DEBORAH CORRAO / L’Observateur / September 8, 1999

Tiesha Edwards, 16, would one day like to be a lawyer. She’s getting a feelfor office work at the Louisiana Federal Credit Union in LaPlace where she’s working part time as part of the Cooperative Office Education program at East St. John High School.”I’ve been filing, making labels and changing files from an alpha to a numeric system,” says Edwards. She’s just been at her new job for acouple of weeks, but, so far, she says she likes it.

The COE program at East St. John High School had been discontinued in1995, gearing up again this fall under the leadership of Shirley Harris, COE coordinator at East St. John. As such, Harris goes out into the communityto recruit area businesses to participate in the program.

Her response from the community has been good, and she’s been able to place six of her seven COE students in jobs already.

To be eligible for the program students must be at least 16 years old and in their senior year in high school, have passed Keyboarding 1 with a grade of C or better and have an interest in office occupations.

They are required to work at least 15 hours a week and be paid at least minimum wage by their employers. Students must have and maintain a 2.0grade point average to remain in the program.

They also get three hours of credit by participating in COE, which is a combination of a 50-minute class every day and reporting to the job every afternoon.

In the classroom, students brush up on basic office skills, keyboarding, human relations and computer programs.

“I ask employers about the skills they require for the job and individually train the students,” Harris says.

Students are not automatically assigned to jobs.

“Each of them has to be interviewed by a prospective employer,” Harris says. “I try to match their skills with what the employer needs, but thekids have to sell themselves.”Part of their COE training, Harris says, is making the students marketable and able to handle an interview.

Tony White, 17, who has also been hired by the Louisiana Federal Credit Union, plans to attend college and major in business after graduation.

Tony worked part time for the Come Back Inn during the previous school year and through the summer months.

“I was hired as a dishwasher and promoted to line cook after three months,” Tony says. “They told me I could come back to work there whenCOE is over.”White credits his job success with being a go-getter, offering to help other people at the workplace with their duties when he had extra time on his hands.

He and Edwards, are also getting praise from their new supervisor.

“They are both very conscientious,” says Judy Montgomery, loan manager at the credit union. “They’re really doing great.”Ahkheila Morris, 17, eventually wants to become a nurse. She’s beenplaced at the St. John Sheriff’s Office and is discovering the need forconfidentiality on the job.

“I like to come in after work and talk to my mother about what went on,” says Morris, who has worked for a supermarket and a children’s uniform store. “Now I’ll be working where a lot of things are confidential. I cantalk about what I’m doing at work but not about specific incidents.” The students’ job performance will be evaluated by both their job supervisors and Harris.

“I visit them on the job once a week and see how they’re doing in the office setting,” says Harris.

The main goal of each student is to graduate in May. The program is overafter graduation, but employers can elect to keep them on the job.

Harris is looking forward to even more participation in the COE program next year.

She says some of the companies she contacted said they couldn’t offer jobs this year but would like to participate next year. She says she’ll needmore students to place.

“We got a late start this year and didn’t have a lot of time to advertise it,” she says. “But the students who are enrolled this year are going to bemy cheerleaders. They’re going to go to the other students and sell COE. Ihope to have 15 or 20 students enrolled next year.”

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