By Steve Klamkin, WPRO News
Officials from the Rhode Island Department of Higher Education met late Wednesday with displaced students from the Sawyer School, a private, for-profit career training school that closed earlier in the day without notice to inform them about some of their options.
"I want to say at the outset that our first and only concern here right now is you, and getting you to be able to transfer as easily as possible to an alternative source of education," Michael Trainor, Special Assistant and spokesman for the Rhode Island Department of Education told a group that included more than a dozen students in the URI campus in downtown Providence.
Trainor told the students that the state agency was as surprised as they were to learn of Sawyer's closing, and that the closure was referred to the Rhode Island State Police and Attorney General's office.
"After consulting with the governor today, we have been in touch with the Rhode Island State Police and the Attorney General, because of the lack of information that we have about the integrity of any money you may have paid Sawyer School, or any money, financial aid money that might have been awarded them for you," Trianor said.
He said that the Department of Higher Education was unable to contact anyone at the school, which held classes in Providence and Pawtucket, and had an enrollment of just over 300 students.
"I'm so mad, I'm upet," said Valeri Jones, a 26-year old mother of two girls from East Providence who said she was four months shy of completing her 13-month medical assistant training program, and who had more than $10,000 in loans outstanding.
"It's something that I needed to finish, I have two kids, I need to take care of them. You know, it's unfair." Jones said that she learned about the closing in a Facebook posting.
"I didn't believe it. I didn't think it was possible," she said.
Trainor and other officials from the Department of Higher Education and a representative of the Lincoln Technical Institute said that private school, located in the former Lincoln Mall, was prepared to accept students displaced by the Sawyer School closing, but that they needed until Friday to determine how their programs compared to Sawyer's, and how best to help the students. Other private training schools said that they, too were looking at ways to help the students.
The Department is opening a telephone hotline for information about the closing, which begins operation on Thursday at 401-277-5018, and will post information on its website.
