June 10, 2013

Ector County Commissioners voted 5-0 to trade property with ECISD, giving the school district Kellus Turner park to use as the site of the third new elementary school (pictured below), while the school district will give a parcel of land next to Cavazos Elementary School to the County for new park. This item will now be presented to the ECISD school board.

May 7, 2013

Trustees voted 6-0 to approve Construction Managers at Risk (CMAR) for the bond projects. ECISD received six proposals for the projects; three from local companies and three from out of town companies. MW Builders from Temple submitted the top bid and was chosen for the three elementary school projects; Lee Lewis Construction from Lubbock submitted the top bid and was selected for the two high school projects. Both of these firms graded out number one on a very comprehensive evaluation.

These drawings have been shared with principals, school board members, and teachers who have all offered valuable input and feedback to the District and the architects.

April 17, 2013

After working with the architects for each of the high school projects the initial siting concept drawings are now ready and are posted below. The next step in this process is to gain feedback from groups at each school.

Odessa High site concept:

• Green striped areas represent Student Parking
• Blue striped areas represent Faculty & Visitor Parking
• Tan Areas are renovations of existing areas
• Red Areas are new additions
• Blue area is future building
• Gray areas are pedestrian-only zones

Permian site concept:

Orange areas represent renovations, expansions and new building. In this concept the largest piece is a two story building in the top right corner. You will notice the second floor plan adjacent to the concept drawing of the addition. The existing tennis courts would move e ast across Bonham Ave.

April 2, 2013

Members of the Board of Trustees put on their architect hats and walked through the process of designing an elementary school. ECISD's chief operations officer David Finley led the Trustees. He began by pointing out a few elements from the Lamar EEC presentation moments earlier – pictures of students moving around, on the floor, and classroom furniture moved around to accommodate learning. He asked Trustees to consider the question, “do our facilities support the learning environment or hinder the learning environment?” Mr. Finley talked about the concept of learning hubs; areas of a school that are normally not used for learning. Things like hallways and common areas. The Trustees broke into two groups (two architecture teams!) in order to design a school. He also invited guests and local media members to join the exercise. Mr. Finley gave them each a packet with pieces of a school to put together. After about 15 minutes of design work Trustees offered suggestions about what they liked about their designs – things like everything they need is in one area (self-contained); Tom Pace called it a “pod” – and what they didn’t like. Mr. Finley pointed out that hallways are the biggest waste of space, money, and mechanical pieces in any school. He said this design concept literally expands hallways to be much bigger and to become part of the learning hub. It allows more student movement and uses space much more efficiently. It goes back to the idea that our current buildings often limit the learning environment by forcing kids to stay still for long periods of time while the concepts of community, collaboration, and discovery are enhanced by a more flexible building design. Mr. Finley said this is a concept for the new elementary schools and that he is now looking for feedback in order to improve the final design. 
In the pictures below, members of the Board of Trustees work on an elementary school design. The second montage, below that one, is from the principals meeting on March 27 when they went through a longer version of the same exercise with Dan Hart and Shane Danley from Parkhill, Smith, & Cooper architects.

February 19, 2013

• Trustees voted 7-0 to approve the Construction Manager At-Risk (CMAR) construction delivery method for upcoming bond projects.

What is CMAR? In summary, a Construction Manager At-Risk is an approved method to build schools in the State of Texas; it is also the preferred method for these reasons:

• Contractor is hired very early in the design process allowing for input on the methods and materials and, most importantly, on pricing;
• Creates a transparent partnership between school district, architects, and the construction industry;
• The CMAR becomes the single point of responsibility for the entire building project;
• Allows for the possibility of beginning the construction even before the finalization of the design work thus shortening the construction time.

February 5, 2013

• Trustees voted 7-0 to enter into a contract to purchase property at 1305 Graham (OHS addition)
• Trustees voted 7-0 to enter into a contract to purchase property at southeast corner of 87th Street and North Dawn (north east elementary school)
• Trustees voted 7-0 to enter into a contract to purchase property approximately 1,000 feet south of the corner of 16th Street and Knox Avenue, on the east side of Knox (one west side elementary)

Work continues on the site of the second west-side elementary.

January 2013

The architecture firms began working with local design teams to gather idea for the new buildings. They use the responses from the survey plus input from the committee members.

January 22, 2013 

ECISD Trustees approved the sale of school bonds.

December 2013

ECISD builds a survey asking employees and community members to identify what they feel are the most important design elements for the new elementary schools.

November 15, 2012

Trustees voted 7-0 to approve the negotiations for architectural services for school bond projects. The law requires school districts to seek architects through a request for qualifications process, not a bid process. The school board then approves for the administration to negotiate a fee for a particular project. In this case three different architectural firms will be used. The firm Parkhill, Smith, and Cooper is designated to design the elementary school package (that is one model that will be used for all three new schools) – this firm just completed similar work on four new schools in Big Spring; JSA Architects is designated to do the addition at Odessa High School because they have done much of the other renovation design at OHS; and Hunter Corral Associates is designated to do the addition at Permian High School because they have done much of the other renovation designs at PHS.