| DTAE
2005
Georgia Department of Technical and Adult Education
The Office of Technical Education fuels the economic growth and development of the state by providing quality technical training through its coordinated system of technical colleges. This office administers high-quality technical education programs and career transition services that meet the needs of current and prospective students, as well as the business community. The office oversees the administration of all publicly owned technical colleges and works with other public agencies and organizations to provide Georgia's citizens with a seamless educational system that is equally accessible to all segments of the population. Georgia's
technical college system has grown from two
institutions in 1943 to a statewide network
of 34 technical colleges, with multiple campuses,
and four joint college divisions, totaling
87 delivery sites plus the Georgia Virtual
Technical College.
Instructional Support Services responds to the training needs of current and emerging business opportunities in the community by delivering flexible technical college programs at the associate degree, diploma and technical certificate of credit levels. Programs are benchmarked for enrollment, graduation and job placement. Associate
of Applied Technology and Diploma Programs
Over the past three years, the Georgia Virtual Technical College has seen an increase in the number of out-of-state and out-of-country students utilizing its online course offerings. During this time, students from 28 states and 22 foreign countries have used GVTC resources to further their educations. States represented are Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. Foreign countries represented are the Bahamas, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, England, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Kenya, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad, the Virgin Islands, West Indies and Yugoslavia. The Georgia Virtual Technical College has maintained a phenomenal retention rate of between 73% - 86% since its inception in 1998. For FY05, the GVTC retention rate averaged 86%. This far exceeds the national retention rate for online courses, which is less than 50%. Student satisfaction is necessary for growth. GVTC affords students the opportunity to offer feedback/input every quarter on instruction, course content and support services through the GVTC Student Satisfaction Survey. Student suggestions/comments have enabled GVTC to initiate positive change and thereby increase enrollment. This past year, 97% of GVTC students were satisfied with their online course and 96% of the students were satisfied with their online admissions experience. Services provided by the GVTC central office staff include Blackboard training, design and technical support, a portal Web site which is accessible to disabled students, a toll free telephone number for general information, student services support, and a test proctoring Web site. Professional development opportunities for faculty are offered year-round through GVTC training seminars such as Blackboard, Macromedia Flash, Photoshop, accessibility training, learning objects training and the GVTC Summit. To ensure the quality assurance of all online courses, GVTC has implemented a process whereby every course must meet quality checklist criteria and course standards, pass a peer review committee, and then be piloted as a Web-enhanced course at the technical college before being launched on the GVTC Web site for totally online instruction. All online instructors must attend GVTC Blackboard training. GVTC also offers three continuing education courses in a partnership with BellSouth to provide career-specific training to develop skills that BellSouth and industry require for employment. Other continuing education courses such as computer applications for government employees, desktop applications, Web design and media, network/operating systems, project management, business management skills and workplace safety are also available online. DTAE
JobBoard
To date, the PDC has taught more than 30,000 hours of IT certification training toward more than 1000 exams, which included Comptia A+, Net+, Linux+, Security+, Cisco Certified Network Associate, Cisco Certified Network Professional, Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (Windows NT, 2000, XP), Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator, Microsoft Certified Solution Developer, Certified Internet Webmaster, Sun Solaris Administrator, Sun Java Programmer. By providing training in-house through PDC, DTAE realized a net savings of more than $2.3 million. In FY01, The PDC began awarding Continuing Education Units (CEUs) and Staff Development Units (SDUs) to course attendees. Since our selection as a Regional Academy, we will offer credits toward the Microsoft Certified Trainer program. Accomplishments in FY05 include:
Student Support Services provides students with assessment, admissions, career planning and development, registration, placement, and federal/state financial assistance.
Equity
Services and Special Populations Services
At the GOAL banquet in May, after a well-received pre-recorded keynote address from Senator Johnny Isakson, the finalists and then the state winner were announced.
