WACC Cosmetology School, Beauty Shop Has Ribbon-Cutting
WACC Cosmetology School, Beauty Shop Has Ribbon-Cutting
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Leah Sander-
WACC Cosmetology School, Beauty Shop Has Ribbon-CuttingStudents at area high schools can earn their cosmetology license before graduation thanks to a new Warsaw Area Career Center program.
The Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce celebrated the WACC’s new cosmetology school and its beauty shop at Lakeview Middle School with a ribbon-cutting on Monday.
The program started just this semester, said instructor Tina Streby.
Previously, students went to Inspire College of Cosmetology, she said, but that “closed up last summer.”
“So the school corporation revisited everything and was able to put it in, and we’ve built it from there up,” Streby said.
Streby said she’s “been in the industry 29 years,” though she’s not working as a stylist currently.
She previously taught at Fairfield Cosmetology Salon, where students from Wawasee Community School Corporation, Fairfield Community Schools and West Noble School Corporation study. Streby herself attended beauty school and got her teaching degree from Fairfield.
Juniors and seniors from Tippecanoe Valley and Triton school corporations can also study cosmetology alongside their Warsaw counterparts by serving clients from the community.
Kids learn “perming, coloring, manicures, pedicures, facials (and) waxing,” among other things, said Streby, and have to take two years before they can get their license.
“And there’s so many credits that they have to do on mannequins and on humans, and they have to take a practical and then they have to take a state written test to get their license,” said Streby.
“It’s an amazing opportunity because you can leave high school and make money and make people feel beautiful,” she said.
Along with the salon at Lakeview, there’s also a classroom where kids study theory.
Streby said she hopes students can “get ready for a career (and) better themselves in life and make other people feel beautiful.”
“I hope students that have not had an opportunity in life, this opens up a door for them,” she said.
She has 21 students currently, with 18 in next year’s junior class already signed up.
Hours for the public to set up appointments are noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday through the end of the school year this week. Streby said before classes resume in the fall, there will be three weeks of summer school when people may make appointments, from June 6-23.
Times for those may be made from 9 a.m. to around 3 to 3:30 p.m. People may make appointments by calling 574-371-5085.
Junior Jenny Lozano said she’s learned about customer service and retail through the program as well as how to do finger waves, highlights and roller sets.
She wants to focus more on hairstyling versus doing nails after high school, with her wanting to style all hair textures.
Junior Trebarus Clark talked about learning pin curls and “even just curling hair.”
“I’ve never done anything with hair, and now I pretty much know how to do a lot now compared to when I started,” she said.
Clark talked about wanting to style “African-American hair mainly” after graduation as there’s a need for that.
