A new Fort Worth city commission faces a unique challenge: Bring the 12 school districts that cover parts of the city together around a common set of goals, and do so without the authority to tell any of them what to do.
Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker announced the formation of her Council on Education and the Workforce in May, saying the commission would help promote pathways to careers for Fort Worth high school graduates. Since the announcement, goals for the commission have begun to take shape.
Parker said her long-term goal for the council is to ensure that every student in the city has the opportunity to graduate high school with a college degree or a professional credential. That could be an associate’s degree through a partnership between high schools and Tarrant County College or a certification obtained through a career and technical education program or Pathways in Technology Early College High School, more commonly known as P-TECH, she said.
In the near term, Parker said, the council needs to get a better understanding of what programs are already available and how many students are enrolled in them. To do that, the council needs to establish data-sharing agreements with every school district in the area. The council’s leaders have held meetings with officials from nearly every school district to begin to work out those agreements, Parker said.
Once the council has an idea of what programs are already in place, it can begin to look at the kinds of employees that local companies will need over the next five years, what kinds of training and certifications those employees will need, and how those needs compare with the training programs that already exist, Parker said. Then, the council can work with educational leaders to develop training programs to cover any unmet industry needs, she said.
On Jan. 4, Parker notified the council that the city had hired Terri Mossige, a former deputy superintendent at the Lamar Consolidated Independent School District in the Houston suburbs, to support the council’s work. Parker said much of the work the workforce council is doing had never been tackled before in any kind of comprehensive way. There was no single agency whose job it was to look at education across Tarrant County and bring together the various school districts, charter networks and other organizations that play a role in it, she said. Because education is so critical to Fort Worth’s overall welfare, the city needs to play that role through the council, Parker said.
Tom Harris, the council chairman, said increasing the number of graduates coming out of those training programs will likely require a combination of working with school districts to build capacity in the programs and talking with middle and high school students about why the programs could be an attractive option. There are a wide range of high-paying jobs that require a certain amount of training, but not necessarily a four-year degree, Harris said. Many of those jobs are in high demand now, he said.
Harris, executive vice president of Hillwood, the developer behind the AllianceTexas complex, said the council isn’t trying to discourage college-bound high school students from getting a four-year degree. But many students don’t have that option for financial reasons, and many others simply aren’t interested in going to college, he said. The council wants to make sure those students know about other avenues to high-paying careers, he said.
For example, students who want to be aircraft mechanics could begin taking dual-credit courses through Tarrant County College during their junior year in high school, and be well on their way to taking the licensure exam by the time they graduate, he said.
Besides working with local school districts to develop high-demand training programs, the council is also working to build relationships between school districts and Fort Worth’s business community, Harris said. If businesses want to attract students as future employees, they need to be more engaged with those students while they’re still in school, he said. That engagement could take the form of part-time jobs, mentorships, field trips or internships, he said — anything that could give students an idea of what it’s like to work for a living, he said.
As the council works to figure out what training programs are already available, Harris said he expects it will find some areas in which industries need workers, but the training to prepare those workers doesn’t exist. He pointed to the emerging autonomous vehicle industry. Driverless trucks could eventually carry freight up and down American highways, and several retailers, including Amazon, are experimenting with deliveries made by autonomous drones. As that technology becomes more common, companies will need workers to develop and maintain those systems, he said.
One of the biggest challenges will be helping families understand what career paths are available for their students, Harris said. There are many avenues for students to leave high school with an industry credential and go straight to work making a good living, he said, but families who don’t know about them can’t take advantage of them.
“We need to do a better job letting our parents know … that these opportunities are out there,” he said.
