can see how there would be enough interest in that for us to consider that as well. But we haven't made it one of our most immediate plans," Crowson added.

He said the district has tried to take a holistic approach to the choice evaluation process.

"We brought in a consultant Eco (Consulting) to help us with the evaluation process. They're a firm that's known for their redesign and innovation work in schools. We believe that it's important that we have a systemwide approach, when we look to improving our choice schools and not get hyper focused on one or two campuses," Crowson said.

When they started the evaluation process, they had a three-year time frame in mind. But it may take longer than that.

"... We're going to work as aggressively as we can without overburdening our campus leadership teams or taxing the system in order to bring about these high quality, best fit schools for every child, which is the motto that we've grown accustomed to in this department," Crowson said.