“-While I believe you all have experienced what you say you have, I have a few questions/comments. Do any of you have tangible evidence other than your stories? Also, some of you do seem more interested in closing/punishing the center rather than worried about the students experiencing this abuse. Other than concern for your jobs, why wasn’t anything done while you were working there? Just voicing what other people may be thinking.” From a comment…
Thanks so much for your thoughtful post. The original intent of this website was supposed to be a “one-stop” place for researchers, parents and educators to come to for factual information about Job Corps. And, a place for people to share their experiences. What I’m discovering through the posts on this site, and through the personal Emails I’m receiving is widespread fear. Fear of reprisal, fear of repercussions, even fear of harm. I can honestly understand fear. I felt it too. But, there is a point where fear meets critical mass and people have to so step forward.
I do not want this website to be a place where rumors and unproven allegations abound. I sincerely thank you for your post. I stand behind every allegation I made about my experiences at Shriver and can back up all my allegations with documented proof, witnesses and a paper trail.
I will review the comments more closely in the future and ask “Is this a rumor?” “Did you see this personally?” “Would you be willing to testify to your allegation someday in the future if there were many others willing to also come forward?”
While I agree the students’ and their education and safety is Job Corps most important story, I personally had staff coming to my office crying from the stress of working in a severely punitive environment: staff were harassed, abused and threatened. Staff were wrongfully terminated and harassed into quitting. Staff were emotionally abused and have doctors proof to show the stress of working there. One staff person told me point blank that he was so outraged at his treatment he wanted to harm a member of management. These incidents cannot be taken lightly either, nor hidden any longer. I will come forward to testify if asked and hope to do so one day.
What I have discovered for myself is that telling the truth takes a lot of the fear away.
Thanks again, Andrea
Filed under: Job Corps, Reader's Comments, Job Corps, Job Corps comments
Job Corps Fraud Blog 
I’ll stand by the complaints I made to federal agencies, and I’m willing to testify in Congress about the Job Corps program. I worked with abused and neglected children before I worked at Job Corps, and I didn’t like the negative discipline methods used at Job Corps which tore down the students self esteem. The majority of the students at the Job Corps Center I worked at needed mental health help and drug treatment which Job Corps can’t provide. I made these complaints not for revenge, but out of a moral duty for my former co-workers and the students. I was an R.A. and R.A.s see some of the worse stuff that happens at Job Corps. I can also talk to the people that live near the Job Corps neighborhood, since they wanted Job Corps out of their neighborhood for years due to students causing problems. The Department of Labor’s main function is to enforce labor law and it is not in the business to run a secondary educational institute. Job Corps should be shut down or taken over by the Department of Education.
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I have first hand knowledge and evidence to back up everything that I have conveyed on this blog. In response to the “thoughtful comment”, many staff including myself attempted but were powerless to fight all of the corruption at Iroquois. We had no avenues open to us including Human Resources, because everyone was in the CDs pocket. Even the corporate office would not stand up to the CD. Our jobs were threatened even by talking to OIG auditors. There have been lawsuits and an organized protest all to no avail.
Yes we are interested in punishing the center management because the ultimate losers in all of this are the students.
Because the center is playing the numbers game, students are pushed through the system without being prepared for the outside world. They are given Mississippi diplomas which are very substandard in this area. A former vocational instructor there who is now in charge of placing students in jobs, stated that he cannot place anyone with a Mississippi diploma. The center is just concerned with numbers not what happens to the students after they leave.
Living conditions are also terrible for the students. The only time the dorms are clean is when the center has visitors.
There was a surprise visit by the corporate office at night in which they inspected the dorms and found the conditions deplorable. They reprimanded the CD and of course she immediately blamed everyone else in an all staff meeting.
I don’t think that the center should be closed, I just think that a change of contractors is definitely necessary.
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Most of the Iroquois members have evidence of allegations, we have an attorney [also harrassed] and an investigator. I know we have documentation. Yes, we want the management punished, they should not be allowed around JC students. The students are the ones that lose, we have lost also.
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