B Y   P A U L   K A R R

ne Friday afternoon in 1996, Warner Robins' public works director handed out new route assignments to the city's sanitation drivers — the aim was making trash collection more efficient.

But that's not what happened. On Monday, trash collection in the central Georgia city was in chaos.

Garbage piled up as some trucks cruised old routes, while others switched to new ones. Two, or even three drivers would converge on one street to make the same pickup, while another street nearby might go untouched.

"It was totally disorganized," said sanitation worker Kent Jordan.

Many drivers couldn't read the new instructions, it turned out.

"Some of the guys couldn't read anything in these folders," Jordan said. "They knew landmarks, but they didn't know the names of the streets they were driving down. The worst part was, it happened Tight in the middle of spring cleaning. There was a lot of trash sitting there for awhile. "

Once the mess — literally — was sorted out, city officials convened and began to do some soul-searching.

"I was shocked that we had employees that were so undertrained and nothing had been done about it," said Warner Robins Mayor Donald Walker.

"I think we were all stunned, really, and Mayor Walker was just heartbroken," said Kathy Hart, the city's Community Development Block Grant program director. "You just wonder how we could have not known this. When we went to the mayor shortly afterward with some ideas about how to improve workplace literacy, we received his total support. He said, 'Tell me what you need."'

Within a few months, the city — in cooperation with Middle Georgia Technical lnstitute's adult literacy program and the other mayors in Houston County — created a task force to tackle the problem.

Soon after, Houston County joined more than 40 other Georgia communities by applying to the Certified Literate Community Program (CLCP) — a program created by the Department of Technical and Adult Education (DTAE) in 1989 to encourage, unify and certify literacy efforts. The program's ambitious goal is to get each participating community to stamp out half of its functional illiteracy in only 10 years. So far, the program seems to be accomplishing just that.

The push to join the program is usually headed by a nucleus of residents who have taken on literacy as a personal commitment, said Billie Izard, the state's CLCP executive director. Often one high-profile leader inspires them to keep the effort moving forward.

"It's usually someone who knows everyone in town well," Izard said. "In one case, it was a former school superintendent. In another case, it was the community newspaper's editor and publisher. In another, it was a former high school football coach."

Literacy problems can be found in both rural and urban areas. Statewide, nearly one in three adult Georgians — almost two million people — are considered functionally illiterate by the U.S. Department of Labor. The Department estimates these workers cost Georgia businesses $2 billion annually in lost time, substandard performance or other job-related inefficiencies.

And it's not just urban communities that are joining the Certified Literate Community Program. Even rural counties are doing it. Even the smallest ones.

THE LITTLE COUNTY THAT COULD
Rural Schley (pronounced "sly") County, population 3,800, is located in Southwest Georgia, just a stone's throw from its high-profile neighbor, Plains. It's a close-knit community — the kind where dogs wander lazily across the main street at midday, and folks like it that way. Residents are civic minded: 90 percent of the county's eligible voters turn out for elections and local schools have improved in recent years to the point that residents from surrounding counties are clamoring to get into them.

To thrive and grow, however, Schley's businesses need a constant supply of literate workers. And that's been a problem. Only 60 percent of the county's adult residents hold a high school diploma or GED (General Educational Development), and one in four adults cannot read.

That's why, on a warm, spring — like day last February, all the movers and shakers in the tiny county seat of Ellaville assembled in a church vestry-turned-banquet hall to await the decision of DTAE's literacy program evaluation team. Savoring key lime pie and homemade custard, the assorted volunteers — who had worked diligently for three years to build county literacy programs eagerly awaited news of what they hoped would be the real dessert: designation as a Certified Literate Community Program Participant.

Such a designation brings not only pride and prestige, but also a pair of snappy road signs to welcome travelers entering town on U.S. 19 and Georgia 26. And it is one tangible way of marking gains that have made profound changes in the lives of everyday people.

People like Diane Hicks, who described how the county's literacy program had changed her life. With a recently earned GED in hand, the program gave her confidence and skills to apply for new jobs.

"I work as a cashier now," she said, struggling to fight back tears. "I intend to do better very soon."

Each community applying for Certified Literate Community Program Participant status is evaluated by the Georgia Council on Adult Literacy (GCAL). GCAL is a 16-member advisory board appointed by the governor that assists the office of adult literacy by working to increase awareness of adult literacy efforts within the community.

And the Schley County evaluation was typical. The GCAL team, which listened to Hicks' story, wandered all over the county during a two-day visit, talking to program participants and instructors and asking questions. They were a varied bunch.

Team leader Charlie Hicks, a mortician and former school principal from Taylor County and Cobb County businessman and retired physician Alfred Yin interjected precise questions during the evaluation. Izard and Frances Rhetta, Office of Adult Literacy staff specialist, kept the evaluation process on track, providing background on the county's particulars. And Donna Maddock-Cowart, DTAE director of communications, served as the evaluation team's interested Georgian.

