(Left to right) Engineering Advisory Council members who visited the school:  Denise Burcham, Advisory Council Chair-ExxonMobil; Ron Crum, URS Corporation; Jim Horton, Ford, Bacon & Davis; and Dr. John Wefel, LaSpace Consortium – Louisiana State University.  The Scotlandville Magnet High School students are Kiara Smith, Tyler Williams, Ray Armant and Tyneeka Dyson.

As a result of Scotlandville Magnet High School’s Academy of Engineering (AOE) receiving Project Lead the Way (PLTW) certification last spring, one of the evaluators asked Scotlandville High to host a similar visit for 23 high level employees from Weyerhaeuser Company on January 17.  The employees were from Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Washington. Mike Wolff of Weyerhaeuser was impressed with the students and the curriculum and has been active in the vision of how PLTW is preparing the next generation of workforce talent.

The team arrived at Scotlandville High to discuss the program and its benefits with a panel of eight students from all grade levels, four PLTW engineering teachers, three school district administrators, two Scotlandville High administrators, two community leaders and four Advisory Council members.  The discussions lasted for two-and-a-half hours, and, at the end of the day, the group felt confident they had received invaluable information about how starting programs in their home states could benefit the Weyerhaeuser industry and train the future workforce, according to Beatrice Arvie, Magnet lead teacher and Academy director at Scotlandville High.

Weyerhaeuser Company is a 100-year-plus-old company with expertise in the forest industry.