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The Central Educational Center has been awarded a $150,000
Georgia Career Academy Project grant to help expand the charter
school’s music and video production programs.
The grant – administered through the Technical College System of
Georgia – is competitively awarded to Georgia’s growing system
of Career Academies which are, in part, based on Coweta’s
Central Educational Center (CEC) charter school model.
The grant “will help expand a very unique set of partnerships
that will increase CEC’s video production capabilities and our
music production capabilities,” said Mark Whitlock, CEC’s Chief
Executive Officer. Whitlock said the funding will be used to
upgrade equipment in teacher Michael Britt’s Broadcast Video
program and allow the program to train students in a more
production-based curriculum with the school’s business partners.
That program partners with Newnan-based digital media company
NuLink, among others, and NuLink houses its local production
studios on the charter school’s campus.
The grant will also help the CEC and the University of
Georgia-based Dallas Austin Business Certificate Program develop
a sound recording studio for use by broadcast video students and
students in Dr. Lyn Schenbeck’s Business of the Arts program.
The expansion of the programs will help CEC develop an on-campus
Associate Degree program in Digital Media offered by West
Georgia Technical College. Whitlock said that the University of
Georgia has also expressed an interest in offering its Music
Business certificate program – offered through the Terry College
of Business – at CEC as well.
Georgia’s film-industry tax credits have significantly expanded
the entertainment industry’s presence in Georgia, to the tune of
$2 billion in the state, noted Whitlock. “And as a community –
because of entities like the Centre for Performing and Visual
Arts and Riverwood Studios - we are well-positioned to take
advantage of those opportunities.
“Technical and production account for 80 percent of the jobs in
that industry, and there are tremendous opportunities for
well-trained, talented graduates,” said Whitlock.
Whitlock recognized Britt, Schenbeck, West Georgia Technical
College Coweta Campus Director Tonya Whitlock, NuLink executive
Lana Mobley (also a CEC board member), Dallas Austin Foundation
Director Bernard Cook and UGA Music Business Certificate Program
Bruce Burch for successfully leading CEC’s GCAP grant proposal.
In making application for the grant, “they worked backward from
what the industry actually needs in terms of a skilled
workforce,” said Whitlock. “That’s the culture and commitment at
CEC, and the basis of all of our community partnership.”
The competitive grants are awarded only to Georgia’s growing
number of Career Academies. The academies high school students
career and college preparation through industry-based
approaches, and offer credit towards high school graduation and
through partnering post-secondary institutions.
Whitlock and others at CEC can also take some extra satisfaction
in being awarded a Georgia Career Academy Project grant since
the charter school served as a principal model for those
academies.
“There are about 20 Career Academies operating in Georgia now,
so we were fortunate as an existing career academy to receive
this funding,” he said. “I think that speaks well of our
partnership and our plan.”
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