PRESTONSBURG – There’s a lot going on at the Carl D. Perkins Job Corps Center, and administrators and staff believe that the changes will provide more opportunities for students to find gainful employment after graduation, along with being more comfortable while on campus.

At a meeting on March 11, the Job Corps Center Industry Council discussed what training should be offered at the center and what classes should be removed from the curriculum due to low enrollment, or a low success rate in finding jobs in a specific trade.

According to Thomas Rainey, director of the center, one of the most successful trades taught at the Job Corps is security.

“All of the security at the East Kentucky Expo Center is provided by our students,” Rainey said.

While many of the training classes have proven to be popular with students, Rainey and members of the council said that the trade of bricklaying will be phased out at the center, as enrollment for the classes is minimal.

“Bricklaying is hard physical labor,” Rainey said. “We just don’t have that many students interested in that trade, so we will replace it with something else in the future.”

Current bricklaying students will be allowed to finish the course and graduate before the program is removed from the curriculum.

Another topic that Rainey focused on at the meeting was the successful remodeling of the administrative offices at the center by students, who installed new floors, walls and ceilings for 15 offices, along with doing all the electrical wiring and work on the heating and cooling systems. The renovation project earned the Prestonsburg center a first-place award in the Career Technical Skill Training Competition sponsored by the Philadelphia Regional Office of the Job Corps.

According to Rainey, another project is underway to expand the lunchroom at the center, doubling its capacity.