In spite of disparate backgrounds and interests, the evaluators were unified in their excitement about Schley County's literacy program.

"This is remarkable," beamed Charlie Hicks. "What we have here is a very aggressive little rural county."

With that thought still fresh in their minds, team members observed the different ways the county delivers literacy programs to its residents.

During a visit to a literacy classroom in nearby South Georgia Technical Institute, student Barto Reagan talked about his early life in North Georgia where he learned to hunt and fish — but was not prepared for a world where reading and math would be more important. He learned to read in the institute's literacy program, caught the bug of learning and hasn't looked back since.

"I get emotional about it,' Reagan said, near tears. "This literacy program is free. It's free. And it's so important."

South Georgia Tech has been integral in area literacy efforts, the committee soon learned: regional adult education director Jan Hobgood roams a five-county region teaching literacy and coordinating instructors, and under President Jon E. Johnson's leadership the technical institute has continually donated time, space and materials to the cause.

The team visited an elementary school, a migrant workers' education project, and Ellaville's former firetruck garage — a narrow room now packed with computers, books and eager adult learners studying everything from first-grade reading to computer graphics. While there was little money available in this tiny rural county to pay for the literacy administrator required of a CLCP, the application — put together by county literacy workers, teachers, parents and business leaders — was among the most impressive they had ever seen, especially considering the tiny size of the county. Among the ambitious goals: teaching at least half of the county's estimated 1,100 illiterate residents to read during the next 10 years.

"We believe we are justified in this by the extremely small size of our county, and the tremendous community spirit here for getting things done," said Faye Frazier, director of the Schley County Department of Family and Children Services. She then pointed out something that had already caught the team's eye — that the county had secured $37,000 worth of donated computers, classroom space and other equipment and services.

"They've put together an impressive program here and I believe it will work," Yin said and then the committee took a vote.

At the farewell luncheon, Charlie Hicks stood for closing remarks as a hush fell over the room.

"It was unanimous," he thundered, "Unanimous! We will recommend in favor of a Certified Literate Community Program here."

As Schley officially joined the ranks of some much larger and wealthier counties, cheers erupted from every corner of the vestry.

"We don't have a big hospital, a big this, a big that," said Frazier. "But I didn't like to think about what we don't have. I like to think about what we have. A real community spirit."

To that, she might have added: a brighter future.

Victoria Coutler, adult literacy instructor at Middle
Georgia Technical Institute, assists students with an assignment
in an English as a Second Language class.

MEETING TEN-YEAR GOALS
But building that future takes work.

And a second evaluation occurs once a participating community such as Schley County has met all of its 10-year goals. The year 2000 is the first year that a Georgia project (Spalding County) will mark 10 years in the program. Three additional communities (Elbert, Muscogee and Wayne counties) will become eligible in 2001 and seven more will become eligible in 2002.

Each of these communities will become certified as a literate community if it achieves its literacy goals by that time.

Muscogee County, which includes the large western Georgia city of Columbus, submitted its application in 1991. During the intervening nine years, more than 15,000 local residents have become literate — 80 percent of the way to the county's goal of 18,402, Which it will reach before 2001. That success is largely thanks to the coordinated efforts of Muscogee County School System, Columbus Technical Institute, the local chamber of commerce, area employers like Cessna Aircraft who have begun in-house workplace literacy programs, and the county's own Tillinghurst Adult Education Center, which offers a wide range of services — plus child care and transportation assistance — for adult learners in the city and surrounding suburbs.

"We're getting excited,' said Brenda Sybrant, the county's Certified Literate Community Program director. "We're starting to think about how to celebrate reaching our 10-year goal."

Sybrant credits a forward-thinking steering committee at the outset with setting the tone for literacy efforts.

"They determined from the start that there must be representation from all segments of our community — everyone from CEOs to line workers to adult education students — all coming together as a group to plan this," she said. "I think that having such a broad coalition has helped us get this far."

Columbus was the first large community to hop aboard the Certified Literate Community Program train, which began running in 1989 when DTAE and GCAL created the program as a means of encouraging, and then certifying, local literacy efforts.

The cause got a huge boost due to Georgia's former First Lady Shirley Miller's support of the program.

"Her continuing public support of the program — and her work to obtain the road signs and coordinate a 1997 campaign to highlight literacy programs — has done much to place the issue in the public eye and inspire counties to organize their literacy efforts," said Izard. As of October 1999, a total of 42 Georgia communities had been evaluated during the Certified Literate Community Program's first nine years, two more counties were awaiting evaluation visits, and a dozen more were getting ready to apply.

If each of these communities accomplishes its stated goal, more than 230,000 Georgians will be able to pick up this story and read it straight through for themselves for the first time in their lives.