Adult Education in Aiken County has a new facility, but maybe more importantly, a new location.
District, School Board, government and community representatives cut the ribbon for and dedicated the Aiken County Adult Education Center on Tuesday. At 2432 Jefferson Davis Highway, the building is in a “wonderful location” to serve all county residents who want to complete their high school education and then start technical, college or career programs, said Pat Keating, the director of Adult Education for Aiken County Public Schools.
“We're right next to a very important partner, Aiken Technical College, especially when our students are moving from us to their facility,” Keating said. “Being in this location, it's centrally located for Aiken, the Valley and North Augusta. We're excited about being here.”
In addition to its convenient location, the new center will offer students state-of-the-art technology.
“It's an online program,” Keating said. “We need our students to be technology savvy.”
Adult Education serves between 1,200 and 1,500 students annually, offering programs in GED education and testing, high school diploma completion, English Second Language and citizenship and basic literacy.
For the first time, the center will have four full-time GED teachers, Keating said.
“They will serve approximately 85-90 percent of our GED population, which is 70 percent of our students,” he said.
The center also offers two career readiness assessments, WorkKeys and WIN, and career placement for some programs.
But a credential alone is not the key to success, Keating said.
“The key is having a life-sustaining career so you can thrive instead of survive. In fact, that's our hashtag: #DON'TSURVIVETHRIVE,” he said. “That's what we want for all our learners.”
Most at-risk learners have three things in common, generational poverty, uneducated family backgrounds and a sense of hopelessness about their futures, Keating said.
“They don't believe that change is tangible,” he said. “Once we serve one of our learners, one of our students, and they attain that life-sustaining career and they can thrive and not survive, it changes the family dynamic for everyone in that family. We're not just serving the learner in front of us. We're serving those little eyes that look up at our learners, too.”
The center will open for students next week. For more information about Adult Education in Aiken County, visit acpsd.net/domain/132 or call 803-663-4920.