Ector County Independent School District

Ector County ISD

Location: Odessa, Texas

Enrollment (2026): 34,000 students

Schools: 42 schools plus additional campuses for Career & Technical Education

by Sharon Kebschull Barrett | March 6, 2026

When Superintendent Scott Muri left his high-performing school district for Ector County, Texas, the president of the Ector County Independent School District (ECISD) board said he wondered whether Muri had “lost his mind” when he applied for the job, and Muri acknowledged that it would be a monumental challenge.

Indeed, upon arrival in summer 2019 in Odessa—known for oil wells and high school football—Muri was faced with 16 of the district’s 45 schools receiving an F from the Texas Education Agency, and four more graded a D—along with 350 teaching vacancies for its 34,000 students.

But by 2024, the district was named the K–12 Dive District of the Year, and 2025 found Muri testifying about the district’s turnaround before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions.

In 2019, he testified, “18 percent of the classrooms in our school district did not have a teacher, on the first day, the 10th day, the 50th day, or the 90th day—we did not fill those vacancies that year. And so we knew we had to do something about it…[including that] we redesigned the traditional role of the teacher.

“Gone was the teacher that taught all day long, and we introduced an opportunity in which our most effective teachers taught for 50% of their day, and then they spent the other 50% of their day embedded in coaching and developing their peers. We call that work Opportunity Culture, developed by an organization in North Carolina called Public Impact—powerful results for students for that.”

Muri testifying before the Senate Committee.

Among those results: the percentage of high school students considered post-secondary ready jumped from 56% in 2019 to 93% in 2025; the graduation rate was the highest in 23 years; and the district was recognized by Harvard and Stanford for its math and reading gains in the Education Recovery Scorecard.

Vacancies dropped from 350 to 29, with the teacher turnover rate dropping from 18% to 1%. Superintendent Keeley Boyer, who began leading ECISD following Muri’s retirement, has noted how the Multi-Classroom Leader^® role—reserved for teachers with a record of student learning growth, who lead small teaching teams—pushed the annual salary for 44 of the district’s roughly 1,700 teachers to over $100,000 in 2023–24.

MCL™ roles give the best teachers the opportunity to lead and teach at the same time, “so your two passions get to come together in the same job—that’s a huge win for teachers,” Muri said in 2022. “More kids today have access to our very best, our most effective teachers, and so, more kids are winning today because they have access to these amazing human beings. And so teachers are winning, and kids are winning, and when that happens, you know, that’s the formula for success.”

Learn more about ECISD schools!

LISTEN! Making the Most of Opportunity Culture® Innovations

WATCH! Opportunity Culture® Virtual Site Visit to ECISD

READ! Senators Hear About Opportunity Culture® Results

And in 2026, researchers at Texas Tech University reported their findings from studying ECISD’s Opportunity Culture^® implementation:

Students in Multi-Classroom Leader^® classrooms experienced large and persistent gains, equivalent to 6–13 months of additional learning in reading and 6–9 months in math compared to peers taught by non-OC^® teachers;
Team teachers, who receive MCL™ coaching and support, showed consistent gains of 3–4 additional months in reading and about 2 months in math;
And MCL™ teams have a spillover effect, with instructional effectiveness seen in teachers not on these teams.

Opportunity Culture^® design, Muri said, “gives us that mechanism to reward our finest, our greatest, our most effective educators. It gives them a chance to spread their wings as leaders. It takes the profession to a new level—you know, I’m a teacher and a leader; I have the ability to influence student lives, but also influence the lives of my colleagues, those around me.

“That’s a great scenario for especially our teachers today that are a bit beaten up by what’s happening in our country. And so, anything that we can do to elevate the profession and to demonstrate that a powerful teacher in the life of a child, and, now, in the life of other teachers, makes an impact on education for a lifetime.”

Read, watch, and listen to ECISD educators: