Dr. Howard Sanders, superintendent of Hollandale School District, located in a rural Delta community of less than 5,000 people, said the school district jumped at the chance to become one of two pilot sites in Mississippi. As more and more parents and students become aware of what this program is about and with the instructor placing a great deal of emphasis on providing students with skills they need to make a living, either directly out of high school or in a post secondary program, we expect this project to double in size over the next year, Sanders said. Rural communities often cannot get the bandwidth to support technology-based jobs, he said. We have included an economic development component in our mission, Boliek said. The goal is to provide economic developers tools that show how local schools make their community attractive for technology-based economic development.
Jobs range from call centers and help desks to programming.
As a result, low skill-set jobs needed for an agrarian workplace have disappeared. In 1997, when ABTco considered purchasing a closed Sunbeam manufacturing plant in Holly Springs, the decision was difficult because of the education level of the existing workforce. Because of assistance from the Northwest Community College and the Workforce Development Center, the company decided to acquire the plant, he said. A computer training room was opened with 10 computers and both ABTco employees and Holly Springs residents have been and continue to be trained in programs from basic keyboarding MP2. Unfortunately, until one concerted effort is made to replace schools that are rapidly deteriorating, replace or train teachers that are not proficient in the subjects they teach, and develop curriculum that requires students to graduate with measurable usable skills, rural Mississippi will not be prepared to compete in the information age of the 21st century, Brunson said.