Many parents are worried about the intermingling of adult students with their children after they found out about the relocation of nearly 500 adult education students to the Global Communications Academy among Edwards Street set to take place in Fall of 2020.
Parents expressed their safety concerns of having the adult classes held in the same building as their kindergarten to eighth grade students.
“Anything can happen at any given time, i think, if you have adults with minors in this school,” parent Cythia Lopez said.
The city’s current Adult Education Program is being held at Renzulli Gifted Academy -which houses students in grades fourth to sixth and according to the Board there hasn’t been any safety issues throughout the years.
The Academy’s current high school class will be relocated in Fall of 2020, which is why parents said the Board deciding to co-locate adult-ed to the school. A plan that was approved by the BOE back in 2017 as part of the District Model for Excellence Program.
According to the BOE there will be individual secure entrances and assigned security personal for both global academy and the adult education program.
“They would be in the building at the same time but again they are separate programs they’re not intermingling with each other during the day,” Director of Communications Hartford Public School John Fergus said.
Many people said they would feel more secure if adult classes were only held at night, but the board said there will be no changes made to the availability of daytime classes for adult students.