LANSING, Mich. — About 20 cosmetology students at Wilson Talent Center in Mason are back in the classroom.
They graduated high school this year, but have returned to finish their cosmetology training.
To acquire a cosmetology license students need to complete 1,500 hours of training. Most of the students had about 200 hours of their training left to complete.
The school was able to reopen for these students in order for them to finish their training, but the salon room is looking a little different.
The students are split into two groups to practice social distancing.
Everyone in the room is wearing a mask and each station has hand sanitizer.
“We have to be spaced in and out all over the place. We have to eat lunch outside if we want to or go across the hall into different classrooms for lunch,” student Jacob Trevino said.
Trevino said it wasn’t hard transitioning to wearing a mask throughout the day.
“The first couple of days when we first got here it was super cautious. Everyone was tiptoeing around each other. We got used to it after a couple of days and the masks after the first couple of days just became like second nature,” he said.
The cosmetology teacher Kathy Cochran said Cochran pushed off retirement to rejoin her students in the classroom for the past two weeks.
She said that this could be what classrooms look like in the fall.
“It’s going to be our new normal and I think it’s really important that we all engage. It’s as simple as wearing a mask and distancing. Will it always be like this? Probably not. But in the beginning, it will very much look different,” Cochran said.
One student said it feels good to be back in the classroom. The students missed out on their graduation ceremony and prom because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nicole Partridge said being back in class is the happy ending everyone wanted.
“We’ve spent so much time doing this and if it would’ve been just flushed down the drain, it would’ve been devastating for all of us because this is what we want to do. This is what we’re committed to, we’ve been committed for the past two years,” she said.
One of the two groups in the class is graduating Wednesday. They will then have to pass the state cosmetology test to receive their license.
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