TRI-COUNTY — A one-year planning process is underway to expand Career Technical Education (CTE) opportunities for Big Bend students, with initiative leaders looking to a recent labor market analysis to gain insights into the future of the area’s workforce.
The program, newly-dubbed the Big Bend Rural Initiative for Success in Education (BBRISE), is a collaboration between Alpine, Marfa and Marathon ISDs. Its goal is to become a Texas Education Agency-designated “innovation zone,” a distinction that allows the districts to receive additional state funding — $3,000 to $4,500 per student — for those participating in CTE programs open to all three districts.
The idea is to allow Marfa ISD high schoolers, for example, to participate in Alpine ISD’s certified nursing assistant (CNA) program. But exactly which CTE programs will become a part of the program, and whether entirely new ones will eventually be added, is still up for discussion, as are the logistics of how to educate students across distances. One of the state requirements, however, is for job training to be for high-demand, high-wage careers.
A steering committee, made up of superintendents from each district as well as other stakeholders, recently reviewed a labor market analysis that helped them gain insight into the future of the tri-county area’s workforce. Alpine ISD Superintendent Michelle Rinehart said the study — performed by CareerCraft Inc. and based on data from JobsEQ — is one of the many puzzle pieces of the local labor market that the steering committee is analyzing.
“It does give us some really helpful insight about what could be on the rise in this area, and in what ways could we, as the schools, select pathways within our CTE programs that might best support those high-wage, high-demand careers in our area,” Rinehart said.
Both Marfa and Marathon ISDs currently offer welding CTE programs, while Alpine ISD offers welding, nursing, graphic design and vocational agriculture.
The report underscores the importance of catering programs to local workforce needs by citing a study performed by researchers from Harvard University and the U.S. Census Bureau which found that 60% of young adults age 26 live within 10 miles of where they grew up, with 80% living within 100 miles.
“With this in mind, it is imperative that schools develop and offer programs aligned to local labor market conditions,” the report states. “Preparing students for the jobs that exist in their communities is important to the local and regional economy.”
Rinehart said one of the important takeaways from the report is the expected contraction of jobs in the tri-county area in almost every single area of employment due to a declining population. She said the trend mirrors what local schools are already experiencing, less full-time residents and families across the region, commonly attributed to affordable housing shortages and more second-home owners.
“In our tri-county area, jobs are each kind of contracting because the population is predicted to contract,” Rinehart said. “So instead of looking at what’s growing the quickest, it’s really looking at what’s shrinking the least.”
The specific labor market analysis for Marfa ISD, for example, predicts growth in the fields of accommodation and food service and healthcare and social assistance but an overall contraction of jobs. “Over the next 10 years, employment in the Marfa ISD Labor Shed (90-Minute Drive Time) is projected to contract by 1,638 jobs,” the report states. “The fastest growing sector in the region is expected to be Health Care and Social Assistance with a 0.1% year-over-year rate of growth.”
The report also confirmed what is already largely understood about the local tourism industry — the area’s largest workforce, making up around 13 to 17% of the local labor market depending on the specific community. While those jobs are in demand, and even projected to grow, they tend to pay below a living wage compared to other industries, Rinehart said.
“We came in with, ‘Oh, well, we definitely need more tourism career development,’ but that actually doesn’t meet the requirements for a [Rural Pathway Excellence Program], because those positions are not high-wage positions,” Rinehart said.
A high-wage career that is expected to grow locally, if slightly, is in health science. Rinehart said the steering committee is “leaning towards” Alpine ISD’s CNA program being included in the BBRISE inaugural year next year. But there’s also interest in eventually developing a business program at one of the schools — business management, web development and entrepreneurship were new pathways the report recommended — as well as an education program, so the area can grow its own teachers, Rinehart said.
But the regional CTE program will not generate the revenue needed to develop new programs for a couple of years, Rinehart said. “At first we’re not receiving any additional funding to offer any new pathways,” she said. “We can use our current pathways, and maybe expand one, then that will generate funding. And then in year, 2,3,4, we can add additional pathways.”
The three partner districts are currently seeking a new BBRISE director to help head up the initiative after the recent resignation of previous director Yvonne Realivasquez. Rinehart said the job has been posted in collaboration with other superintendents and they are hoping to have someone new in the role by January 2025.
“We’re just really excited about what this program can bring to the region, both in terms of new opportunities for our kids across all three districts, but also in terms of additional state funding to help provide more CTE opportunities to rural students,” Rinehart said. “It’s been a great planning process so far, and we’re excited to hire our new director, who’s going to pick up the torch of the great work that’s happened already and run from there.”