Marfa ISD has chance at ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ grant opportunity

Money will fund early childhood education

By Ariele Gentiles

At the March 23 School Board meeting, the board passed a resolution to approve the planning and implementation of a 1- to 3-year-old childcare center and pre-K3 classroom for the upcoming 2026-2027 school year in anticipation of a $600,000 education grant from the Moody Foundation. 

The culmination of years of work on the part of Marfa Education Foundation Director Abby Boyd and Marfa Elementary Principal Rosie Martinez, the resolution paves the way for MEF and the School Empowerment Network, a national nonprofit supporting educators and institutions, to apply for a grant from the Moody Foundation’s M-Pact fund on behalf of Marfa ISD. 

According to MEF’s presentation to the School Board, if the grant is received, the School Empowerment Network will support Marfa ISD to open a pre-K3 classroom for 3-year-olds, conduct an assessment to determine the feasibility of opening a childcare classroom to serve children ages 1-3 years as soon as Fall 2026, and receive regular onsite support, with the aim to improve kindergarten readiness and teacher knowledge of how young children learn best. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with the School Empowerment Network,” Boyd said.

Many educational and early learning studies suggest how integral the years even before kindergarten are to future student success. Martinez said of the importance of kindergarten readiness, “We looked and we talked about the data and what our [targeted school improvement] plan is, but the plan needs to start in early childhood … I keep talking about the data because we looked at [Marfa schools] data so much, and in pre-K through kinder, you know the data kind of looks really good, but once we start moving to third and fourth grade, we start seeing those gaps, and those gaps actually come from the foundation that was set in pre-K, K, and early childhood.” 

Following a site visit to area El Paso schools already implementing School Empowerment network’s unique pre-K programs, current first-grade teacher Victoria Villarreal said, “It’s clear that early childhood education can be a valuable addition to our school. We observed students as young as three engage in hands-on learning, building vocabulary, developing independence through structure, routines and expectations.” 

Villarreal, sister of Board Member Teresa Nunez, taught pre-K for six years and kindergarten for three years before teaching first grade. She does not currently hold any Texas State Board certifications. 

However, the grant would cover three years of teacher training and development, including curriculum and classroom supplies and management. According to Boyd, the grant “pays for a project manager to oversee compliance and reporting, teacher training … We would have access to a funding specialist who would work with MISD’s business office to ensure we are getting all possible funds from the state.” After three years, the program should be self-sustaining and deepen the district’s early childhood development “institutional knowledge.”  

While cost to parents and guardians hasn’t been determined, if the grant is awarded to Marfa ISD, the programs will charge tuition. The presentation estimates $600/month per child, but Boyd says parents may apply for assistance from the Texas Workforce Commission. 

MEF’s presentation to the board emphasized “braided funding pathways,” a financial strategy that “pools multiple funding streams toward one purpose while separately tracking and reporting on each source of funding.” Their example “braids” include pre-K funding from the TEA with childcare scholarships and private tuition. 

Marfa ISD historically has operated on a shoe-string budget made more bare-bones by state “recapture” payments tied to Marfa’s skyrocketing property tax valuations coupled with a sharp decline in enrollment. And though the district has earned As from the TEA for financial integrity, past budgets have emphasized penny-pinching in all areas of spending, including athletics. 

The grant would be a boon to the district and the community, Boyd said, but the district must be able to sustain it. Though the grant only covers three years of operational costs, Martinez believes that with a huge kickstart from Moody Foundation, Marfa ISD will be on a new path to success, with the goal at the end of the three-year period to transform early child education at Marfa ISD into “a gold standard, Texas Rising Star program”—a Texas Workforce Commission standard that recognizes childcare providers that meet higher quality learning environment.

“So when the grant is over the childcare, and pre-K programs will be self-sustaining, and the professional learning will remain in the district,” Martinez said. 

This would not be the first effort to bring in early childhood education at Marfa ISD in recent years. In 2013, then Superintendent Andrew Peters and Marfa Montessori’s Emily Steriti partnered to bring a tuition-free early childhood classroom for 3-to 6-year-olds to Marfa schools. In 2014, the program earned the Texas Rising Star award. 

In the years following Peters’ exit, the district made the decision to offer a choice for parents between Montessori and a more traditional pedagogy, though it added older Montessori classrooms up to grade 6 to accommodate the families who wanted to continue that system within the district. Those upper level classrooms were finally disbanded, citing low enrollment, a week before school started in August 2021, and the 3- to 6-year-old classroom closed at the end of that school year. 

Former Marfa Montessori teacher Eliza Barton now serves as director of Alpine Montessori. In the fall of 2022, a small group of parents enlisted Steriti to continue teaching at Marfa Wonder School, a nonprofit mixed-ages classroom now in its fourth year.

Recipients of the M-Pact grant will not be announced until likely late next month, but already hopes are high for a district that has struggled in the years since COVID. At last week’s “Armed and Generous” fundraiser for MEF and Marfa schools, Martinez announced the grant prospect to the crowd gathered at Planet Marfa and asked for “good vibes” from the community, leading an enthusiastic chant of “Pre-K3!” before the arm wrestling resumed. 

Unlike Alpine ISD, which already has an early childhood learning center for children 6 weeks old up to age 3, Marfa does not currently have any licensed daycare or childcare centers.