Friends of Portland Adult Education
Supporting adult learners to reach their educational and employment goals
Portland Adult Education (PAE) launched their first Heat Pump Installation Pre-Apprenticeship cohort this spring with support from a CEP workforce grant. Through the program, 10 students earned OSHA-10 certification and completed Efficiency Maine’s 40-hour training, successfully assembling and running a heat pump in the classroom. They also received resume support, practiced mock interviews, and attended a clean energy job fair.
Anita St. Onge, Executive Director of PAE, and Elizabeth Love, Assistant Director of PAE, presented an overview of Portland Adult Education to the Portland Board of Public Education Business Meeting on June 21, 2022.
Watch the full recording here.
The Portland Phoenix recently published this article about PAE classes during the pandemic:
For Gail Burnett, who teaches English as a second language at Portland Adult Education, communication with her students was already sometimes difficult before the coronavirus pandemic. Relying entirely on virtual learning has made the language barrier more pronounced.
“At the beginning of the semester, I had students who I had never met. I have students who I’ve never seen in the flesh,” Burnett said last week. “At one point I said ‘look at the bottom of the screen,’ and after a while (a student) said, ‘what’s a screen?’” She discusses the challenges with finding a path through the pandemic with her language-challenged students.
Read the full article here.
