Scott Swanson
In a classroom at Linn-Benton Community College’s Sweet Home branch, several students sit around a U-shaped table, eyeing a screen containing a selection from a sociology report on crime rates.
“According to this, what is the most prevalent crime against a person?” asks instructor Kelli Wallener, of Corvallis.
“Assault,” offers one student.
“Murder, manslaughter,” chimes in another.
They all watch the screen intently as Wallener moves on through a brief lesson.
These are students in Linn-Benton Community College’s morning GED class in Sweet Home. Early in the quarter, the college was considering shutting the class down because it was short of students.
As of now, with 11 students this term, the class is off and running, said Wallener, who has taught it for the past two years, three mornings a week.
“We’d like it to be around 13,” she said, noting that the class started with nine.
Mary Mayfield, department chair of LBCC’s Adult Education program, which offers the GED instruction, said college administrators have permitted the class to continue in the past when it has been below the minimum-student mark that is generally the standard for most classes to fly.
“As economics change, as the structure of the college changes, the college has a definite minimum number of 15 within the first weeks of classes,” she said. “We have gotten a lot of leeway in terms of the fact that we serve the rural areas, where it’s hard to meet that minimum.”
The morning class in Sweet Home had nine students by midway through the fall quarter after starting with six, but Mayfield said she’s been told that can’t continue.
“It’s just becoming more important to have 15 people in most of the classes,” she said.
Wallener said students were “upset” when the class was cancelled – temporarily – because it’s important to many of them. Some can’t get to other locations where the class is offered and for some, it’s a matter of comfort and security.
“This is a population that kind of struggles with confidence,” she said. “They get used to a particular situation and a change is a little bit nerve-wracking. Some have kids and can’t come in the evening.
Some can’t get to Lebanon or Albany. It takes a different level of motivation to get to Albany than it does here.
“Some are more comfortable here. It takes a lot for them to make it through these doors to begin with.”
The General Educational Development program, more commonly known as the GED, is a series of five subject tests, which, when passed, certify that the taker has the equivalent of high school-level academic achievement.
Students, many of whom have dropped out of high school years before, can earn the equivalent of a high school diploma and can go on to work or college.
Subject matter in the classroom focuses mainly on math, reading and writing, Wallner said, though there is some testing on basic social studies and science knowledge.
The program costs $30 a term.
The GED program is part of LBCC’s larger Adult Basic Education program, which has a staff of some 20 teachers and assistants who provide GED, math and English education, and Spanish-language classes for adults.
“We’re not talking about kids,” said Mayfield, who’s been teaching GED students since 1979. “We’ve got people anywhere from 16 to 80. We almost always have people in their 40s and 50s in our classes – sometimes older. We actually do much more than prepare people for their GED.”
Students who come include those who realize they need to beef up their basic math or writing skills, or who want to be able to help their children, she said.
“We get people who want to upgrade their skills so they can be on par with their kids, so they can help them with their homework.”
She and others say a “substantial number” of county residents have not earned a high school diploma.
According to Mary Sue Rey-nolds, who directs the Sweet Home and Lebanon LBCC programs, a five-year U.S. Census study, from 2007 to 2011, showed that of approximately 6,000 Sweet Home residents who are 25 years old and older, about 5.5 percent have less than a ninth-grade education and another 12.2 percent have less than a high school diploma or GED. In Linn County, of approximately 78,000 residents 25 years old and older who were surveyed, about 3.4 percent have less than a ninth-grade education and about 8.1 percent have less than a high school diploma or GED.
Wallener said her students range from 10th- or 11th-grade dropouts to people who weren’t able to earn a high school diploma for other reasons.
“We have kids whose parents took them out of school in grade school to home school them and didn’t,” she said.
Rory Meyers, 18, said he has been home-schooled since second grade, but had to move out of his home recently and “a GED is the only option I have.
“I’ve been in lots of educational options,” he said. Meyers catches a bus from Albany, where he now lives, to Sweet Home because he likes the class.
“Personally, Kelli is an amazing instructor,” he said. “She’s the only instructor I’ve been able to work with. I like the environment here. I’m treated like an adult.”
He said he’s aiming to join the Navy or possibly serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
For some, a GED is necessary to making it on their own.
Danni Glassley, 22, of Sweet Home, dropped out of high school after skipping too much school, then had a baby, she said.
She’s aiming to earn her GED “to show him that even though you do stuff, you can get a diploma,” she said, adding that she’d like to become a lawyer.
If the Sweet Home morning class had been canceled, she said she probably would have postponed her pursuit of a diploma – “or I would have given up – oh well.”
Wallener said many students are in the class because they have few options.
“A lot of them say that when they apply for jobs at McDonald’s, they’re told ‘Sorry, you don’t have your GED.’ They can’t get an entry-level job they needed yesterday.”
Students who want to go on to a four-year college must earn a higher grade average on tests, but otherwise they can go to a community college. Some are aiming to get into welding or other vocational programs.
For many, the class is a point of stability in their lives, she said.
“Some of them have been coming for quite a long time,” Wallener said. “It’s kind of a safe environment.”
Each student works at his or her own pace, because they are all at different points in their education, though there are some common lessons, such as the one on writing papers.
Mayfield said that one incentive for people to get involved in the GED class is that the test will change at the end of the year and any students who haven’t gotten their diploma will have to take the new tests, whether or not they have passed the current ones.
“Any scores that people have before Dec. 19, which is the last day that they’re going to offer the current tests, won’t count,” she said. “If people want to be in the process now, they will have to finish by Dec. 19 or repeat their tests.”
To get involved in any of the LBCC GED classes, students must attend a mandatory, free two-day orientation session, the next of which will begin March 18. for more information, prospective students should call the Sweet Home Center at (541) 367-6901 or the Adult Education Program office at (541) 917-4710.
Wallener said it was “hard” on students when the class was threatened.
“It’s upsetting to think the class could be taken from them. They find their niche and this turns everything upside down.”
Glassley said she likes the style of learning she’s experienced in the class, unlike the “three or four” others she said she’s experienced.
“It’s hands-on training,” she said. “They will help you if you need help and they’ll make sure you’re actually ready to take the tests.
“In others, they just give you a book and make you study by yourself.”