21-05-2025
Board names new principals, top administrators
May 21—The Ector County ISD Board of Trustees approved naming several principals and top administrators during their meeting Tuesday.
Christan Pugh was named principal of Nimitz Middle School. She replaces the retiring Teresa Willison.
Pugh is currently the principal at Blanton Elementary, a position she's held for the past two years. Prior to that she was an assistant principal at Nimitz for three years. She was also an instructional coach at Nimitz for three years and has teaching experience at both elementary and middle school.
Jennie Chavez will move from principal at Noel Elementary School to principal of EK Downing Elementary.
Chavez is finishing her sixth year as the principal at Noel Elementary School and was recently awarded ECISD's Elementary Principal of the Year award. She served three years as an assistant principal to go along with 14 years of teaching experience.
Amanda Sierra was named principal of Gonzales Elementary. Sierra is a principal intern at West Elementary this year, and she attended the Holdsworth Principal Academy.
She has three years of experience as an assistant principal and served on the administrative team at Ireland Elementary that led improvement from an F to an B state rating.
Dowling Principal Julie Marshall was promoted to executive director of leadership.
Marshall has spent the past five years as the principal at Dowling Elementary and before that was the principal at Hays STEAM Academy for two years.
Her 35 years of public education experience includes work as an instructional services director at Bonham and Wilson & Young middle schools and 19 years as a teacher.
Robert Trejo was named chief academic officer and Matt Spivy is now human capital officer.
Trejo is currently serving as ECISD's executive director of accountability & school improvement where he manages and interprets accountability ratings under TEA's A-F system and collects and analyzes student performance data to support campus/district decision-making, giving him extensive knowledge of instructional frameworks and school improvement strategies.
Spivy is completing his second year as ECISD's executive director of human resources. He recently completed the Holdsworth Leadership Collaborative focused on developing talent pipelines. He taught for seven years and has 13 years of administrative experience.
Trustee Dawn Miller abstained from voting on Trejo and Spivy.
The board also reorganized after the May 3 election.
Tammy Hawkins was voted in as president; Steve Brown as vice president and Bob Thayer as secretary.
Brown appeared virtually and Delma Abalos was absent.
Miller was opposed to Hawkins and Miller, but voted for Thayer.
She said she hoped going forward that they would go beyond recycling the same leases and allow other people to assume leadership roles.
Miller said she was glad to see Thayer become an officer.
Chief Financial Officer Deborah Ottmers and trustees continued their budget discussions for the 2025-26 school year.
The Texas House of Representatives passed House Bill 2 for public education funding, but the Texas Senate made sweeping changes to it.
Evaluating ECISD's expenditures for this 2024-25 school year it appears the district's fund balance will increase, but based on current school funding laws and the projected expenses the 2025-26 school year, ECISD would be facing a $10.5 million deficit budget.
That calculation includes no raises for employees. District leaders are continuing to look for budget areas to cut. Proposed bills in the legislature, if passed, could require differing raises for teachers based on their years of experience and these required raises for teachers would use most of any proposed increase in state funding. Trustees agreed that all employees need and deserve a raise, and they discussed different percentage increases in pay and the potential impact on the budget.
Several board members stated a 2% raise for all non-teachers, since they are not included in current legislative proposals, seems like the appropriate amount as it would use the remaining funds in the proposed legislation, the recap said.
The school board is planning a special meeting on June 24 to finalize and adopt the budget for 2025-26.
On the Bond 2023 update, the Career & Technical Education high school is on track for groundbreaking next month. The project's guaranteed maximum price (GMP) has come in at $86,591,081.
The new middle school in West Odessa has seen steel work begin and blockwork around the gym started. Foundation, electrical and plumbing work are ongoing, the board recap said.
The final bid date for the Transition Learning Center will be May 21 with a recommendation to be presented to the school board in June.
The Permian High School auditorium project is nearing the end of the design development phase and GMP should be going to the board in June.
A contract of a little more than $1.3 million is being brought to the board for the PHS JROTC facility. No on-site activity has begun.
The Ag Farm design is being finalized, procurement will take place during the summer, and no on-site work has begun.
In the technology update, cabling is complete at the majority of elementary campuses and is beginning at Odessa High School (it should take four to six weeks). This is for the new PA/Bells/Alarms/Clocks projects. Installation of new surveillance cameras is finished at all high schools and middle schools and is now beginning at elementary schools.
The Fine Arts Department has now ordered 1,103 instruments at a cost of about $1.9 million. Of those, 359 are for elementary classrooms. As of now, 987 instruments have been delivered.
Superintendent Keeley Boyer said now that the guaranteed maximum price is in place for the CTE high school, plans are to have a groundbreaking June 17.
Trustees voted 6-0 to approve purchases over $50,000 related to the bond. The single item on this month's agenda was the $86,591,081 to Teinert Construction, the construction manager at-risk, for the guaranteed maximum price of the new CTE high school.
