LaBELLE, Fla. — One of Florida’s poorest counties is preparing for the new “Airglades” airport, a $300 million cargo hub that could transform the economy.
Local leaders see the project as a generational opportunity that could bring more than 1,400 new, highly skilled jobs to their largely agricultural community on the edge of the Everglades. But to make this promise a reality, the region’s educators will have to overcome some harsh realities.
A third of working-age adults in Hendry County do not have a high school diploma, while nearly half speak a language other than English at home, among the highest in Florida. Before local leaders can prepare residents for tech and manufacturing jobs, educators must first help them earn their degrees and learn English.
“We have some of God’s most beautiful lands that have never been touched by man,” said Michael Swindle, the county schools superintendent, and yet “by all the standards by which you would judge a county, we are No. 1 or no. 2 in the ugly categories.”
As the airport project seeks approval, community groups and schools are working to fill the teacher shortage and make investments in adult education.
The challenges also include some political headwinds. Most of the county’s workforce is black and Latino. Efforts to tailor education to these demographic groups have drawn criticism in Florida, where politicians banned programs the consideration of race and national origin in the treatment of people. Educators say the political context contributes to the problems in recruiting teachers.
The plan to convert the small, provincial airport into private ownership must still receive approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, which will depend in part on strengthening contracts with suppliers in Latin America to prove its potential as a hub for perishable goods.
Meanwhile, two adult education centers in the county have expanded with support from the FutureMakers Coalition, a community organization that has led the way in retraining education in Southwest Florida. It also pays for an advisor to help adults who want to develop new skills and change careers.
Spanish-speaking students have filled the adult education center in LaBelle, the county seat of 5,000.
Many are employed or have children at home, meaning their instructor, Silvia Gullett, has had to get creative to meet their needs. She started a WhatsApp group so students could carpool or split childcare duties. If students don’t show up for class, Gullett will text them to resolve the issue. She doesn’t settle for easy excuses.
“In the beginning I had a number of students who did not want to continue. I try to tell people that the only person who can stop them is themselves,” said Gullett, who was born in Peru before starting her teaching career in Florida 20 years ago.
At the country’s other adult education centre, in Clewiston, sparks are flying as dozens of students in thick gloves and respirators work towards the industry certifications needed to enter the job market. One of them, Samantha Garza, 21, initially studied child care at a community college in Fort Myers, but changed after watching YouTube videos about female welders.
“I’m an artsy person, so I already have a steadier hand, and I like to be physical, so I felt like this would be a career for me,” she said.
Even before the airport arrives, there are still plenty of local employers waiting to hire the students. As its current workforce approaches retirement age, US Sugar, the Clewiston-based agricultural giant, has such urgent needs that it has launched an in-house welding program.
“We’re trying to close the generation gap between mechanics and welders,” says Nathan Hollis, industrial skills trainer at the company.
Finding enough instructors to offer the training was a challenge. Swindle had to recruit an American Sugar worker to teach welding and bring a school bus mechanic out of retirement to run the diesel mechanics program.
Still, the program is so successful that the county is using tuition revenue and donations to open another training facility in LaBelle, focused on HVAC and plumbing.
There has been controversy surrounding some efforts, including a slide on the topic of “white privilege” that was shown at a teacher training event led by FutureMakers. It sparked outrage among conservative activists who accused organizers of racism, and a Republican city commissioner in LaBelle suggested it violated the “ Stop WOKE Act ” signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican.
The political climate in Florida has made it difficult to attract primary and secondary school teachers, according to Swindle. In a state where DeSantis has leveraged the passions of the culture war into his education policies, Swindle said many of his teachers feel unsupported.
“The rhetoric around public education is terrible. It definitely hurts us,” Swindle said.
Shortages of teachers threaten the ability of local schools to teach not only welders and mechanics, but also construction workers, nurses and other professionals to support the influx of people the airport could bring.
“We don’t have a chemistry or physics teacher in high school. We’ve had the positions open for three years, and we can’t even find anyone willing to apply,” Swindle said.
The county has stepped up marketing campaigns to recruit teachers and pay paraprofessionals to obtain licenses so they can become teachers with help from a $23 million Good Jobs Challenge grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The stakes are high for Swindle’s old home.
The superintendent knows where the alligators lie, basking along the acres of canals that irrigate the sugar cane fields. He knows which sable palms make the best swamp cabbage and teaches his sons how to cut out hearts of palm with his knife, as their ancestors did to survive lean times.
Still, it’s impossible to know whether all his retraining efforts will be successful. The airport still may not happen, especially if the county can’t prove it has the workers ready to support it.
For now, officials are trying to fill current staffing needs while testing their ability to create new training programs. Once construction on the airport begins, they know they will have about two years to teach a wave of logistics operators, agricultural customs inspectors and other aviation-specific professionals.
“We’re not just talking about an airport,” Swindle said. “We see this as an opportunity to take the approach to unemployment and poverty to a better place.”
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