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Thousands of immigrants find a gateway to a new life at the Gateway Plaza on Buford Highway. That is where you will find DeKalb Technical College’s Community Education Center. It houses several educational programs designed to help people of all levels of literacy.
For the past two weeks the facility that offers new life to immigrants is getting a new life itself. There is a fresh coat of paint inside and out. Classes ended May 21 and will not resume until July 20. During the break workers like Jose Lopez have been working hard to give the hallways and classrooms a fresh look. In between brush strokes, he squeezes his thumb and index finger saying, “I speak a little English.” It is for people like Jose that the English as a Second Language (ESL) classes are offered at the Community Education Center at 5745 Buford Highway in Doraville, Georgia.
Jose says in broken English that he is considering signing up for a class.
While the smell of fresh paint hangs heavy in the hallways and classrooms, Project Facilitator and Instructor, Marion Kriwanek says the Community Education Center offers 18 ESL classes at six different levels. She adds the program is so popular that, “If we had more classrooms we’d have more classes.” The classrooms they do have are filled with people from around the world. Many students are from Bhutan, Iraq, Burma, Somalia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Viet Nam. The flags of more than two dozen nations hang from the ceiling as students pass underneath on their way to class. Students flock to this educational Mecca for a variety of classes including free Citizenship Classes to become an American citizen. Students can also get their General Education Diploma (GED) and the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL).
Jose Lopez and his co-workers still have a couple of weeks of work ahead of them to finish painting the walls. What he has already done is pleasing to the staff still working in the facility. “We really needed it,” says Stacey Harris, Administrative Assistant to the Dean. While Jose and his colleagues work to give the Buford Center a fresh look, Stacey and her colleagues are getting ready to give hundreds of immigrants a fresh look at life with education and literacy skills that will open new doors and opportunities.
DeKalb Technical College is committed to meeting the economic and workforce development needs of DeKalb, Newton, Rockdale, and Morgan counties through adult education and state-of-the-art technical education and training. Established in 1961, DeKalb Technical College currently has more than 4,000 students enrolled in diploma or degree programs and more than 9,000 in adult education classes. Academic Technical programs at DeKalb Tech cover more than 100 different occupations. For more information on the ESL and GED classes as well as the citizenship and TOEFL classes, visit our website at www.dekalbtech.edu.
