Adults in South County looking to obtain their high school diploma, GED or even wanting to pick up a few job skills can do so thanks to a partnership with local South County school districts.
The South Bay Adult Education Consortium is a partnership of adult education providers in the South Bay as defined by the Southwestern Community College District boundaries, which include the Sweetwater Union High School District and the Coronado Unified School District.
“All three of those school districts provide adult education to the community so now we are working together for the same purpose,” said Crystal Robinson, project director for the South Bay Adult Education consortium. “Our purpose is to get students as far as they need to go as quickly as possible.”
The state-funded program via Assembly Bill 104 offers an English as a second language curriculum which includes citizenship classes, a high school equivalency course for those that need a high school diploma or GED, and short-term career technical education classes in welding, medical assisting and culinary arts.
The South Bay Adult Education Consortium collaborates with the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company where graduates from the consortium’s welding program would have a priority when applying to a job with NASSCO.
Robinson said the current consortium has about 13,000 students with many of them being immigrants seeking to pick up the English language or finish their high school credits that were not transferable from their home country.
“Two groups of students that we serve are people who have gone through the American system here but dropped out for whatever reason, and immigrants who have never made it through our (school) system before,” Robinson said.
Certain adult education classes are held in the evening at Southwestern College, and on the campus of Coronado High School while the Sweetwater Union High School District houses adult school classes at four different locations — the Chula Vista Adult School, the National City Adult School, Montgomery Adult School and the San Ysidro Adult School.
The consortium, now in its third year, has grown bigger than ever before, Robinson said.
The South Bay Adult Education Consortium is part of the 71 adult education consortium throughout California that serve working adults 18 years-old and older.
Robinson said classes through the consortium are free.
The consortium holds regularly scheduled meetings with the Sweetwater district, Southwestern College district and Coronado Unified to discuss issues and ways to improve.
