Board poised to accept deed for CTE facility property

May 8—When the Ector County ISD Board of Trustees meets May 14, it will consider accepting the property deed for the future career and technical education center.

Grow Odessa has donated almost 40 acres near the corner of Murphy Street and South Meadow Avenue.

During his media call May 8, Superintendent Scott Muri said the Career and Technical Education Committee has spent the last several months working with PBK, the architect selected for the project, to determine what it's going to look like and what's going to be included in it.

"Work is well underway as we think about the design of that new building," Muri said. "We thank the 28 members of that Career and Technical Education Committee that are working diligently to put that design in place."

"Exciting things are happening in the bond," he added.

Those interested in following the progress of the bond projects can visit ecisdbond.com where they'll find images of the bond projects, a complete list of projects and the dollars associated with each one.

On Nov. 7, 2023, voters approved one proposition of three propositions in a $436,109,000 bond. Proposition 1, which included a new CTE center, was for $424,263,000.

Along with the Career and Technical Education Center, it included a new middle school in West Odessa, districtwide maintenance and repairs, buses and a new transportation facility, technology and fine arts updates, a new Transition Learning Center and agriculture farm and other projects.

The CTE center is still in the design phase, so Muri said no final decisions have been made yet.

"We do know the facility will offer 500 more seats, so we'll have much more capacity for career and technical education students in ECISD. We are offering some new pathways specifically focused on energy because, obviously, we are the energy capital of the world. There are a lot of employment opportunities in the industry and so we'll be adding some new pathways that will be a part of the new career and technical education center that are specifically focused on energy," Muri said.

He added that the design will allow students to have access to state-of-the-art equipment in a state-of-the-art facility "so our kids will have chances to be trained, if you will, on the type of equipment and the types of learning environments that you see in business and industry today."

Muri said this will bring CTE in ECISD up to where it should be and actually a little bit ahead "and leading in that area across the state."

"Once that design is finished, we'll be able to share that with the community because that's the point at which construction would actually begin on that facility," he said.

Muri noted that there is a career and technical education path right now that allows a student who is interested in education to earn their high school diploma and an associate degree while in high school.

"Then after high school they have two more years and they can do that at UTPB, or any institution, in order to become a certified teacher here in the state of Texas. The goal is to continue to expand that program, so we will have more students interested in education as their pathway," Muri said.

This is Muri's 36th year in education.

"Truly I think teaching and being an educator is the most noble profession as we spend our time developing the next generation of citizens for this great nation in which we live. And yes, compensation and other technical parts of this career are critically important. At the end of the day, the ultimate reward that we receive as educators is simply knowing that the investments we make in the students that we receive allow them to be successful in their own life," Muri said.

"I think if you talk to people in the service industry, whether that be first responders or people in the healthcare industry or people in education serving mankind, serving other human beings (it) is such a blessing to be able to do that," he added.

On the other side, Muri said there are things done at the state and national level that are discouraging to people thinking about education as a career.

"When we watch our elected officials disparage public education, when we see decisions that are made that really go against the work that we do in public education, that can be discouraging and it certainly hinders our ability to recruit, attract and retain the very best individuals for this profession," he added.

"So on one hand, the reason we enter is because we want to serve others. In the case of educators, we want to grow and develop the children of this nation so that we can create the next generation of really great citizens in this country. On the other hand it can be difficult to think about education as a profession when we see so many decisions and so many conversations that are disparaging about this profession. It's a difficult time right now and I think what we can do just as educators is to continue to encourage our students to consider education and to help them understand the great value that it has," he added.