GILROY
– Gilroy Unified School District will partner with Gavilan
College to offer community interest classes through its expanded
adult education program this year.
By Lori Stuenkel
GILROY – Gilroy Unified School District will partner with Gavilan College to offer community interest classes through its expanded adult education program this year.
District officials say the additional course offerings, which include tax preparation, SAT reviews and computer classes, are part of an effort to reach out to more members of the community that would not normally associate GUSD with such classes.
“Our viewpoint is, this is only going to strengthen our service to the community,” said Judith Dunham, administrator of adult education and family literacy.
Ten classes will be offered jointly by GUSD and Gavilan, with fees based on those currently charged by Gavilan’s community education classes, which range from $25 to $90, depending on the class. The classes will be taught at the Gilroy Adult Education Center, 7881 Murray Ave.
GUSD will continue to offer courses for adults seeking a high school diploma, including English and math.
GUSD and Gavilan will soon mail out a pamphlet listing the course offerings and dates of each class and registration will continue through the month of January.
Dunham even hopes to have an adult education Web site up and running within the next few months that will offer online registration.
“We really want to facilitate the transition between adult education and Gavilan,” Dunham said.
That transition could also be made easier now that GUSD will provide more of its own English language instruction to parents and other community members, rather than contracting out to other agencies.
In a change from previous years, the district will use funds for an English tutoring program to offer a more standardized program. GUSD’s Adult Education program will run all its tutoring courses instead of providing funds to the Mexican American Community Services Agency and Community Learning Connection, which Dunham said will be more cost-effective for the district, ensure that classes are taught by credentialed teachers and stricter academic requirements are employed, and will connect the students to Gavilan.
The Community-Based English Tutoring Program provides free or subsidized English language instruction in exchange for tutoring of school-aged English language learners. The district’s After-School Program will also benefit from more CBET students tutoring.
Gavilan will partner with GUSD for two of its English as a Second Language classes. The hope, Dunham said, is that the students will be more inclined to register for classes at Gavilan after participating in GUSD’s adult education.
Last semester, 75 students enrolled in the adult independent study diploma program and 41 took high school diploma classes. There were also 173 high school students taking adult education classes.
Last June, 75 adult education students earned their high school diplomas and three received a GED.
