Pecos-Barstow-Toyah ISD—Pecos CTE Center
Architect: VLK
The Pecos CTE Center is a new career and technical education facility serving grades 9–12 and represents the first phase of Pecos-Barstow-Toyah ISD’s new high school development. The center supports 15 career-readiness programs with purpose-built instructional labs, classrooms, and hands-on learning environments designed to expand workforce preparation and industry-aligned opportunities for students.
Design
A building organized around access and opportunity: a public-facing entry opens cosmetology, vet tech, and the culinary bistro to the town, while a secure workshop alley serves the trades — engagement and safety resolved in the plan, not traded against each other. Programs, not classrooms. The health science lab is modeled on the actual county hospital floor plan — patient, nursing, and phlebotomy stations, an accessible patient bath, and a full ambulance simulator. Alongside it: a working culinary bistro, a competition-ready esports lab with a shoutcasting station, an oil-and-gas (Energy) lab among the first in Texas, and six science labs sharing a central collaboration suite. None of it is standard CTE typology, all of it is designed to maximize opportunities and develop workforce-ready students.
Value
Value at every scale — but first, the value that matters most out here: a credential, a paycheck, and a future students can build without leaving home. Fifteen pathways, fifteen futures. This new building opened with 15 CTE pathways, and each maps to a tangible job: a nurse for the county hospital down the street, a welder or technician for the Permian Basin, a cosmetologist, a chef, a vet tech, a drone operator — credentialed at 18, or set up to carry that training anywhere they go.
A community-facing economy. The public entry turns student programs into a local resource — residents book the salon, the vet clinic, and the bistro, so the dollars and the experience stay in town. Training that once meant an out-of-town drive now happens at the high school, cutting tuition and travel costs for families and feeding the local workforce directly.
Outside investment before opening. A $50,000 Chevron grant funded oil & gas equipment, and the county hospital co-designed the health lab — value secured ahead of the doors opening, and taxpayer burden reduced on the most specialized scope. Built as Phase 1. The wing was designed as the IT and infrastructure hub for the entire master plan, lowering the cost of every later phase — and the sky-walk keeps both buildings operational while construction continues.
Wellness
Well-being here begins with independence — the confidence that comes from doing real work, and the chance to discover what you’re good at. Independence you can practice. Running a real bistro, a working salon, and a public vet clinic puts students in charge of real services for real clients. They aren’t rehearsing for adulthood — they’re doing the work, earning the credentials and the self-assurance to step into a workforce straight out of high school. A world that opens up. Fifteen pathways means a student 80 miles from the nearest city can find out she’s a coder, an EMT, a welder, an esports competitor — doors most kids here never had before this building existed. That exposure is its own kind of well-being: the chance to discover your thing, in the place you’re from.
Light, air, and room to breathe. Generous daylighting tuned to the West Texas sun, a turf courtyard at the heart of campus, an outdoor bistro balcony, and a dog run keep students in natural light and open air; sun-control blades cut the desert glare while preserving the views. Movement by design. Shops, labs, and the culinary kitchen demand active, full-body engagement rather than seated instruction — the program itself keeps students up and moving through the day.
Community
Built to be used by the whole community — and the community invested back before the doors opened. Open to the public. A dedicated community-facing entry puts cosmetology, vet tech, and culinary services in front of Pecos residents — a civic resource, not just a school. The design process included administrators and teachers from the start; the people who use the building shaped every decision.
Community Partnerships. The county hospital co-designed the health lab to replicate its own facilities, and Chevron donated $50,000 to launch the oil-and-gas program before a student enrolled. The first oil-and-gas track at a Texas high school trains students for the Permian economy they already live inside.
Planning
Educational planning first. Two years of programming, made visible — 15 pathways, each space shaped by the people who teach in it. The users designed it. Beginning June 2022, teachers and administrators worked alongside the design team for nearly two years through a structured process that put educational goals ahead of spatial decisions — a steering committee formed in December 2020, and each space took shape around the program it would house rather than a typical CTE typology.
Oil & gas, from scratch. Planning identified the Permian’s defining industry as a pathway with no high-school equivalent — and built one, the first of its kind in Texas, with a $50,000 Chevron grant funding industry-grade equipment. Access and security, resolved together. The plan opens a public-facing entry for cosmetology, vet tech, and the bistro while routing the trades through a secure workshop alley — engagement and safety designed in, not traded against each other.
Healthcare by design. The health-science lab was programmed hand-in-hand with the county hospital to mirror its own floor plan, so graduates step directly into local healthcare roles. Masterplanned as the hub. Planned as Phase 1, the wing is the IT and infrastructure backbone for the entire campus master plan — every future phase builds on the network it establishes.
School Transformation
Eighty miles from the nearest city, the most radical thing a building can do is make leaving optional. For generations, ambition in Pecos meant departure. A student who wanted to be a nurse, an engineer, or a chef left town to train — and most never came back. The ones who stayed took whatever the oil field happened to be hiring for that season.
This building rewrites that math. Fifteen CTE pathways let a student discover a calling and earn the credential for it without ever leaving Reeves County. A nurse for the hospital down the street, a welder or technician for the Permian Basin, a coder, a drone pilot, a chef running a real bistro. Proof you can build a future where you stand. The first oil-and-gas track at any Texas high school, a hospital-grade health lab, a competition esports arena — and this is only Phase 1. The sky-walk to the main campus is a physical promise that more is coming for students in Pecos.
Star of Distinction Category Winner