TRI-COUNTY — High school students from Alpine, Marathon and Marfa ISDs will participate in a new collaborative career training program, coined the Big Bend Rural Initiative for Success in Education (BBRISE), starting this coming school year.
Through the new program students from all three districts will be able to participate in Alpine ISD’s preexisting nursing science “pathway” and Marathon ISD’s new business, finance and marketing pathway. Each will culminate in students earning 15 hours of dual credit and Industry Based Certifications.
BBRISE is a “Rural Pathway Excellence Program” (RPEP), a Texas Education Agency designation that allows neighboring districts to share career training resources while earning additional state dollars — around $3,000 to $4,500 — per each student that participates in the initiative.
BBRISE Regional Director Jarrett Vickers, who works for all three districts in addition to the Education Partnership of the Permian Basin, said the number of RPEPs across Texas has recently increased from three to 10, and the program has garnered bipartisan support in the Legislature, resulting in an increase in funding from $5 to $25 million.
“I think you’re going to look up in about three or four years and there’s going to be 40, 50, 60, of these across the state because it’s a model that works,” Vickers said. “It’s shared resources, and schools are able to access funding from the state that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to access.”
Vickers has been traveling to each district to meet with incoming high school students, parents and school boards to get the word out about BBRISE, which has been in the works since the fall of 2024. The program — because it is tiered and requires years of classes to earn college credit and certifications — is primarily open to only freshman this year, who will go on to level two, three and four courses in the coming years. The exception is Alpine ISD’s certified nursing assistant (CNA) program, which has been around for years and has upperclassmen enrolled.
This year, eight Marfa freshman, four Marathon freshman — the entire class — and 25 Alpine freshman will participate in BBRISE, in addition to 25 Alpine upperclassmen in the CNA track.
Marathon will be offering a course titled “principals of business, marketing and finance,” the first class for students embarking on that pathway. BBRISE hired an outside firm to conduct a labor market analysis to help determine the high-wage, high-demand jobs in the area where the program should focus its training. Vickers said it made sense to house the business, marketing and finance track in Marathon due to the presence of the Gage Hotel, which has agreed to work with students on internship requirements.
Marathon ISD Superintendent Keith Kimbrough — who is brand new to the role having moved from East Texas where he previously worked as a district principal for Martinsville ISD, a 1A school just outside of Nacogdoches — said the Mustangs are excited to be offering the new Career Technical Education (CTE) program.
“To be able to expand the possibilities for our students by partnering with these other small districts, it’s just phenomenal for our students,” Kimbrough said. “We’re gonna be working with businesses in the area, plus partnering with some universities … So they’ll actually start earning some college credits toward this pathway, toward business and marketing.”
This coming year, BBRISE will be a hybrid program with both virtual and in person instruction. Technology upgrades, including the introduction of Owl cameras which make virtual learning “way more interactive,” are being made to classrooms, Vickers said.
“There’s going to be a certain number of days where those kids are going to travel to Marathon and attend that class in person, but there’s going to be a certain number of days where those kids stay at their home district and basically attend class virtually,” Vickers said.
The nursing program, which involves internships at the Big Bend Regional Hospital District, will continue to be based out of Alpine ISD.
Because the number of students participating in BBRISE next year is small, the districts will use Suburbans for transportation and will not yet require buses, Vickers said, but that could change in the coming years, especially when students are in more advanced classes and need to travel more often.
Conversations about adding additional pathways in Alpine and Marfa ISDs for the 2026-27 school year are likely to begin this coming fall, he said. It is possible that an existing CTE pathway can be added to BBRISE or a new one can be created and added. Right now Marfa’s only CTE pathway is welding.
“We’re gonna re-look at that labor market analysis and maybe get an updated one, and see what has changed and what makes sense for Marfa to add, what’s their little piece of the pie,” Vickers said. “So in the year ‘26, ‘27 you’re going to have Marfa, Alpine and Marathon kids potentially going to Marfa, Alpine and Marathon all at the same time.”
For now, BBRISE is primarily being sustained by grants — including a half a million dollar Texas Regional Pathways Network grant — and philanthropy before state funds, which are on a two-year lag, can be obtained. Vickers said so far support for the initiative has been robust, and a key point he likes to touch on is that BBRISE is not about consolidation but about collaborating to present the best opportunities for area students.
“One thing we wanted to keep very, very clear when we communicated to the community and the school boards: this is not an Alpine thing, this is a Big Bend students thing,” Vickers said. “We just want to make sure that those kids aren’t losing their identity, but we’re also maximizing our resources here in the Big Bend.”
For more information, visit https://educatepb.org/