‘Our kids very much deserve it’ Career Institute West breaks ground in West Dallas

The future DISD campus promises hands-on experience for high school students moving directly into careers

For third-generation West Dallas native Dederick Tubbs, seeing the new opportunities Career Institute West will bring to the community gives him hope for people like him who grew up there.

“You see new houses, you see new buildings, but this is something that’s going to be educational, new,” he says. “And I feel like our kids very much deserve it and is needed in this community.”

Dallas ISD staff and neighborhood residents gathered on the warm windy morning of Aug. 5, to break ground for the new Career Institute West. The facility will provide 18 programs for students to receive industry certifications and credentials straight out of high school. Currently there are three Career Institutes in Dallas ISD, serving 19 high schools in the district.

The future 150,000-square-foot campus will be built on about five acres of land where Amelia Earhart Learning Center once stood, located at 3531 N. Westmoreland Rd. 

“It was a segregated school. It was a whites-only school,” Byron Sanders, Dallas ISD District 5 Trustee noted about Earhart in his remarks. “Here we are today, about to build an institution that will be for all of West Dallas, regardless of your background.” 

“In this building, with partnerships of industry and college partners, we’ll be able to help our students truly, truly climb out of generational poverty and into the middle class.” said Dallas ISD Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde from the podium.

West Dallas students will continue to be zoned to Dr. L.G. Pinkston High School but can opt to attend Career Institute West, along with students from other Dallas ISD high schools. If they do, Dallas ISD will provide them with  free transportation from their campus to Career Institute West. They will be taught by instructors who have hands-on experience in one of 18 professions,  setting them on a path to enter the work force after graduation.

Potential Programs at Career Institute West

Source: Current offerings at DISD career institutes

Clifford Sherman is a Dr. L. G. Pinkston Sr. High School alumnus. He now gives back by providing computers to Pinkston seniors headed to a four-year college. He says growing up, programs similar to the ones the institute will offer were once provided at his high school, and he is glad the new school will bring that back to the new generation. 

“Everybody is not meant to go to college,” Sherman says. “If they have a career that they can go to right out of high school, it will make a world of difference,”