By Matt Pedigo, The Citizen-Times, March 19, 2015)
C-T News Editor
If you’re an Allen County resident who didn’t finish high school but want to earn your General Equivalency Diploma (GED), at least in terms of location, you’ll be going back to high school.
The opening of the new Allen County Career and Technical Center means Allen County-Scottsville High School students are no longer using the former vocational school building beside AC-S for vocational education.
Thus, the former vocational school now hosts the Allen County School District’s alternative education program in one wing, while on the side facing the AC-S office area—the vocational school’s former drafting and marketing classrooms—now houses the Allen County Adult Learning Center. (Center students enter on the right side of the building, facing AC-S.)
“Our area is much larger, has more space and is easily accessible,” Center Executive Director Barbara Richards said. “We’re very pleased that we’re now on the school campus, with all the other school services. We have quick access to other services the school provides.”
In addition to working with adults seeking a new start or to finish their diplomas, Richards noted that the proximity makes it much more convenient for the Center to work with high school students who want to drop out or cannot stay in school due to unfortunate circumstances.
“If they absolutely cannot stay in school, we’re in play,” Richards said. “Since we’ve been here, we’ve worked with kids who need our services. It’s a collaborative effort to keep kids in school.”
The Adult Learning Center’s address is now 1501 Bowling Green Road, and the fax number is now (270) 622-1240. The phone number is still the same—(270) 237-4492. Staffed by Richards and assistants Miranda Richards and Rebekah Westray, the Center is still open 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays. Walk-ins are welcome, but students are encouraged to call for an appointment first, to assure they get adequate instruction time, versus having to share the Center’s instructors with a larger number of students.
In the transitional construction period the School District has seen in recent years, the Center had shared the former Pamida building on Old Gallatin Road with Daymar College, but had to move when Daymar closed its Scottsville campus. For a time, it was moved to an auxiliary classroom at the former White Plains Elementary School, which housed the alternative education program. With both now in the old vocational school, the District is weighing options on what to do with the White Plains building.
The Center’s location has changed and grown—as have its services. Funded by the School District, it still offers complete and free GED preparation, though students do have to pay the state fee for the test itself. That fee is $120; however, a state program also offers vouchers for qualified students to cut that cost down to just $40. The new-version GED program is “GED Express,” a combination of computer and pencil-and-paper training.
Come test time, Richards noted that the GED is now exclusively given online. That may cause some apprehension among the less technology-savvy, but Richards notes that the Center still provides complete preparation services for free, and has at least 15 computer stations for students to train on for free.
As it has for several years, the Center also offers the National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC), the new version of what was the Kentucky Employability Certificate, which started in the late 1990s as a means of enhancing workforce skills for industrial jobs. NCRC challenges students in three areas: Reading for Information (comprehending and remembering materials in orders, memos, as well as manuals and regulation); Applied Mathematics; and Locating Information.
NCRC comes in three levels—“Silver,” which qualifies graduates for 65 percent of jobs profiled in NCRC; “Gold,” which brings the qualification level up to 90 percent; and “Platinum,” which gives a graduate the ability to qualify for 99 percent of the profiled jobs. Local industries are working with the Center for this program, and job applicants who earn their NCRCs have a leg up on other applicants. Help for this, too, is free.
The Center is also about to launch a local “Career Scope” program. The same program offered at area employment offices, Career Scope is a survey that helps those who take it determine what they are most interested in for a career, and what carer paths might suit them best. The Center has been licensed for that program since last summer, but now, with a permanent location, is able to implement it. The Center can offer free assistance in taking the survey as well.
In addition, the Center also offers services to Allen County Detention Center inmates, encouraging the education they will need to get their lives back together when they are released. Those services are led by instructor David Burch.
“We also help with entry examinations for colleges or other schools,” Richards noted. That too, is free.
Anyone wanting to know more about the Center’s services is invited to call (270) 237-4492. The Center also has a Facebook page.