AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) — Amarillo Independent School District (AISD) students went back to the classroom this week, and KAMR Local 4 News and MyHighPlains.com staff got a tour of AISD’s innovative and mold-shattering campus, AmTech Career Academy.

“We have 235,000 square feet all under one roof,” said Jay Barrett, Principal of AmTech Career Academy. “We have nine different schools, we’re giving kids directionality.”

One of those schools, AmTech’s School of Culinary Arts, features multiple fully functional kitchens.

“It has three professional kitchens, it’s got a bistro, it’s got a banquet hall, where we serve guests. It’s got its own outside bistro for the public,” Barrett said.

We also got to peek inside AmTech’s School of STEM and Internet Technology where they are building an airplane and even have a flight simulator.

“We really want to show students they can do it, we take students who, who maybe are not confident students who are timid maybe and we show them their voice is there, come out, let’s do this thing,” explained Barrett. “Let’s become the leader that we know you are.”

Barrett told MyHighPlains.com that it’s all about future leaders learning multiple skills for the road of life, on a different path.

Some of the AmTech students will learn those skills through the process of building an electric car.

“Our auto collision will actually be taking and painting the frame, and we will take the car and put it completely together,” said Trey Hilbert, an instructor at AmTech Career Academy. “When it is completed, we’ll actually be able to drive this.”

Hilbert said auto tech students learn collision and motor repair, and even repair cars from the general public.

“To be able to have the vehicles to work on, disassemble them, put them back together. Our juniors and seniors, we actually work on customer cars,” noted Hilbert. “So this that’s on the other side of the shop, we actually have the customers bring their car in, we work on their vehicle and fix it and give it back.”

They can also learn business and trades from area companies like Amarillo National Bank and Xcel Energy.

Creating the leaders of tomorrow in the classroom today.

“We have to meet students where they are and change their world that winds of change are blowing,” Barrett said.

For more information on AmTech Career Academy, click here.