TEXAS — As Texas welcomes more people and big businesses, like AI data centers, the state is in need of more trade workers.
The Texas Workforce Commission expects to see the state add nearly 150,000 more scientific and technical jobs by 2028.
The Arlington Independent School District is one of many Texas districts hoping to fill that void and see additional benefits from the state for their career and technical centers.
“Our goal here is to help students transition from high school either into the workforce or into postsecondary education and a lot of times students are doing both,” said Ginger Polster, the Arlington ISD Career And Technical Center principal, which dishes out 27 types of job certificates.
“There is a big focus on that for us to start training and growing the next generation,” said Polster.
Gov. Greg Abbott recently signed two bills into law. The first, House Bill 120, expanded access to career and technical schools, particularly for rural and military programs. The second, House Bill 20, created a program for students to graduate high school and receive a certificate in a high-demand field at the same time.
For students like Miguel Lovera-Marquez, receiving a certificate in auto mechanics by the time he graduates high school is the dream.
“I remember when my car first broke down and we didn’t have that much money to fix it,” said Lovera-Marquez. “I went ahead and took it upon myself to learn and find out what the problem was and fix it myself. Just seeing something go from broken down and not function properly just to come back to life. It was just my calling. It called for me.”
The timing happens to be on his side too.
“There’s more people retiring from those industries than there are people going into it,” said Polster.
Other booming Texas industries are so new they just need more workers.
“Robots in general are just evolving every day, as you can see with like all the AI stuff,” said Vina Vu, an Arlington ISD student studying robotics. “I just find it so fascinating that this school offers it here because we’re able to build so many things that no one’s seen before, and we get to be so creative.”
Polster said the renewed focus on career and technical education programs from the state is exactly what her students and program need.
“It’s not cheap to offer programs like this and to have facilities like this, so increasing the funding opportunities or programs for students who are taking these classes is huge for us so that we can continue to offer these opportunities,” said Polster.