{"id":363,"date":"2016-03-22T21:15:01","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T21:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westlakeconsultants.com\/news\/?p=363"},"modified":"2017-07-28T20:23:45","modified_gmt":"2017-07-28T20:23:45","slug":"east-portlands-ace-academy-closes-in-june","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/westlakeconsultants.com\/site\/east-portlands-ace-academy-closes-in-june\/","title":{"rendered":"East Portland’s ACE Academy Closes in June"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"ACE_Academy_01\"
Billingsley (far right) and his classmates at ACE standing on the bridge they constructed for the National Timber Bridge Design Competition in 2010.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ACE Academy<\/a>, a charter school located in East\u00a0Portland,\u00a0plans to close in June after being open for eight consecutive school years. ACE (Architecture, Construction, and Engineering) served Centennial, Gresham-Barlow, Parkrose, and Reynolds School Districts.\u00a0The school provided\u00a0junior and senior high school students with hands-on\u00a0experience in the path of their choice, while getting to experience a little of\u00a0everything to broaden their range of skills.<\/p>\n

Westlake’s Jacob Billingsley, EIT attended ACE Academy from 2008 to 2010 and was\u00a0part of the first graduating class. He mainly focused on civil engineering, but he also had a chance to learn about architecture, construction, mechanical and electrical engineering, and industrial manufacturing.<\/p>\n

“Because I was able to be exposed to these facets, I was able to find what I enjoyed,” says Billingsley. “It actually allowed me and other students to really focus on a very particular interest that we had.”<\/p>\n

\"ACE_Academy_02\"
Billingsley drafted these bridge designs using Autodesk Inventor for the competition.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While attending ACE, Billingsley had the opportunity\u00a0to visit\u00a0local firms\u00a0and\u00a0tour\u00a0construction sites to experience the whole process and see how everything worked. In addition,\u00a0ACE invited\u00a0people from the industry to come and talk with the students about\u00a0their profession. To further engage the students, ACE participated in various competitions, including\u00a0the National Timber Bridge Design Competition<\/a>. Billingsley’s team worked together to design and build\u00a0a high-quality wooden bridge. “And even though I didn\u2019t go into the structural side of things, it was a really cool experience and something that I never would have been able to do,” says Billingsley. The\u00a0site visits, presentations, and competitions\u00a0allowed students to gain hands-on experience and practice\u00a0problem-solving skills.<\/p>\n

The news of the closure came as a surprise and\u00a0disappointment to Billingsley.\u00a0“With the closure, in my opinion it takes away from students\u2019 ability to focus on something that they\u2019re actually interested and motivated in,” Billingsley explains.\u00a0“By going to ACE, I actually felt pushed – both because the teachers were good at engaging with students, and also I was driven to do well\u00a0in my classes and do well\u00a0in the work I was doing because I enjoyed it.”<\/p>\n

Billingsley believes\u00a0the closure will introduce uncertainty for\u00a0high school students,\u00a0especially juniors and seniors whom are trying to decide\u00a0their next step after high school. ACE students were able to focus on one area of interest and easily transition to another\u00a0to\u00a0help pinpoint their desired field of study after high school.<\/p>\n

“Because of ACE I found I was really interested in civil and it helped me decide to go to Oregon State and go into their Engineering Program,” says Billingsley. “ACE heavily influenced what path I took for college, which ended up leading into my career.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ACE Academy, a charter school located in East\u00a0Portland,\u00a0plans to close in June after being open for eight consecutive school years. ACE (Architecture, Construction, and Engineering) served Centennial, Gresham-Barlow, Parkrose, and Reynolds School Districts.\u00a0The school provided\u00a0junior and senior high school students with hands-on\u00a0experience in the path of their choice, while getting to experience a little of\u00a0everything […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-engineering","category-westlake-staff"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/westlakeconsultants.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/westlakeconsultants.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/westlakeconsultants.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/westlakeconsultants.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/westlakeconsultants.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/westlakeconsultants.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1060,"href":"http:\/\/westlakeconsultants.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions\/1060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/westlakeconsultants.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/westlakeconsultants.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/westlakeconsultants.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}