Hewitt-Trussville Engineering Academy awarded $50,000 state grant

The Hewitt-Trussville High School Engineering Academy received a major shot in the arm recently when the Alabama State Department of Education’s Career Technical Education Division awarded the program a $50,000 grant. 

Announced during the Trussville City Schools board meeting on July 24, the grant will allow the Engineering Academy to further its mission to prepare students for the increasing technical demands of the U.S. economy. 

The grant was presented to Jason Dooley, an Engineering Academy teacher and a 1991 graduate of Hewitt-Trussville, and his wife Christy Dooley, an English teacher at Hewitt-Trussville and 1990 graduate, who worked together to write the grant proposal. The additional funding comes at a critical time as the Engineering Academy, entering its 16th year, is poised to expand its offerings in the 2023-24 school term.

“The reason we’re excited about this grant is the school is providing us with a new space next year. We’re getting a new engineering lab and electrical construction lab and an open lab,” Jason Dooley said. “We’re trying to add on more of these career technical classes for the students, so they can get more work experience and real-life experience.”

The main focus area that Dooley is excited to expand is metalworking, which has been a challenge for him and fellow Engineering Academy teacher Tom Moulton to provide in the past. The funding, Dooley said, will allow the program to offer more valuable skills training. 

“In order to fill that space up, we need some new equipment, and the thing that’s always been holding us back is metalworking,” Dooley said. 

“We’re always having to bring in outside support, or I’m having to bring all my stuff from home here, and it makes it very difficult,” he added. “So, the main capability of this lab is that metalworking skillset that we’ve never been able to offer the kids before.”

As Alabama’s economy continues to move toward a more technical, manufacturing focus, especially in automobile manufacturing, the state is currently experiencing a shortage of people with the skills needed for the modern workforce. According to Dooley, the Engineering Academy is at the forefront of high school education programs throughout Alabama preparing kids for the future, whether they attend college or pursue a career right out of high school. 

“I think our philosophy here is if we can get the kids as much exposure to the industrial type of equipment as we can in a school setting, that’s going to pay off big time for them,” Dooley said. “It’s just going to open up opportunities for them.”

The Hewitt-Trussville High School Engineering Academy was established in 2007 and averages between 200-250 students each year. Dooley, formerly an engineer at U.S. Steel, said the academy system has transformed the technical education curriculum, especially drafting, from a program that just taught how to use the tools into a program that teaches how to solve problems in the real world with those tools.

“In drafting, you teach them how to get really good at the software and how to get good at drawing using the tools,” he said. “Engineering is more of a problem-solving method. We’re trying to teach the kids how to solve problems, and the computers and the software are just the tools they use.”

For the writing of the grant, Jason Dooley turned to his wife, Christy, for help. An occasional freelance writer as well as an English teacher, Christy Dooley said writing the grant was a challenge to write a compelling narrative while also making the technical needs of the proposal readable and comprehensible to everyone involved in the decision-making process. The team was also required to itemize every piece of equipment and how the money would be spent if awarded.

“It was very time-intensive,” Christy Dooley said. “Being an English teacher and teaching writing, I believe I was able to take all the information and explain the purpose of everything we were asking for very clearly, so that a person who may or may not have the knowledge of all of this equipment, engineering and applications could understand.”

HTHS Assistant Principal Joy Young said that while she would like to thank the Trussville City Schools Board of Education for providing the funding to expand the Engineering Academy’s physical space, the $50,000 grant from the state will allow the program to grow in immeasurable ways.

“It is a significant amount of money, and without it, we really would not have been able to afford some of the equipment that we are now able to purchase,” Young said. “We are very grateful to the state for giving us this opportunity.”