Wilson has volunteered her time over the years with organizations such as the International Association of Administrative Professionals, the National Association of Legal Assistance, Military Family Readiness Group, Parent-Teacher Association, and the Future Business Leaders of America. Winning the state GOAL title was not the first honor or award for Wilson, whose achievements include the Augusta Tech Dean’s List, the National Technical Honor Society, winning the state’s Regional Education Services Agency Award, and winning the Heart of Georgia Regional Educational Services Agency Award. Wilson said she chose technical education because “technical education is occupationally specific, which gives me the opportunity to attain up-to-date technical skills. Technical education focuses on the needs of the employer and ensures that I will have the training necessary to be successful in my chosen career path.” When interviewed by Suchita Vadlamani, FOX5-Atlanta news anchor and emcee for the GOAL Awards Banquet, Wilson remarked, “Technical education has so much to offer, and now I have the opportunity to share its benefits in a unique way.” Wilson was presented with the GOAL Medallion and a fully loaded 2005 Nissan Sentra from Rob Doll Nissan of Columbus, Georgia. As the Student of the Year, Wilson will serve as the Student Ambassador for the Georgia Department of Technical and Adult Education. “GOAL
winners are our ambassadors,” said Dr.
Freida Hill, assistant commissioner for Technical
Education. “They symbolize how technical
education benefits our students and the caliber
of individuals who are choosing Georgia’s
technical colleges.” Selection for the privilege of attending the Lighthouse Institute is based on criteria established at each individual technical college. Lighthouse participants have an opportunity to share teaching skills, which promotes learning, and to be exposed to national innovators in the teaching field. In 2005, nearly 100 of Georgia’s technical college instructors, representing 34 technical colleges and three University System technical divisions, attended the Lighthouse. Conference evaluations quantifiably show that the program continues to improve each year. Professional development leaders included: Dr. George Baker III, a professor emeritus and interim director of the National Initiative for Leadership and Institutional Effectiveness at North Carolina State; Dr. Timothy S. Mescon, partner in HA&W Mescon and dean of Kennesaw State University’s Coles College of Business; and Dr. John E. Roueche, professor and director of the Community College Leadership Program at The University of Texas at Austin. Additionally, presenters and participants included: the 2004 Rick Perkins Award winner, 2005 GOAL winner, DTAE Commissioner Mike Vollmer, State Board members, Georgia Department of Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond, Cory Thompson of DeKalb Technical College’s board of directors, and a business and industry panel. The Lighthouse Institute is a function of the Strategic Operations and Projects Unit and is guided by the Presidents’ Technical Education Committee. DTAE, DeVry University, Southwest Georgia Technical College, Cameo Advertising and Davies Higher Education Services LLC are statewide Lighthouse sponsors. Moody has several notable achievements, including soliciting $500,000 in vendor donations for programmatic improvement; ten computer certifications through Cisco, Microsoft and Comptia; mentoring and coaching National Phi Beta Lambda design winners; developing an online advisement system for students and faculty to integrate with Banner that is used by DTAE technical colleges; enriching DTAE Computer Information Systems standardized curriculum with industry-standard competencies; designing and constructing a networking lab; and receiving the Rotarian Community Award for Service Above Self. In recognition of his accomplishments, Moody received a beautiful crystal award, a gift of $1,000 and a brand new laptop computer sponsored by Howard Computers. The Rick Perkins Award program is a function of the Strategic Operations and Projects Unit and is guided by the Presidents’ STAR Committee. DTAE, Coosa Valley Technical College, Georgia Virtual Technical College, Howard Computers, and TCDA (Technical College Directors’ Association) are statewide Rick Perkins Award sponsors.
The Office of Technical Education has been engaged in establishing the appropriate infrastructure to support and accurately account for DTAE's high school/technical college collaborative programs. Focus has been given to identifying processes and procedures that facilitate seamless transitions and establishing an accountability system to accurately capture this movement. The Office of Technical Education has particular emphasis on expanding, strengthening and connecting successful existing high school/technical college collaborations.
Under a contract with the University of Georgia Occupational Research Group (ORG), STW funded several studies and evaluation projects focusing on impact on schools and communities. The following studies were conducted and reports finalized:
ORG has developed a series of informational briefs on the following topics:
These briefs highlight best practices and relate them to current educational policy and practice in Georgia. The Comprehensive Youth Development Strategies (CYDS) continued its alliance with the After-School Network, a group of non-profit organizations whose goal was to build a network of after-school program partners and set standards for the operation. This new alliance, the Georgia Partnership for Youth Investment (GPYI) was given impetus with funding of $500,000 from the Mott Foundation, a three-year commitment with matching funds from various partners. Georgia STW matching funds will be steered toward the completion of the objectives of the Evaluation and Accountability Action Committee. A contract between GA STW and the fiscal agent for GPYI, United Way of Atlanta, has been approved for $60,000. The Executive Committee of the GPYI is making continuous progress toward meeting its goals. Although no monetary commitment will be made in FY06, STW leadership will continue participating as a member of the Executive Committee.
