By MELISSA PEACOCK

LAPLACE – Classified advertisements circled in red ink lay in heaps on kitchen tables and car seats. Job seekers in their Sunday best wobble down streets in high heels and polished dress shoes, going door-to-door for interviews.

Job hunting is frustrating business, especially for those without the skills needed to find and retain employment.

For 35 students in St. John the Baptist schools, that hunt just got a little easier. A $100,000 grant from the River Parishes Workforce Investment Board (through the cooperative efforts of St. John Parish schools, River Parishes Work Investment Board and St. Charles Parish government) will help prepare students from the East and West banks for employment.

“The grant allows students to be employed and go to school,” said Beverly Harris, coordinator of St. John School to Career Services. “We are paying the company to have students work for them. The company gets the services provided by an additional employee and the student gets on-the-job training.”

The grant, Harris said, would pay students for working about six hours a week. In addition, the funds would cover career workshops and fieldtrips.

It is a supplement to traditional education that was created “to help students feel good about themselves, experience success in school and therefore become better equipped” for the workforce (Cooperative Endeavor Agreement).

“We are also offering tutoring once a week,” Harris said. “We want to keep grades up.”

Tours of River Parishes technical college, Delgado Community College and Southeastern Louisiana University are planned. Officials hope the trips, in conjunction with workshops, will help students succeed academically, as well as start thinking about the future.

Students benefiting from the program have been selected from East and West St. John high schools. To participate, the students had to meet qualifications set by the River Parishes Workforce Investment Board and the Workforce Investment Act. Participants must be between the ages of 14 and 21 and be considered low-income youths with “barriers to employment.”

What is a barrier to employment? It is anything in the individual’s background that could prevent him from finding work. The WIA stipulates a barrier to employment can include individuals who are deficient in literacy skills, school dropouts, pregnant or parenting, offenders, or those requiring additional help to complete programs at school or work. An individual who is homeless, a runaway or a foster child also meets the WIA requirements for the program.

“We are giving students a chance to see what they learn in high school in action,” Harris said. “They get to apply what they have learned on the job. They learn what an employer wants from an employee.”

Pretesting and post-testing will be done to see whether the program positively impacts student academics. Officials expect to see an increase in most scores by at least one grade level.