Sunray Collegiate ISD

▲ Students in Sunray Collegiate ISD participate in a culinary arts CTE program.

Preparing rural students for the jobs of the future

by James Golsan

Elections and voting rights are at the center of the American political discourse in 2021. There is more controversy around the subject than at any other time in our lives, and while those engaged in the debate have adopted a wide range of opinions on the subject, something all sides agree on is that voting is hugely important. If you ever doubt that, look no further than Sunray Collegiate ISD, where a single vote on a local bond changed the course of education in the district, and perhaps the course of the entire community as well. “Sunray ISD is a small, rural school district up here in the Panhandle,” says Superintendent Marshall Harrison. “When I got here, enrollment was declining, and the town itself was declining too.” The decline was not something the SCISD school board was willing to take lightly. Harrison, who had experience working in larger districts prior to his time at Sunray, says the board’s willingness to look at innovative ways to improve the educational offerings in their district “blew him away.” “In the summer of 2017, there was a workshop conducted, and the board asked, ‘Why can’t we be a premier district in all areas?’ As an experienced superintendent, I saw an opportunity to make hay,” Harrison says with a laugh. He credits that workshop with the start of a major culture shift in SCISD. Following the 86th Texas Legislature’s passing of HB 3, a major education overhaul with an emphasis on (among other things) improving Career and Technical Education (CTE) access in the state, Harrison and the board decided it was time for SCISD to become a leading district in the CTE space.

Sunray Collegiate ISD

County: Moore ESC region: 16 Superintendent: Marshall Harrison 2020 enrollment: 559 Number of schools: 3

▲ SCISD staff, students and families attend a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new childcare facility.

▲ SCISD’s new CTE facility will host numerous programs including workshops, an embryo lab, a drone facility and more.

▲ SCISD students work with veterinarian Scott Snyder as part of the district’s CTE program. “So, in 2019, we called a bond to build a 9.5 million career and technical education facility,” Harrison says. The cutting edge facility would include two 7,000 square-foot workshops, an embryo lab, a drone facility, facilities for training certified nurses assistants, a daycare center, and a cosmetology lab, among other CTE training facilities. It was an ambitious undertaking, and something Harrison calls “totally out of the norm” in rural Texas education. He knew getting the bond passed would be challenging, and it was. Ultimately, it came down to the vote of a single citizen. “Our district covers two counties; Moore County [where the bulk of SCISD is physically located] and Sherman County. The bond failed in Moore County, but when the 17 votes we got in Sherman County came in, that pushed us over the line.” The bond remained controversial among local citizens even after passage, but Harrison says he sees people warming to the project even as the primary CTE facility is still under construction (it stands to be completed during the summer of 2022). A big part of that can likely be credited to the early success of SCISD’s conversion to a “1 to 1” education model, which has allowed the district to offer multiple CTE curriculums prior to completion of the facility. “We have four associate degree pathways now in association with Amarillo College and Frank Phillips College; we have a vet on staff; we have two corporate embryo partners, and we just signed an agronomy partnership with a subsidiary of Arthur DanielsMidland for the next 10 years.” The dividends this 1:1 model will pay for SCISD are nothing short of staggering. According to Harrison, within three years, 100% of graduating seniors will leave high school with an industryrecognized credential, and between 30 and 40% will have completed an associate degree by the time they graduate, all at no cost to the students. As good as those projections sound, the changes SCISD has already made are making an impression in the region and beyond. District enrollment is no longer on the decline, and has in fact grown substantially in the last few years. “What’s happened since 2017 is that our enrollment has climbed

▲ CTE offerings in SCISD include cosmetology courses.

▲ SCISD’s middle school robotics team poses with some of their equipment. ▲ SCISD students display student-led research projects at a district-wide showcase.

almost 140 students, and there’s not a house available for sale here. There’s even a guy talking about building 15 new homes in the area right now. We’re at the point now that we’re adding a bus route in town,” Harrison says, and adds that the district is on the verge of calling another bond in May 2022 because the enrollment growth has been so substantial that Sunray’s elementary campus has run out of classroom space. SCISD’s commitment to a 1:1, CTE-centric model has proven to be of huge benefit to the district and community alike, but according to Harrison, the real winners of this approach to elementary and secondary education are the students. “Seventy percent of students in every high school in Texas have no idea what they want to do when they graduate. In rural Texas, that’s killing our communities, and our economy too. If we don’t start training our kids for a life outside of school in rural Texas, we’re going to end up with a very small number of kids who make it to the upper class, and a much bigger group of kids who will be in the lower class with no skills when they graduate. There will be no middle class.” With the gains SCISD has seen as a district, and as a community, since Harrison was able to implement this 1:1 approach, it’s easy to see that the district is doing right by their students, and that parents are noticing. The school district has become an education leader in Texas’ Panhandle, and the state writ large. With one fewer vote in a local bond election, none of it would have been possible.

JAMES GOLSAN is a writer and education professional based in Austin.