Officials Puzzled Over Enrollment Drop in Computer Class for Disabled Students

The Westside Center for Independent Living computer training program has a good reputation, an 80% job placement rate, qualified teachers and quality equipment--everything it needs to be successful. Except students.

The program, which trains disabled people to be computer programmers, needs another eight or 10 students for its fall class, said project Director Jack W. Grubbs.

“The biggest potential danger is really not having enough people to operate the class,” Grubbs said.

The nine-month course, which starts in September at the program’s facility in Culver City, teaches students everything from the history and design methodology of computers to programming in COBOL, a business computer language.

The program was started by IBM in 1981 and has graduated 86 students. Its $200,000 annual budget is still funded in large part by corporations that hire many of the program’s graduates, Grubbs said.

No one can explain this year’s drop in students.

“Some years, the pipeline (for students) has been pretty darn big,” said Boyd F. Haigler, chairman of the program’s business advisory council. “This year, we’ve only talked to about seven or eight people and only six are solid enough for the program.”

Students are usually referred to the program by the state Department of Rehabilitation, which also pays the $3,000-per-student tuition, said John Wentworth, chairman of the program’s selection committee. But this year referrals have been few.

The tuition sometimes deters counselors, who operate on a limited budget, from sending students to the program, he said. And most students cannot afford to pay the tuition themselves.

“Most people who are disabled are not affluent,” he said. “If they’re coming to us, that means they’re not squared away as far as their jobs are concerned.”

Wentworth said the advisory council is working on a corporate scholarship program.

Susan B. Meny, a state rehabilitation counselor who also sits on the program’s advisory council, said counselors may send their clients to a community college or less costly social agency instead of the WCIL program if they believe few openings are available in the computer programming field.

Dolores Fowler is a graduate of the program.

Six years ago, she slipped and fell while working as a mail van driver for Los Angeles County and injured her back.

The injury prevented Fowler from returning to her job, which requires heavy lifting, and after surgery her doctor referred her to the computer course.

“Going into the program, I had no experience with programming, I knew absolutely nothing about computers,” she said.

After graduating in 1985, she returned to work for the county, but this time as a programmer with the data processing department.

It was definitely a step up, she said.

“I feel I now have a career, whereas before I just had a job,” she said. “It’s very interesting--something new and different every day.”