Story by Lonnie Adams
Gilmer County, GA – The Christian Learning Center (CLC) has put a proposal before the Board of Education at a work session on Monday, May 11th, 2015. Jennifer Colson, the Executive Director of the CLC, delivered the proposal that requested the Board allow the CLC to offer classes to 6th grade students at the Gilmer Middle School.
The CLC operates as a non-profit Release-Time Education program. Under this title, they must operate without government funding, off the school campus, and as a completely voluntary course to the students. They currently only offer high school courses and host close to 100 students a day.
Ms. Colson says they will only gain one class for the 6th graders during 1st period. This will allow them to keep the high school students separated from the middle school students as there is no high school class at this hour.
If the Board accepts this proposal, the class is expected at this point, to operate on a 9 week rotation while housing around 20 students per class. As they move into the future, with a successful run of the pilot program, Ms. Colson hopes to hire 2 contract teachers to run 2 classes during the first period for 6th graders.
If the community continues to support and donate to the CLC, they hope, within 5 – 7 years, to reach all students in middle school. “We are very excited about the opportunities,” says Colson, “The community has asked us to be in Middle School, and we want to serve the community any way we can.”