ACCD News & Events

Alamo Community College District Steps Up to Provide Educational Services for Hurricane Katrina Evacuees

For Immediate Release
September 13, 2005
Contact: Kay Hendricks, Coordinator of Communication
(210) 208-8006
khendric@accd.edu

The Alamo Community College District (ACCD)—in conjunction with its four colleges—Northwest Vista College, Palo Alto College, St. Philip’s College and San Antonio College—is doing its part to help those displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

The ACCD colleges have contacted evacuees who are interested in enrolling—either for credit courses or for short-term job training and personal skills programs. Effective immediately, ACCD colleges will defer tuition and fees for any evacuees who wish to enroll and will help them in securing financial aid. Testing costs will be deferred for those who were already enrolled in college, and fees for the Accuplacer test, which the colleges use to assess skill levels, will be deferred. Evacuees who enroll will also receive a 20% discount on textbooks at the college bookstores. ACCD is staffing information centers at each of the local shelters to provide information on educational services.

ACCD is currently offering free GED and Adult Basic Education courses at the district’s Advanced Technology Center (ATC), located at Kelly USA next to the larger of the two Kelly shelters for evacuees. Beginning next Monday, September 19, ACCD will also offer free workshops on college/training orientation at Windsor Park Mall and the ATC and a workshop on life skills at the ATC. Beginning September 26, free workshops on financial management, stress management and computer skills for senior citizens will be offered at the ATC.

To enable evacuees to return to their communities and assist with rebuilding efforts, ACCD will offer short-term training programs of six months or less to train them in electrical, plumbing, carpentry and heating and air conditioning skills. Related modules will include welding, forklift operations and EMS training. ACCD offered this type of training for students from Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador that enabled them to return home and rebuild after the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

Additional short-term training programs will include truck driving, logistics (warehousing and inventory control), office skills and information technology, including Microsoft training. The short-term programs will begin no later than October 17.

When ACCD’s eight-week Flex II term begins on that date, new courses will be offered to allow evacuees to advance in their academic core curriculum so that they will be able to transfer to four-year colleges and universities.

In addition to educational services, ACCD and its colleges have held and are continuing the collection of food, school supplies, clothing and money for the relief effort. Some of the colleges have sent counselors to intake centers to provide personal, and, if appropriate, academic counseling. They have also sent nursing students to assist with healthcare needs at the evacuation shelter, including health assessments and checking on medications.