Friday, August 3, 2001
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Friday, August 3, 2001 |
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Central starts new programs in second year By JOHN
THOMPSON
The Central Educational Center is Coweta County School System's first charter school, created through a partnership among the Coweta County School System, West Central Technical College, and the Coweta County business and industry community. CEC is housed in the former Central Middle School building, at 160 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, in Newnan, Ga. The original building, built in the mid-'50s, was renovated and expanded in 1987 and again in 2000. CEC began classes during the 2000-2001 school year, offering high school, articulated and technical college classes to high school students during the day, while serving as a West Central campus for regular adult students, a night high school and work force training center during the evening hours. Now starting its second year, construction is ongoing at the campus, with two new wings being added on the northern and eastern sides of the original building. Those wings adding 65,000 square feet of space and effectively doubling instructional space at Central are funded by $7 million requested by the local CEC organizers and Georgia Governor Roy Barnes, and provided by the Georgia General Assembly during the 2000 session, to help make CEC the model for seamless education in Georgia. The two new wings will include room for trade and industrial programs, electronics, precision machining, and new dental assisting, health occupations and computer labs. The new wings are also expected to free up more space in the existing school for technology and allied health programs. Students from all three Coweta high schools attend CEC. Classes are offered during all four blocks of time. Transitions occur throughout the day with students returning to their base high schools while others arrive at the CEC. Students can gain both high school and post-secondary credit in a number of technical educational areas. At the close of the 2001-02 school year, 107 technical college industry-recognized certifications were earned by high school students who "graduated" from CEC. The same students attended their base high school graduations and received their high school diplomas the following week. CEC offers a number of technical college and industry recognized certification programs based in four career tracks. The tracks are Business and information systems Health and medical. Technical and engineering. Services. CEC served approximately 1,300 high school students during its first year. This year, CEC's staff anticipates 2,100 to 2,200 students over two semesters, or approximately 1,000 to 1,100 team members per term. CEC is also opening the year with a new Freshman Academy program, which will provide freshmen students with an overview of the programs CEC offers, and will ask them to declare a "major," so that a course of study at CEC can be determined.
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