Accreditation rules threaten adult high school

Until now, Bedford County adults without a high school diploma had two options: Prepare for and take the GED (general educational development) test, or sign up for Adult High School.

The Adult High School was intended for those adults who are only a few credits short of graduation and who prefer a high school diploma to a GED certificate. Although a GED is intended to represent the equivalent of a high school diploma, there are some potential employers who are said to prefer a diploma to a GED.

Adult High School students could take just the make-up classes needed to complete their high school career, and were issued a genuine high school diploma.

Now, however, strict accreditation rules have local school board members ready to drop funding for the Adult High School program in the 2008-09 budget year, and the school system is looking in the long term at whether adult education should be kept in the school system budget or handled in some other way.

Only the Adult High School program would be dropped this year; GED preparation and other similar programs would be kept in place.

"Adult Education is still a viable program in Bedford County," Gray told school board members on Monday.

Elaine Weaver, director of the county's Adult Education program, declined comment for this story, saying she was still discussing the situation with Gray.

There were only two Adult High School graduates last year, Gray told Bedford County Board of Education members during a budget study session on Monday.

At the state level, adult education programs used to be part of the Department of Education, the same as normal K-12 education. But the state shifted them to the Department of Labor and Workforce Development. And the Labor Department has been reducing its funding, say school officials.

Gray and school board members said that adult education is still a needed program in Bedford County -- but there are regulatory snags to having that program run by the school system.

For example, the school system can't get a county-wide accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools as long as the Adult High School program is counted as part of the system. The structure and scale of the Adult High School program makes it unable to meet SACS requirements. The school also interferes with the county's compliance with the Tennessee School Improvement Planning Process.

GEDs don't count towards the county's graduation targets under the federal No Child Left Behind Act and the state laws that enforce it.

The school system is trying to turn more of its focus on making sure students don't drop out to begin with, said Gray, by allowing credit recovery programs for students while they're still in the system.