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BASTROP ISD
BASTROP — Bastrop officials are working to see local students match the city’s accelerated pace of development and grow along with it — connecting them to high-paying, in-demand jobs close to home.
Through a collaboration between Bastrop Independent School District, the Bastrop Economic Development Corporation and local employers, area programs are preparing the city’s young learners for careers in advanced manufacturing, health care and skilled trades.
According to BEDC manager Dori Kelley, Pathways in Technology Early College High School, Career and Technical Education and other educational programs have taken strides to better match the needs of local employers.
“Bastrop is a place where companies feel heard, supported and set up for success,” Kelley said. “My goal is that Bastrop County is known for the workforce development pipelines that we are creating here. I think that’s a pretty great legacy for the county and all our cities to have.”
According to Kelley, aligning education with workforce demand has become a central component of the county’s economic development strategy.
“A huge part of economic development is workforce,” she said. “And at the end of the day, you can’t have successful industries and businesses if you don’t have workforce programs supporting them.”
Kelley said Bastrop is becoming a hub for apprenticeship opportunities, beginning with Accutronic, a Swiss-based company partnered with Bastrop ISD. The model’s success has attracted other employers, including manufacturer LS Electric, SpaceX and X — formerly Twitter — which have begun discussions about tailored workforce programs.
“When industries can find qualified workers locally, they’re far more likely to expand operations in Bastrop … which means investment and economic impact for our area,” Kelley said. “It reduces turnover for employers and it boosts long-term job stability for residents, which is a super key goal for us.”
Bastrop ISD will graduate its first P-TECH cohort this year, a milestone that Executive Director of College, Career and Military Readiness Raina Ellis described as “life-changing” after watching the programs develop.
“Our cohorts continue to get larger, which is exactly what we hoped for,” Ellis said. “I’m excited with how far we’ve come in a very short amount of time.”
Ellis said the district’s goal is to build a skilled workforce pipeline in Bastrop County, especially as it sees rapid growth in advanced manufacturing and technology. With companies such as SpaceX, the Boring Company and other industrial powerhouses moving in, BISD is positioning its programs with those local needs.
“We all see it with the infrastructure and everything else — we try to get them really excited,” Ellis said. “We’re really diving in deep to help our students see what all of the opportunities are.”
P-TECH is designed for at-risk or first-generation college students, and the district offers advising to help them navigate coursework, dual-credit classes and job-site experiences that they would see in higher education and beyond. Ellis said parents are “very supportive,” especially once they understand that students can graduate with industry certifications and walk directly into high-paying jobs.
The district expects the programs to keep expanding. Cybersecurity and IT are among the areas they are exploring for future partnerships.
“We want to be sure we’re preparing students for where the need is,” Ellis said. “We’re going to start looking at other opportunities to ensure that we’re providing a wide variety of options for our students.”
One of the earliest and strongest partnerships came through TCS Mechanical, which has worked with high schools in Lockhart, Elgin, Bastrop, Cedar Creek and Del Valle to develop a successful apprenticeship program for trade skills.
Megan Gandy, who helps oversee TCS Mechanical’s workforce development efforts, said the payoff has been clear.
“The return on investment that we’ve gotten has been great — we’ve hosted more than 25 high school interns, and four of them now work for us full time,” Gandy said. “Just giving some of that exposure to kids, because some don’t have the ability to go to school and they don’t want to pull thousands of student loans.”
Gandy said students who complete the union’s five-year apprenticeship program graduate debtfree and can earn upward of $94,000 a year as journeymen.
“To see that there’s a high-paying job right in their backyard — I think it’s a really great opportunity all around,” Gandy said.
According to Kelley, the strategy is working. She said as Bastrop County attracts new industries in manufacturing, health care and technology, programs like P-TECH and CTE are helping students earn certifications and move directly into high-demand jobs locally.
