The Story Behind the Program

It Started with Her Stepdaughter

Jessica Dudley saw a problem no one else was solving. Beauty school graduates were leaving with their licenses but not the real, hands-on skills they needed to succeed behind the chair. Salons spent months retraining them. Talented people were falling through the cracks.

So Jessica built something entirely new — a Registered Cosmetology Apprenticeship Program, the first of its kind in Connecticut. And her very first apprentice was her stepdaughter, Madison Dudley, who became Connecticut's first-ever registered cosmetology apprentice in history.

"I like it because I like to learn hands-on. I like to have someone by my side showing me how to do it so I can learn and do it better."

— Madison Dudley, CT's First Registered Cosmetology Apprentice

What Jessica created wasn't just a training program. It was a new pathway — one that combines 2,000 hours of paid on-the-job training with classroom instruction, producing stylists who are genuinely ready for the floor from day one. The program grew so fast that Governor Ned Lamont and the Connecticut Labor Commissioner held their State Apprenticeship Council meeting right here at the salon.

Today JCRS Hair Academy is the only school in Connecticut offering a Registered Apprenticeship in cosmetology. When you sit in one of our chairs, the stylist behind you was trained to a standard that exists nowhere else in this state.

Join Connecticut's

first Cosmetology

Apprenticeship Program

Building real careers and real skills in cosmetology, right here in Connecticut.