OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — Normally, Capitol School of Hairstyling and Esthetics would be packed with students and customers, but that hasn’t been the case for weeks.
"Our students took it well," said Skyler McCaig, the school's director of operations. "I mean they're really resilient guys and gals, and so they took it well and just kind of took it week to week. We had no idea where it was going to lead at that point."
Back in March, McCaig says they sent their students home with their textbooks and a link to an online program.
"What we're taking right now when we're doing this little in-person hiatus is, we're getting all of the theory portion of our training out of the way so that when we come back together, we can just do all the hands on training that's afforded to us," McCaig said. "So we're just going to hit the gas, go full bore with both in-person client services and in class training with haircuts, highlights, everything like that. "
The school is also showing the occasional tutorial, trying to inspire their students and remind them they’re not alone.
"I miss my students and my co-workers a lot," said instructor Keely Krajeski.
She says this time has given her a chance to take stock in what she has.
"I think a bigger appreciation for my students, my co-workers, my job"
And McCaig says he is now seeing some benefits to online learning.
"It just makes it a little bit more efficient. If we can get them that theory portion and take care of that outside of the hours that we're in-person together, so when we are together we can get a lot more hands-on interaction so, cutting more, styling more, taking care of more clients take more hands on-classes with mannequins."
He says his students have enough theory-based work to last them through the end of the month, but once that’s done, a computer can only do so much.
"I think biggest thing is that they have the opportunity to like actually ask questions and have things explained in person and I can go back and like redo things...just like being able to interact with them ," Krajeski said.
