Changes in how adult education is funded led in part to the Warsaw Adult Basic Education program taking over Fulton County's program for this year.
According to Brenda Utter, program coordinator for adult education for Warsaw Community Schools, "The state has totally changed how adult education gets money."
Instead of the Department of Education receiving the money, it now goes to Workforce Development.
"In doing so, instead of each school writing a grant for adult education monies, we had to write a grant regionally," said Utter. "There are nine regions in the state. We are region two, which includes Marshall, Fulton, Kosciusko, St. Joe and Elkhart. We are one big region and we wrote the federal grant (application) as one big region."
Prior to this year, Utter said Fulton County's program was part of Logansport's. Logansport decided not to do it anymore, leaving Fulton County adrift. The Rochester Schools superintendent only found out about it after being contacted by a newspaper.
Fulton County still was in need of the adult education services.
"So I told them this is what I could do for you," Utter said.
For this year, the Warsaw adult education program also will run the programs at Rochester, Akron and Burket.
"We're doing everything this year with adult education," said Utter.
Fulton County is building the new Fulton County Learning Network, which will house the adult education program next year.
"The new building will have pretty much anything above high school, so they want their own adult education in that building. Their economic development corporation will run it," Utter said.
Classes in Rochester started Tuesday. There will be three classes offered in Rochester. Those classes will be held 9 to 11 a.m. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday; 6 to 9 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays; and 6 to 9 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Classes at Akron and Burket start next week. The Akron classes will be 6 to 9 p.m. Monday and Thursday; while the Burket classes will be 9 a.m. to noon Monday and Wednesday.
Last year, Utter said Rochester adult eduction had approximately 82 students, and Burket had about 42. Akron didn't have a program - it was voluntarily ran and online.
"However, it is our goal to double those numbers and double the outcome," Utter said.
"We're only testing in Rochester and Warsaw, so if anyone wants to go to the other locations for classes, they still have to come to Rochester or Warsaw. And if they're testing in Rochester, all scheduling of classes will be done through Work One," said Utter.
The employees working at the Rochester, Akron and Burket sites are Warsaw employees.
Beverly Kreamer will be teaching two of the Rochester classes, including the morning and Monday-Wednesday evening classes. Christopher Hindsley will teach the Tuesday-Thursday evening classes.
At Akron, Debbie Johnston will be the teacher, while the Burket teacher is to be named.
The Warsaw adult education program has two full-time teachers and three part-time teachers.
No Warsaw dollars fund any of the adult education programs.
"Everything is grant funded so nothing ever comes out of Warsaw money," said Utter. "Everything for adult education is grant funded."Grants run July 1 to June 30. In the spring, Utter said they will reapply for the grant monies and it will be redistributed.
Adult education monies come in three different ways.
Tippecanoe Valley has a very small state grant used just to pay teachers.
The federal dollars are divided into two parts.
The regions apply for and receive grants.
The other part is if there's a student that also is a Work One student, after 30 hours the adult education program can apply for a voucher from Work One.
"So, therefore, the fact that we're running all of our students through Work One in Rochester, all those people who are qualified for Work One services will be getting Work One services," Utter said.
"Rochester Work One and I dreamt this up," she said. "No one else is doing this. We're piloting the program."
For more information on the adult education classes, call Utter at 574-371-5019, or call Rochester Work One at 574-223-8542.
