The Basic Floor Covering Installation program developed by the Floor Covering Education Foundation (FCEF) and its partners—the National Wood Flooring Association (NWFA), International Certified Flooring Installers (CFI) association, and the Ceramic Tile Education Foundation (CTEF)—is now being offered at Chattanooga State Community College (CSCC) in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Classes begin December 11, 2023, and are eligible for scholarship through the FCEF. 

CSCC currently offers a myriad of technical and trade-affiliated programs, including the Volkswagen Academy. The Academy is a direct pipeline to employment with the Chattanooga Volkswagen plant that began production in April 2011. 

Looking to expand their current offerings, representatives from CSCC’s Division of Economic & Workforce Development and Tennessee College of Applied Technology met with the FCEF team and members of the local retail flooring community to discuss the program on October 25, 2023. 

FCEF reached out to the Tennessee Board of Regents several months prior to the meeting to start the discussion of expanding into the Tennessee system. Establishing the program in CSCC is the first effort to reach flooring installers and retailers in the state through a community college. 

The program will begin just like the non-credited course that kicked off at Georgia Northwestern Technical College (GNTC) in Dalton, Georgia in January 2022, which was later accepted into the school’s course offerings whereby students now receive credit and are eligible for grants and other scholarships. The program has since been implemented in the Atlanta Technical College curriculum as part of the two-year carpentry program. It was just announced that it is now starting in Albany Technical College in Albany, Georgia on December 5, 2023. 

Just like the employment pipeline to Volkswagen, CSCC leadership plans to focus on job placement with the Basic Floor Covering Installation program. 

“We’re good at building programs, and we’re good at attracting students into those programs,” said Bo Drake, vice president, Economic & Workforce Development, and interim head of Tennessee College of Applied Technology, CSCC. “However, our goal isn’t just to train and educate people with nothing at the end of that training and education. The real victory for us and the people that we have the opportunity to interact with in an educational manner is for them to be able to get a job.” 

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