Tech Prep is a DOE/DTAE collaborative which is designed to improve seamless student transition from high school to postsecondary technical education. Each of the 37 Tech Prep consortia involves a technical college or university system technical division with the secondary school systems in the college service delivery area. In FY05, local consortia received more than $3 million to implement components of the Tech Prep program. In FY05, significant efforts were made to improve the data-collection strategy so that our student information system more accurately reflected the number of students that entered a technical college as a Tech Prep student. FY05 data indicated there were 6,308 Tech Prep students enrolled in technical colleges. Dual enrollment enables students to enroll in postsecondary classes and earn Carnegie units of credit that count toward high school graduation requirements and postsecondary credit hours through collaborative initiatives between high schools and colleges. This broad classification of secondary student crosses over several program lines (i.e., Postsecondary Options, Tech Prep, Youth Apprenticeship and Dual Enrollment - HOPE). FY05 unduplicated data indicate 6,772 secondary students were participating in this high school/technical college opportunity.
• Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL)
•
SmartStart Georgia • Georgia Partnership for Youth Investment (GPYI) • Georgia Association on Young Children (GAYC)
• Advancing Careers Through Education and Training (ACET)
• Head Start • Children’s Defense Fund
Enrollment in ECCE programs continued to increase in the 2004-05 school year. The largest increase could be seen in the Fall 2004 degree program which increased from 1,190 students in the 2003 school year to 1,429 in 2004 representing a 20% increase in enrollment. The technical certificate of credit programs in Winter of 2004 enjoyed the second largest increase from 430 students to 497 students or more than 16% over last year’s enrollment. Increased
Graduation Rates
Newly
Developed Technical Certificate of Credit
and Degree Specialization
In FY05, the Office of Technical Education continued to identify the technical college student recruitment and/or marketing activity that has resulted in technical college enrollment for this population. Statewide, many of the technical colleges continue to have a high level of activity with these populations. Each year for the past five, technical colleges had consistent and extensive recruitment/marketing activities in secondary alternative education programs (i.e., ASSET testing, tours, on and off campus visits, summer career awareness programs, instructor/counselor/administrator contact, etc.) that have resulted in an increase in the number of students being informed of postsecondary technical education opportunities. Many technical colleges also sponsored youth-centered events, holiday celebrations, sports events and more. Virtually every technical college had some student recruitment/marketing activity with youth organizations within its service area. DTAE and the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) signed a state-level Statement of Agreement designed to explore the options available in providing postsecondary technical education programs for incarcerated youth located at DJJ Youth Development Centers. These opportunities provide the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to successfully transition from secondary education to postsecondary education and beyond and provide access to the job market. An attachment to that agreement was the Operational Guidelines between DTAE Technical Colleges and DJJ - Youth Development Center for Providing Postsecondary Technical Education Instructional Services. Both of these documents serve as "roadmaps" to assist technical colleges and youth-development centers, located in their service areas, in developing collaborative instructional services relationships. Within DTAE, Augusta Technical College, Central Georgia Technical College, East Central Technical College, Flint River Technical College, Gwinnett Technical College, Heart of Georgia Technical College, Sandersville Technical College, South Georgia Technical College and West Central Technical College, had the most developed relationships with DJJ sites. East Central Tech and Sandersville Tech are working with sites that provide educational services to these students, and they both are consistently enrolling students. Gwinnett Tech and West Georgia Tech have established relationships with ancillary facilities to provide GED services.
The purpose of the SiS initiative is to support a selected group of technical colleges that have identified and conducted promising strategies in the eighth, ninth and tenth grades that seem to have a positive result in keeping students in school. During the next year, there will be 23 technical colleges working collaboratively with selected middle schools and high schools in their service area to enhance, expand and strengthen efforts that keep students in school and ultimately increase their likelihood of graduating from high school.
