CHARLESTON, W.Va. — President of BridgeValley Community and Technical College Dr. Casey Sacks says her temporary consultant job for the U.S. Department of Education is going well so far.
After taking the six month consulting job for the U.S. Department of Education back in May, Sacks said during her most recent appearance on 580 Live that she is currently making the trip to Washington D.C. about two weeks a month to assist federal representatives with various workforce-related projects.
As workforce participation rates are among the lowest in the country right now, President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April called “Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future” as a way to try and build the workforce back up.
According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the order is an attempt to “modernize” workforce development programs and expand registered apprenticeship programs.
Sacks said this temporary job is all about helping federal officials in D.C. navigate the next steps in the executive order and then she will return to her full-time job at BridgeValley.
“It’s just a real short-term thing, it’s through December, and then we should have a plan in place, and then I can hand the plan off to folks who work there full-time,” Sacks said.
Sacks said she had previously worked for the U.S. Department of Education before taking on the job at BridgeValley, and after Trump signed the executive order, she received a call from D.C. representatives asking her to take this on as they felt she would be the right fit.
EPI states “the executive order directs the Secretaries of Labor, Education, and Commerce to review all federal workforce development programs and submit a report of their findings within 90 days. ”
Sacks said the secretaries are developing plans on various focuses surrounding workforce development such as apprenticeships or Artificial Intelligence, for example, and she’s simply helping them stay on track and meet the deadlines.
She said inner-agency collaboration can get a little unclear at times as to who’s heading it all up, and she serves as a liaison of sorts between them.
“When you have the Department of Commerce, and Labor, and Energy, and Education together all in one room, you need a unified document and there’s not one clear person to write that, and so for these projects, I’m that one person,” she said.
Sacks’ contract for the job will last through December, at which time she will return to BridgeValley.
She said this opportunity to serve in D.C. and work on this project will not just be a benefit to the state as a whole, but to BridgeValley as well.
“It’s really great both for the state and for the college,” Sacks said. “It has helped me really think about some of our federal grants and how we’re making investments with students in the community, and I think it will really set us up for some long-term success.”