COVID-19 pushed them out of the campus, but students and staff at the Lyndon B. Johnson Job Corps Center never stopped working.
When the virus shut down schools and businesses last March, the staff at the Job Corps didn’t panic. They had procedures in place for getting students off of campus quickly in the event of an emergency and the center was fully evacuated in two days. Center director Arthur Phalo said that students weren’t even instructed to move all of their stuff out of their dorms when they left – the general expectation was that they would be back within a few weeks.
“The staff did an awesome job and everything ran much smoother than you would have expected,” Phalo said. “We had [the students] taking spring break for two weeks. We thought it would be over fast.”
It eventually became clear that coronavirus would be a long-term problem, but center staff didn’t waste any time preparing for distance learning. They got in touch with students to evaluate their technological concerns and supplied Chrome books to those who needed them.
Within 45 days of sending them home, students were learning on-line. There were plenty of challenges involved – even by Macon County standards, the Job Corps suffers from very poor Internet service – but just like at any other school, students and teachers alike adapted the best that they could.
The Job Corps doesn’t teach students on a traditional nine-month schedule, instead taking in new students once every two months and graduating them as they finish their work. Phalo has been impressed by the consistency of service provided by the center over the last year.
“We all kept doing what we were supposed to do,” Phalo said. “We never really closed. We just resumed.”
Some students returned to campus in the second week of February, and so far, things have been going well. Center staff take the advice of the Biden Administration and the Center for Disease Control very seriously, setting up hand washing stations, social distance markers and room capacity signs all over the grounds and making changes immediately when new information becomes available to them. It’s a strict situation, but staff members say it’s been easy to maintain thanks to student cooperation.
“This group has done pretty well,” said Mary Harris, a social services aid (essentially a residential advisor) at the Job Corps. “It’s pretty easy to talk to them and get everybody on the same page.”
The students have also benefitted from the commitment the center has shown to not allowing interruptions in their education. 19-year-old Isaiah Lillie, who’s studying facilities management at the Job Corps, says that switching from in-person learning to an online classroom and back wasn’t as difficult as he initially feared it would be.
“I guess it was a little rough at first, but once you get used to it, it’s not that bad,” Lillie said. “It’s a great place to be.”
Phalo says it will be May before all of the students will be allowed back on campus at the same time and that it may take several more months after that before social distancing guidelines are scaled back. However, staff members are now eligible to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and efforts to improve broadband quality are starting to see results. There’s a lot to look forward to at the LBJ Job Corps.
“It’ll take until the fall, but I do think it’s going to get back to normal,” Phalo said.
For more information, go online to www.lyndonbjohnson.jobcorps.gov.