Southwest opens new Petroleum & Technology Academy

In a community where the economic ties to oil and gas run deep, Southwest High School has a new tool to prepare students for a future in the industry.

Area business partners joined school district officials and school administrators, faculty and students Monday in an opening ceremony for its Academy of Petroleum Engineering & Technology.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m fired up,” Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief told the group, which included local media, gathered in front of the school.

Moncrief, whose family business is oil and gas, said the industry has provided “some insulation” locally to tough economic ties. But the industry will suffer from an aging workforce, he said.

“We are not generating the number of engineers that are needed,” or the number of scientists, Moncrief said.

That’s where the Southwest program comes in, training and whetting students’ interest in those areas, the mayor said.

The academy, which represents a partnership between the petroleum industry, the school and the community, is “one more weapon to win the war of education,” he said, as schools battle against video games, the Internet and other distractions. The partnership will show students how math and science “can be meaningful and relevant” to their careers and their world.

In addition to science teacher Jessica Prado and math teacher Jennifer Wentworth, academy freshmen will be taught by English teacher Leah Parker, social studies teacher Kevin Watterson and business teacher and Katricia Conner.

But the academy curriculum will not be all traditional coursework. Randal Mays, president of the youth development organization Junior Achievement, said his group will teach the “soft skills” that employers say they need: leadership, work ethic, team work and persuasion.

Students will leave the Academy prepared for the workforce or college.

-- Raider’s Digest staff