1. United States
2. S.D.
3. Letter

I can't believe you're going to allow him to kill Job Corps. We did a great deal of good work at Boxelder Job Corps for communities all across SD, despite massive budget cuts, terrible mismanagement from DOL far above us, meddling by Congress, and even a global pandemic. You claim to want quality training in trades, well that's what we provided. I don't teach there anymore, but we did solid work there. While we obviously couldn't help every student, but we helped many, many of them. I visited with one of my former students several weeks ago who is doing great - he's successful in his job and so proud of his 401K (he called to see if my wife, a money manager and advisor, would help him with his retirement accounts). There are generations of South Dakotans who are underutilized, trapped in poor areas, on reservations, or in bad family structures, who have/are/could benefit from this Job Corps trades training program. They can't afford to attend Western Dakota Tech or some other East River trades school. They can't afford housing while attending. They need counseling to become better citizens and employees. We provided that. If the results after our training were subpar, that's a failure of state leadership to be creative enough to utilize the pool of trained youth we provided you. After graduation, there were few aftercare programs to help with job placement, housing, food, etc. These are needed to help them transition. Instead, they were often forced to go back to the bad situation they came from and never properly utilized. For shame. Do your job and defend/build this worthwhile program.