By John Howell Sr.

Finch-Henry Job Corps Center has reached seventh highest ranking in August evaluations of the 123 Job Corps centers in the U. S.

Center officials received word of the new monthly rankings early Tuesday, following Monday night’s meeting of its Community Relations Council where Center Director Cordella Smith had announced that the center had been ranked 23rd among the 123 for July.

“We get a report card each month,” Smith said Monday night, not then aware that arrival of the center’s new report card was so imminent.

Each center’s ranking is determined by an Outcome Measurement System (OMS) that uses a variety of standards from student literacy tests, GED completion, and Career Technical Training (CTT) completion to placements of graduates in jobs following graduation.

The Finch-Henry center has ranked as low as 108 among the nation’s 123 centers. The center had begun a slow climb from the low evaluations under former center directors Alexander Alston and Dean Kindle when Smith was named director in February, 2009.

“She said she was going to take us up, up up,” CRC member Brenda Black said Monday, recalling Smith’s promise when she was named director.

In another measurement of performance evaluations in which the Batesville center is evaluated in a group of 83 other centers, Finch-Henry ranked 10 out of 84 in career transition services, Smith said.

“Not only are you helping to train our students, but once they’re trained, they are on the job,” she said.

In other campus developments, restoration of FHJCC building designated as “Dorm 6,” is 95 percent complete, Smith said. The building suffered extensive damage in a 2009 fire and reduced the campus resident male student capacity by 50 students. Recruitment of commuting students has helped offset the loss in numbers, Smith said.

The center director also said that a new dorm for 68 students is slated for construction “in the next 12 months.”