The Latino Academy for Workforce Development Moves to Its Home: A New Stage of Service
Baltazar de Anda Santana, CEO of the Latino Academy for Workforce Development was there in 2012 when it was being birthed at the Vera Court Neighborhood Center and has led it to independence and to its new home at 2909 Landmark Place.
By Jonathan Gramling
The Latino Academy for Workforce Development started out with little more than a hope and a prayer back in 2011 as a program of the Vera Court Neighborhood Center to serve Latino residents of Madison’s north side. With very little funding, it began, for the most part, with volunteer instructors teaching rudimentary computer skills and served as a site for English as a Second Language classes.
When a class graduated, it was the students who put the celebration together, often at a community park. And when the next set of classes began, it was oftentimes former students who helped provide the instruction.
The Latino Academy grew over the years and transferred its services to the Bridge – Lake Point – Waunona Neighborhood Center on Madison’s south side where it remained through 2022. In 2022, the Latino Academy became an independent agency under the leadership of Baltazar de Anda Santana, its director. It has burst its seams in terms of providing services with 2,249 served in 2022 receiving 6,264 hours of instruction in areas like GED, English proficiency, commercial driver’s license, SafeServ and forklift training.
And in February 2023, it was time to make the break complete by finding its own home.
“Tom and now Richard Jones were very, very welcoming for us to stay at Bridge – Lake Point until we found our space,” Santana said. “But we needed to find our space. In Mexico, we say that in Mexico guests and dead people start smelling after three days. ‘When are you leaving?’ Obviously, they were very, very welcoming. There came a point when the Latino Academy needed to move on and really become independent.”
In February 2023, it moved into its new space at 2909 Landmark Place where it has a suite of offices and access to a large multi-purpose space on the first floor. On April 12, over 300 people attended the Latino Academy’s Open House.
“It expands our programming space a lot,” Santana said. “Right now, we hold the majority of our classes in person. But we can do that because we have the space. In most of our classes, we have 20-30 participants. Obviously because we have access to three training rooms — and each training room can hold up to 50 people — we can be having three classes with 50 people each. I don’t think we will ever get there. But it gives us the opportunity to have more programming. We’re actually going to have a career fair next week. And now we don’t need to go somewhere else for us to be able to do that. We can have everything here. That really helps us a lot. It gives the students a little bit more a sense of belonging. Also it makes it easier for us. Instead of having the classes everywhere, now we have them all in-house. And the fact that we have access to that kitchen area is a plus. On April 26th, we’re having a vaccination clinic here. I’m thinking throughout the summer, we might be able to do a little festival on the grounds around here. It just gives us an opportunity to expand our programming.”
For now, Santana is content to be a renter because he can focus on programming and doesn’t have to worry about snow plowing and washing the windows. And he will need to focus on programming as its CDL program expands.
“Two weeks ago, we had Senator Tammy Baldwin come here,” Santana said. “She announced that the Latino Academy was going to receive $2 million for our regional transportation training center. We have our CDL program. We have increased our numbers. That is the program that we like to showcase. Having the grant from Tammy Baldwin is important. She fought for us to be able to get the $2 million. It was one of those special appropriation grants. It was part of the bill that passed at the beginning of the year. Hopefully we will have the money next year. We are very excited and really grateful for the support that Tammy Baldwin has provided with those funds.”
CDL and other truck driving training has been a big corner piece of the Latino Academy’s offerings due to the excellent wages and benefits that await successful graduates of the program. But its facilities have hampered the number of people they can serve at any given time. That is about to change.
“The regional transportation training center is something that we are going to create,” Santana said. “That’s part of our CDL, commercial driving license program. Right now, we only have one truck. The money is going to help us have five trucks. Right now, we are looking for a space to rent with a big parking lot. That won’t happen here. We need $10 million for the training center. I know there are a lot of other campaigns going on right now. We are quietly trying to bring $10 million to start the transportation training center. There is a real need there for goods to be transported and there aren’t enough drivers.”
The Latino Academy hopes to establish it somewhere in the Madison area.
“Unfortunately, it has to be outside of the city of Madison because of the zoning issues,” Santana said. “We are looking at Fitchburg. I really wanted us to be located at the Oscar Mayer complex since the whole thing is empty. I don’t know what is planned for the complex. But because of the zoning issues, I think it is going to be outside of Madison. We are looking for space around Madison. We need a large enough parking space and access to 1-2 classrooms. We can figure out the classroom situation. We can always buy one of those trailers and make it into a classroom. But it is going to be in Dane County. We want to make sure we stay in Dane County.”
Another issue that the Latino Academy is facing are those immigrants who already have skills and training, but they can’t apply those skills to work in the U.S. because of credentialing issues. The Latino Academy seeks to help those individuals make the transition.
“The big issue is the language proficiency,” Santana said. “We teach English at the Latino Academy. We involve them in some of our ESL classes as well. At the Latino Academy, we are working with a different community than we did before. We are working with a community of people who are coming here with degrees in medicine or chemistry. They are trying to transfer these skills to another profession. We need to be able to innovate and continue supporting everyone. But at the same time, have programming that will help these folks with that. Right now, one of the students is working in a cleaning service and the other one is working at McDonald’s. We need to work with them so that they can adapt.”
In Santana’s view, one of the most important things that the academy does is help people become proficient in English, which is one of their gateways to advancement.
“I know we live in Madison that is very welcoming when it comes to language access,” Santana said. “We try to do the best that we can with that. But if people do not speak English, unfortunately, they are not going to be able to get a good job. And that is what we want. Yes, you can work at a Mexican restaurant. You can work at a cleaning service without speaking English. That’s fine. But is that where we want our community? I don’t think so. Our students need to be able to get the tools to learn English, so they can be in good jobs, earning $25-$30 per hour. I’m always going to have my accent and I love my accent. Many times, people may not understand what I am talking about. But we have to make sure that we do our best with our English proficiency.”
With a new base, the Latino Academy of Workforce Development is poised to boost its students to a better life as they pursue their American Dream.
Unfortunately, if you do not speak English, you will not be able to do that. I was telling one of our students, ‘Learn English.’ Otherwise our community is not going to be able to advance financially if we do not have the English proficiency.