ZGI Film School Alumni, Karin Kwiatkowski, shares this helpful tip:

The links are below. Here’s the lowdown: Arizona passed a law called the Workforce Initiative Act which allows folks on unemployment to collect unemployment compensation while retraining. However, the program you enroll in has to be approved by the state in order to qualify. They’ve got a new website (not at all user friendly and cookies for the site have to be enabled), but I finally navigated through it. You can’t look up Zaki Gordon Institute directly, but detailed below are all the hoops to jump through to locate ZGI as an approved training program:

Here’s the first page for the AZ Job Connection site (you don’t have to register or create a password to find the following info):

https://www.azjobconnection.gov/ders/ea/wcmrs/

You then have to follow the tabs to: (1) Resources: (2) Training Providers: (3) Training Provider Search.

Which will bring you to this page:
https://www.azjobconnection.gov/ders/ea/wcmrs/services/schools/schsearch.cfm  Click the down arrow on the first selection line and search for “Cinematography and Film/Video Production” and select that, then scroll to the bottom and click “Search.”

That brings up five options, including Yavapai College.
https://www.azjobconnection.gov/ders/ea/wcmrs/services/schools/SchResults.cfm

Next, click on Yavapai College (even though it shows the Prescott campus location). That brings up the “Details” page which lists Patti Schlosberg as the Contact Person at 928-776-2005 and indicates that, yes, ZGI is WIA approved.

Next, click on the “Programs” tab on the top right side of that page which will lead you to:
https://www.azjobconnection.gov/ders/ea/wcmrs/services/schools/school_detail.cfm?rand=617241&provider=14538&choice=3

Then scroll down the multitude of approved training program options. Look for: “Digital Filmmaking Zaki Gordon Institute: Narrative and Doc – Yes (WIA or Workforce Investment Act Approved) – 500602.” The line below also reads: “Digital Filmmaking Zaki Gordon Institute: Feature Filmmaking – Yes – 500602.”

If you click on Zaki Gordon, it brings up this information (which I pasted in below from) this link (which you can click on directly from this email, but you’ll never find it again without following the road map I detailed above):

https://www.azjobconnection.gov/ders/ea/wcmrs/services/schools/program_detail.cfm?provider=14538&program=11076&callingfile=school_detail.cfm&hash=8FB276D15EABADCEEFB6707B6CC9B96B

Karin
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