The Career and Technical Education Center of Hobbs (CTECH) opened in 2022. It’s an impressive structure - with an industrial design featuring floor to ceiling windows, solar panels, and classrooms full of specialized equipment for the various industry classes and guest lectures they host. 

In just two years, CTECH has already seen rapid growth and widespread community interest and support - they went from 700 students to 1100 in that time. And the students are not just from Hobbs; if they are from any of the surrounding towns in Lea County, they can get bussed to CTECH. Students begin completing their high school requirements while also working toward a career in one of the six pathways offered: Energy, Manufacturing, Transportation, Culinary & Hospitality, Information Technology, and Construction. 

According to Kristy Hughes, who handles CTECH Community Relations, one recent graduate’s overall attitude and confidence completely changed during the time he was at CTECH. He had been a shy student and middle-of-the-road academic, but he blossomed in his courses at CTECH and in his internship for Habitat for Humanity. The hands-on experience he got gave him the confidence to compete in both state and national competitions through SkillsUSA. He graduated from Hobbs with a diploma, dual credit, and a full-time position as Project Manager with French Brother’s Homes. Since then, he has received a promotion and is now Project Superintendent. 

There are many such stories of students becoming much more engaged and inspired when given these opportunities outside of the classroom. We know that work-based learning (WBL) and CTE experiences make students much more likely to graduate high school. But districts often find it financially and logistically difficult to implement these programs. Hobbs’ experience provides us with one successful example that could serve as a model for other school districts across the state and country. 

“Our students are involved in the community,” says Hobbs Municipal Schools Superintendent, Gene Strickland. “They get called to help with events and service groups. The community loves it.”

Hobbs High School has historically had a very college-directed educational model. At one time, they even had the largest advanced placement program in New Mexico, perhaps due to the fact that they had few entrance requirements. 

Superintendent Strickland says that if a student said they wanted to be challenged, the district removed as many barriers as they could in terms of access. While this approach helped grant more students access to advanced placement programs, it also resulted in a model that recognized and acknowledged the advanced placement students at a much higher rate than other students. 

Administrators at Hobbs, led by former superintendent Mr. TJ Parks, wanted all students to get that same level of recognition, particularly students who weren’t necessarily headed to college. 

“Statistically, only 30% of our students go to higher ed, but we were developing a model and enforcing a model that was 100% college prep,” says Strickland, who continued to lead the effort after Parks left.

Gene Strickland is in his fourth year as Superintendent of Hobbs Municipal Schools, but has been with the district for the past 20 in different capacities. He says Hobbs Schools began by asking the community what they thought young people and employers needed. 

“We had some conversations within our community and some community partners,” says Strickland. “And that lit a fire, and that fire began to grow.” 

Hobbs began this process in 2017 by polling the community to see which industries they thought were most important for Hobbs and for students. The six pathways they ended up developing were all informed by what Hobbs already had and what they needed. They didn’t create a healthcare pathway, for example, because New Mexico Junior College already has a healthcare program and students at Hobbs can get dual credit through them. 

According to Kristy Hughes, the district has received nothing but support from the local community when it came to building CTECH. 

“We all know we need to teach our young ones to become the future of Hobbs. That was not a hard sell,” adds Hughes.

Hobbs had a CTE program for many years, but it wasn’t tied to any kind of credentialing and it wasn’t based on community needs or student interest. Students enjoyed the courses, but they only received high school credits and some exposure, not a pathway into a career. Now, students generally start at CTECH in their Sophomore year and by the time they graduate, they participate in multiple WBL opportunities, culminating in a capstone that includes an internship component. 

Both Strickland and Hughes are quick to point out that CTECH has only been able to happen because of the partnerships they’ve built with companies, industry partners, foundations, and even the city of Hobbs. They have been able to string together a lot of different funding sources - both public and private, national and state-wide - and say it makes their program stronger. Hughes credits the Innovation Zone grant as the reason they were able to provide paid internships for their students.

“We knew we wanted students to be out in the community by their third year, but we had no idea how to do that,” says Hughes. “Working with Future Focused as part of the Innovation Zone grant gave us the support and practical advice we needed to start those internships for students.”

The school has an advisory board with members from various industry and community partners, but ultimately teachers and administrators make decisions about what and how to teach, informed by these partners. There are also advisory committees for each pathway, which are made up of community and industry partners who help instructors build out relevant curriculum in addition to offering work-based learning and internship opportunities.

Superintendent Strickland says that he wants to duplicate what they’ve done at CTECH for other career pathways that might require additional education. They already have some of these built out or in the works, especially in partnership with New Mexico Junior College and Texas Tech University. For example, there is an educator prep class at Hobbs called Teach Academy. Students learn in the classroom from a teacher their first semester, then they go to a school in their second semester with that same teacher, who walks them through what they’re doing on the job. 

This program also led to Hobbs creating the first licensed apprenticeship program for teachers in the state of New Mexico. Strickland says that they had “a number of paraprofessionals and other non-certified staff that were good with kids and great in the school environment” and they saw this as a way to build a sort of “grow your own” model for teachers. 

It doesn’t matter which career, Hobbs is determined to create pathways to them. Strickland calls this “the Hobbs model” and says that it all comes down to the fact that “every child will have a career.” Schools, he says, need to “remain focused on developing career opportunities.”