ECISD introducing esports to campuses

Since they are just starting, they don’t have data to back it up yet, but nationwide, it’s been shown that attendance improves when the students engage in esports because they want to be there and they want to be in school. Many students who take part in esports have never been part of an organization, club or athletic team at school.
“My guess would be more than likely, before the ‘25-26 school year, we’d potentially be looking at that. We wanted to provide this opportunity for our students so that they could be competitive in this way. Again, we want them to be future ready when they leave us. Our kids deserve to be able to participate in this if they would like to,” Tavarez said.
The students are competing, communicating, engaging and getting a chance at scholarships that they wouldn’t have without the introduction of esports, short for electronic sports. And they don’t have to be the biggest, strongest or fastest to be part of it.
She added that they are focusing on after-school clubs at the elementary level. There are coaches at each of the three campuses helping to lead those clubs.
There are at least 60 students taking part in esports between Odessa, Permian and New Tech high schools, Digital Learning Specialist Christina Sifuentez said. NTO has two courses that are part of the curriculum where students can earn high school credit.
“Some are gamers themselves and that’s what piqued their interest. But some are just willing to learn and figure it out, so I also applaud that,” Tavarez said.
People may see it as just playing video games at school, but a lot of teamwork goes into it.
“We want all students to have equal opportunity to be exposed to these experiences because it could ultimately lead to scholarships and things they can excel at down the road,” Tavarez said.
Another driver was equity as many students have the equipment at home, but others do not.
“That’s an incentive for both parties, for the students and for the teachers, because they do want to make sure that they’re paying attention to their coursework and their attendance, too, because they need to be there in order to get better,” Sifuentez added.
“Esports is organized gaming in our schools. We have students that are playing video games on both desktop computers and Nintendo Switches. Some of the big benefits to esports for students that really caught our attention is that it really encourages that sense of engagement and belonging at school,” Director of Digital Learning Lauren Tavarez said.
“We’re already seeing such success at the high school level. We’re already talking about having to put together the process and protocols for tryouts, because the club is getting so much attention that you have to have some limitations on how many kids. We only have so many devices for them to be playing on, and so you don’t want to have too many kids, but we also don’t want to turn kids away that are interested in it,” she added.
The hope, Tavarez said, is that esports will spread districtwide.
What is esports?
The STEM Academy also has esports, but Tavarez said they don’t help much with that squad.
She added that the coaches are “amazing educators that are willing to step up and do this, to be able to provide the opportunity for our kids.
“We’ve got three high schools, three middle schools, and three elementaries that currently have gaming,” she said. “Typically, the older kids are participating on the gaming desktops. We’re really looking to prepare them for college scholarships. There are huge opportunities out there for esports scholarships, which is crazy to think. A stat that I found was over million in esports scholarships were awarded to high school students in 2023. Many of the major universities have created esports teams. We’ve partnered several times with UTPB. They have started their esports program, and so we’re learning this together, but they’ve been great partners already. … Two-hundred-plus colleges and universities now offer varsity esports programs.”
In the last year, Tavarez said they have organized funding to provide gaming desktop computers.
“You think about the students that really connect with this. They may have been searching for their thing. What is their thing that they’re interested in? Doing something like this may help them realize that computer and hardware and those kind of things are something that they are interested in, so it opens up doors in that way also,” Tavarez said.

“They have to focus while they’re doing it; they have to be adaptable in their thinking as the situations change in the game. A lot of those things are skills that also benefit them in the academic world and improve their academic achievements,” Tavarez said.
With tournaments you have a manager, marketing team and shoutcasters, or announcers. Tavarez said there is also a whole production team because professional esports, for example, are broadcast worldwide.
Research shows that esports can provide a connection for kids that, for example, athletics, fine arts and Student Council would provide, she added.

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OHS and PHS will be adding esports as a course next year, she added.
Kids at Ector County ISD high schools are playing video games during class, but it’s not just messing around.
Every year, students complete a Panorama Survey that gauges their engagement and belonging in school, among other things. Those feelings take a drastic drop the older kids get, Tavarez said.
Sifuentez said OHS and PHS currently run esports after school.
As with other extracurricular activities, students have to maintain their grades, so the coaches have to make sure that they are eligible to be a part of the program, Sifuentez said.
It’s not sanctioned by the University Interscholastic League, but the state is considering it.
“The big tournaments, you can find them on TV or you can find them streamed,” Tavarez added.

She added that esports also opens career paths for kids such as coding, engineering and professional gaming.