As classes resume in schools across the state, some institutions are welcoming a new breed of students: hundreds of laid-off employees.

With help from a city and state program, some former Aloha Airlines, ATA, Molokai Ranch and Weyerhaeuser workers are hitting the books to pursue new callings as medical assistants, paralegals, Web designers and commercial drivers, among other jobs.

Next month, former Aloha reservations agent Heather Souza will enter a classroom for the first time in nearly two decades. Souza, a mother of three, will be attending classes at the Hawai'i Medical Institute to earn a certificate in medical coding.

She has not been a student since graduating from Wai'anae High School in 1990, but has decided to go back to school after having trouble landing a job.

"It's been really hard looking for a job," Souza said.

"Everything I've looked at has a computer requirement or some kind of background and I just don't have it," she said.

"With gas prices so high I can't afford to keep driving around looking for jobs that I don't have the experience for," she said.

Government and privately funded programs are available to help workers like Souza cope with unemployment and gain the skills they need to find new jobs.

The Neighbors in Need fund, a project by Helping Hands Hawai'i, First Hawaiian Bank, KGMB and The Advertiser, helps laid-off workers pay for bills and other necessities. It has raised $169,760.29 so far, including a $5,000 donation from Honpa Hongwanji Mission presented to the fund last week.

O'ahu Worklinks, a consortium of city, state and private agencies, is providing grants up to $8,000 to help laid-off workers pay for tuition fees, in addition to grants available for school-related supplies.

Since July 1, 2007, the program has awarded $1,028,576 to 576 laid-off workers who are looking to go back to school. About 180 of them are former Aloha Airlines employees.

"The federal funding under the dislocated workers program specifically provides for people to do retraining," said O'ahu Worklinks administrator Rolanse Crisafulli.

"A lot of them — especially the reservationists — have been telling us that that though they've worked with computers, they don't have the general computer skills they need" to find new jobs, she said.

Maureen Zablan, an Aloha reservations agent for 17 years, said that despite years of training for her Aloha Airlines job, she did not feel qualified for many new positions.

"When we started on the job market, we saw that we were not qualified for a lot of things, especially when a lot of us had been at Aloha for so many years. We were over-trained but under-qualified," she said. "For a while I was hoping for something wonderful to come my way, but they really want strong computer skills. After awhile it got kind of frustrating."

Zablan's troubles have been mirrored in the experiences of hundreds of Hawai'i's laid-off workers, who after years or even decades of having work have found themselves lacking the skills needed for today's technology-focused jobs.

Worklinks advisers work one-on-one with job seekers to create an "individual employment plan to make sure they have a chance to get the skills that are of high demand," Crisafulli said.

The program also provides classes at seven locations islandwide, which teach unemployed workers how to find job opportunities, create a resume, and succeed at a job interview.

In the coming months, it hopes to help more workers using money from a $1.4 million "national emergency grant" awarded to the city of Honolulu to help former Aloha and ATA airlines employees who are not seeking pilot training. On O'ahu, the federal grant will help more than 400 laid off workers get back on their feet, Crisafulli said.

Souza, who has been filing for unemployment since mid-April, said that the program has been extremely helpful in easing the transition into her new life. She worked for Aloha Airlines for seven years before being laid-off when the company shut down its passenger operations on March 31. Faced with few job prospects and a quickly diminishing savings account, Souza made the decision to go back to school.

She received funding from O'ahu Worklinks to help cover $12,000 in annual tuition fees. The program has authorized more than $7,800 for Souza's tuition, and the Hawai'i Medical Institute is providing the rest, she said.

While she never imagined herself working in the medical industry, Souza feels reassured by the industry's relative stability, compared with the struggling airline industry.

"People are always going to need medical attention," she said.

Even though she is anxious about being a student, "I'm looking forward to my classes," she said. "I really want to get back to work so I can support my family and stand on my feet again."

Zablan, 58, will also be going back to school with the help of O'ahu Worklinks. She will be attending Leeward Community College this fall as a full-time student, working toward an associate degree in business technology. For her first semester, O'ahu Worklinks will cover $500 to $600 in tuition fees, in addition to the costs of books and supplies.

"I was kind of hesitant to go back to school at my age because it might come to the point where nobody will hire me anyway," she said. "But I have to make an effort because life still goes on."