Move-in Day at LAYC Career Academy

LAYC Career Academy's Operations Manager, Jeremy Vera moving
items into the school (Photos by Shenneth Dove-Morse)

A personal household move is never fun—the packing, the boxes, the unpacking – but it’s very common for charter schools to move since they often don’t have a permanent space to call their own. But what does a move look like when instead of your favorite knick-knacks, you have to move tables, desks and other classroom equipment?

Ask Jeremy Vera, Operations Manager of the Latin American Youth Center (LAYC) Career Academy. The school, which will open for the first time in September, last week moved into its new home in Columbia Heights at 3047 15th St NW. The LAYC Career Academy will share the building with another charter school, The Next Step/El Próximo Paso.  The LAYC Career Academy is for students ages 16 to 24 year old and will offer GED classes to get students ready for college, as well as classes in healthcare and information technology to prepare students for careers in those fields.

Even as he sweated in the summer sun from directing the movers, who placed the education equipment in the building, he was focused on the students who are excited to see the school’s new home.

“Some students were even happy to be placed on the waiting list,” said Vera, who has worked for the Latin American Youth Center (LAYC), the parent organization of the school for four years.

Vera said the school couldn’t have made the move without hiring local movers to help them over a two-day period pick up and arrange the classroom furniture. The school also received furniture donations from other nonprofits and the schools they are sharing space with, The Next Step/El Próximo Paso. We wish the LAYC Career Academy luck as they unpack and gear up for their first school year.

LAYC Career Academy's Operations Manager, Jeremy Vera moving
items into the school (Photos by Shenneth Dove-Morse)