Stephanie Evans, left, director of the Quentin Burdick Job Corps Center in Minot. (Tom Ross/Quentin Burdick Job Corps Center via the North Dakota Monitor)
(North Dakota Monitor) – Less than a week after receiving word that Job Corps centers across the country will pause operations by the end of June, students, faculty and administrative staff in Minot have already begun packing up for the inevitable move off campus.
On May 29, the U.S. Department of Labor announced the Quentin Burdick Job Corps Center in Minot, along with nearly 100 other contractor-operated Job Corps centers nationwide, will pause operations by June 30 because of operational deficits, low graduation rates and a high number of incident reports involving students.
“I was just saying goodbye to a gentleman today who was offered a job as a welder and before he came to Job Corps, probably 15-16 months ago, he had no idea what welding was,” Tom Ross, workforce development officer for the Burdick Job Corps Center, said.
The Job Corps program has about 25,000 enrolled students nationwide between ages 16-24, many from low-income families. Ross said the Burdick Job Corps Center graduates 25 to 40 students every year and employs outreach staff who serve Fargo, Bismarck and Grand Forks.
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