These efforts focus on what technical colleges do best -- working with students, parents, teachers and counselors in promoting career awareness, facilitating the assessment for career exploration and career readiness, and assisting in career planning. Each of the technical colleges that were awarded an SiS grant will be working toward meeting the same desired performance indicators and will report their progress quarterly. Many of these performance indicators were selected to complement and contribute to the success of other efforts currently underway in our schools. For instance, together the technical college and high schools will coordinate SiS efforts to work toward decreasing the percentage of students who fail one or more courses in the ninth and tenth grades, decreasing the percentage of students who need remediation in the ninth and tenth grades, decreasing absenteeism of ninth- and tenth-grade students and decreasing the number of ninth- and tenth-grade student disciplinary referrals. Additional performance indicators will address the extent to which: eighth-grade students complete a career interest survey; eighth-grade students complete an academic career plan for courses to take in high school and beyond; middle school teachers meet with teachers from high schools to which they send students to discuss expectations, content knowledge and performance standards for students entering high school; and middle school teachers are a part of a structured guidance program in the school. All of the SiS performance grant sites have the potential for implementing strategies that have been proven to make a difference in the lives of our children by keeping them in school.
Special Workforce Services helps students achieve their maximum potential through programs such as New Connections to Work and Georgia Fatherhood. New
Connections to Work For
24 years, the New Connections to Work program
has offered services to its target population,
which includes single parents, displaced homemakers,
single pregnant women and Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families (TANF) recipients. Last year, more than 7,000 TANF recipients and 4,000 single parents, displaced homemakers and single pregnant women received services through the New Connections to Work program. The program provided:
This state and federally funded program is offered in 33 technical colleges and 3 colleges with technical divisions. To date, almost 300,000 people have been assisted with their goal to achieve economic self-sufficiency.
In Georgia, uncollected child support is estimated to be more than $1 billion annually. Substantial public funds are currently directed to public assistance payments resulting from non-payments of child support by non-custodial parents. The impact of this problem is a wide range of social and economic issues including children being raised without positive male involvement, continued reliance on taxpayer-funded programs, and an undereducated and often untrained population of non-custodial parents. Georgia distributed $549 million in state fiscal year 2004 (July 1, 2003, to June 30, 2004). Of the $549 million distributed in FY 04, $7.4 million was collected from intercepted state tax refunds, $30 million from federal tax refunds, $3.3 million from unemployment compensation benefits, $40,656 from lottery winnings and $34.3 million in Non-IV-D payments by the Financial Customer Service Unit. In the past two years, Georgia has collected over $1 billion in child support payments. There are 481,718 child support cases in Georgia, representing 516,045 children whose non-custodial parent is ordered to pay. Twenty-four percent of all children under 18 in Georgia have a case with the Office of Child Support Enforcement, and each Georgia child support agent has an average caseload of 641 cases. The GFP helps address the seriousness of this problem by providing services and training designed to decrease these numbers. The Georgia Fatherhood Program (GFP) provides education, training and job placement assistance for non-custodial parents with court-ordered child support. GFP offers a statewide systematic delivery of services that enables participants to contribute to the economic well being of their children and the workforce development of the state. The standard is to provide a comprehensive program of services, which includes assessment, workshop competencies and skills training concurrent with employment. Specifically, the Georgia Fatherhood Program targets low-income, non-custodial parents court-ordered to pay child support through the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) who are referred by their child support agent, friends or by judges. The Georgia Fatherhood Program is offered in 32 technical colleges and four university system technical divisions. Cited by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Child Support Enforcement Association as the only statewide program of its kind, the Georgia Fatherhood Program serves as a national model of collaboration for comprehensive training and service delivery to non-custodial parents.
The state has developed a variety of programs
to promote responsible, involved non-custodial
support, particularly among low-income parents.
The primary focus is education, job training
and job placement assistance for men and women
who owe child support and need to increase
their labor marketability.
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The
2005 state GOAL winner is Ms. Kimberly Wilson.
The Business Office Technology (Legal Office
Studies) student from Augusta Technical College
anticipates receiving her diploma in 2005
and then working as a legal assistant in the
Judge Advocate General’s Office of the
United States Army. Prior to attending Augusta
Tech, Wilson was an honor graduate at West
Laurens High School, where she received her
high school diploma in 1998. 
The
recipient of the 2005 State Rick Perkins Award
is Gerald Moody, Computer Information Systems
instructor at Okefenokee Technical College.