LaBELLE, Fla. (AP) – One of Florida’s poorest counties is preparing for the new Airglades Airport, a $300 million cargo hub that could transform its economy.
Local leaders see the project as a generational opportunity, one that could bring more than 1,400 new high-skilled jobs to their largely agricultural community on the edge of the Everglades. But to fulfill his promise, the region’s educators will have to overcome some harsh realities.
One-third of Hendry County’s working-age adults do not have a high school diploma, while nearly half speak a language other than English at home, among the highest in Florida. Before local leaders can prepare residents for jobs in engineering and manufacturing, educators must first help them earn their GEDs and learn English.
“We have some of God’s most beautiful places that have never been touched by man,” said Michael Swindle, the county’s superintendent of schools, and yet “of all the metrics you’re going to judge a county, we’re either No. 1 or No. 2 in the ugly categories.”
As the airport project pursues approval, community groups and schools are working to fill teacher shortages and make investments in adult education.
Challenges also include some political obstacles. The majority of the county’s workforce is black and Latino. Efforts to tailor education to serve those demographic groups have drawn attention in Florida, where politicians have banned programs that factor race and national origin into people’s treatment. Educators say that the political context adds to the difficulties in recruiting teachers.
The plan to turn the small, county-owned airport into private property still needs approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, which will depend in part on strengthening contracts with vendors in Latin America to prove its potential as a hub. for perishable goods.
Meanwhile, two adult education centers in the county were expanded with support from the FutureMakers Coalition, a community organization that has led efforts to retool education in Southwest Florida. It also pays for a counselor to help adults looking to develop new skills and change careers.
Spanish-speaking students filled the adult education center in LaBelle, the county seat of 5,000 people.
Many of them are working or have children at home, which has forced their instructor, Silvia Gullett, to get creative to meet their needs. She started a WhatsApp group so students could arrange to carpool or share childcare duties. If students don’t show up for class, Gullett texts them to figure out the problem. She is not satisfied with easy excuses.
“In the beginning, I had some students who didn’t want to continue. I try to tell people that the only thing that can stop them is themselves,” said Gullett, who was born in Peru before starting her teaching career in Florida two decades ago.
At the nation’s other adult education center, in Clewiston, sparks fly as dozens of students in thick gloves and respirators work toward industrial certifications needed to enter the workforce. One of them, Samantha Garza, 21, originally studied child care at a community college in Fort Myers, but focused after watching YouTube videos about female welders.
“I’m an artistic person, so I have a steadier hand already, and I like to get down and dirty doing physical things, so I felt this would be a career for me,” she said.
Even before the airport arrives, there are still many local employers waiting to hire students. As current employees near retirement age, US Sugar, the Clewiston-based agricultural giant, has such pressing needs that it started an in-house welding program.
“We’re trying to close that generation gap between mechanics and welders,” said Nathan Hollis, an industrial skills trainer at the company.
Finding enough instructors to deliver the training has been a challenge. Swindle had to recruit a worker at US Sugar to learn welding and get an out-of-retirement school bus mechanic to lead the oil mechanic program.
However, the program has been so successful that the county is using tuition revenue and donations to open another training facility in LaBelle focused on HVAC and plumbing.
There has been controversy surrounding some efforts, including a slide on the topic of “white privilege” displayed during a teacher training event led by FutureMakers. It sparked an outcry from conservative activists who accused the organizers of racism, and a Republican city commissioner in LaBelle suggested it violated the Stop WOKE Act signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican.
The political climate in Florida has made it difficult to attract K-12 teachers, according to Swindle. In a state where DeSantis has harnessed the passions of the culture war in his education policies, Swindle said many of his teachers feel unsupported.
“The rhetoric around public education is terrible. It absolutely hurts us,” Swindle said.
The teacher shortage threatens the ability of local schools to train not only welders and mechanics, but also construction workers, nurses and other professionals to support the influx of people the airport could bring.
“We don’t have chemistry or physics teachers in high school. We’ve had jobs open for three years and we can’t even get anyone to apply,” Swindle said.
The district has developed more marketing campaigns to recruit educators and is paying paraprofessionals to secure licenses so they can become teachers with the help of a $23 million Good Job Challenge grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce. .
There is a lot at stake for the long house of Swindle.
The warden knows where the alligators lie, sunbathing along the acres of canals that irrigate the sugar cane fields. He knows which sabaal palms make the best swamp cabbage, teaching his sons how to cut palm hearts with his knife, as their ancestors did to survive leaner times.
However, there is no way to know if all of his retraining efforts will be successful. The airport may not be coming yet, especially if the county can’t prove it will have the workers willing to support it.
For now, officials are trying to meet current workforce needs while testing their ability to create new training programs. Once construction on the airport begins, they know they will have about two years to train a wave of logistics operators, agricultural customs inspectors and other specialized aviation professionals.
“We’re not just talking about an airport,” Swindle said. “We’re looking at this as an opportunity to move the needle on unemployment, poverty, to a better place.”
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Nick Fouriezos covers the role of college in rural America for Open Campus, a nonprofit newsroom focused on higher education. Sign up for his newsletter, Mile Markers.
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