Discover one of COMO’s best kept secrets: Columbia’s adult high school.
Life happens sometimes in a way that cuts off a young person’s educational journey — and their potential career path — in one blow. Coming back from such a derailment isn’t easy. Until recently, options for individuals in that situation were limited, with scant opportunities for a successful future.
With the advent of adult high schools, another road opened. Metropolitan Employment and Rehabilitation Services (MERS) Goodwill Excel Centers are accredited high schools where learning takes place in a physical classroom with other students. The students form relationships and friendships with each other and their teachers, and the teachers are committed to their students’ success.
Columbia’s MERS Goodwill Excel Center opened in October 2019 in the former Columbia Daily Tribune building at 101 N. Fourth St. It’s just three blocks from the University of Missouri campus, anchoring the west side of downtown Columbia.
“Unfortunately, we’re the best kept secret in Columbia,” said Mike Reynolds, Excel Center director. And that is the center’s biggest challenge — getting the word out to those who need what it offers. The goal is to have 200 students year-round. The most it has had to date is 160.
Goodwill thrift stores are common to the American landscape, with forty-four stores between Columbia and Illinois, Reynolds said. He also pointed out that Goodwill is more than thrift stores. The organization’s “hand-up” philosophy is also focused on education.
An adult high school differs from general education development, or GED, diploma studies in the learning environment, the class requirements, and the certification received. Typically, an individual studies for the GED online or in night classes. At the Excel Center, students learn in an environment like that of a small college. To qualify for GED certification, an individual takes an all-day test. To qualify for graduation from the Excel Center, the student must complete the units of study that the state of Missouri sets forth for all high schoolers. And when students complete those units of study, they walk across the stage in cap and gown and accept their diploma. As Reynolds notes, “It’s not just a diploma, it’s a career.”
The Rev. Edgar J. Helms established Goodwill Industries more than 120 years ago when he collected used donations from the wealthier citizens of Boston. He then hired people from the poorer neighborhoods to repair and refresh the used items, which they then sold or brought home for their own use. Thus, the Goodwill motto of “a hand up, not a handout” was born.
Statistically, 100 percent of the students at the Excel Center dropped out of high school. The reasons for not completing high school as teens are as varied as the individuals themselves, and the reasons that compel them to go back and finish their education are equally as varied. One man promised his wife and children that he would finish high school (he is now in the armed services with a promising future). A young mother plans to go into nursing after earning her diploma. A middle-aged woman decided it was time to get a career instead of working a job she hated; and a former refugee wanted to get his pilot’s license (which he did).
Due to state education funding requirements in Missouri, twenty-one is the youngest that a student can enroll at the Excel Center. Currently, a seventy-nine-year-old woman is the oldest student, bringing up the average student age to forty.
Reynolds retired as a school administrator on the last day of June in 2019. The next day, he began his “retirement” as the director of the yet-to-be MERS Goodwill Excel Center in Columbia.
“On July 1 of 2019, I had no school. I had no staff,” he recalled. “I had no students, and our CEO of MERS Goodwill in St. Louis told me, ‘You’re going to open your doors on October 19.’”
And he did — with a full staff and more than 100 students.
When its doors opened, the Columbia Excel Center had three classrooms in the basement at its location on Fourth Street, and two classrooms and a daycare center in a separate building. By January of 2020, renovations of the main floor on Fourth Street were completed. Eight weeks later, COVID hit; and just like everything else, classes went virtual.
These days students rush through the halls, greeting each other on their way to class, to meet with a teacher or life coach, or study in the cafeteria where free hot coffee is always available.
“Class is free; daycare is free; coffee is free; parking is free,” Reynolds explained. “Time commitment is not. You have to really want to be here.” Once an individual is enrolled, he said, the faculty and staff do everything in their power to ensure the student’s success.
The typical individual who enrolls in classes at the Excel Center comes with fourteen high school credit hours. The state of Missouri requires twenty-four credit hours for graduation. The Center will get a student’s high school transcript and work with them to determine the courses they need.
The Center offers morning, afternoon, and evening classes, so whether a student works a day job, a night job, or has school-age children — or no time constraints — there are class times that will work with all schedules. Class sizes are small and run for eight weeks, year-round.
Earning a high school diploma, while a milestone, isn’t the only goal set for students at the Excel Center. The diploma opens doors to career paths that remain shut without it. Workforce development is a high priority, and included in the education is access to a college and careers readiness specialist. She’s there to help students build resumes, learn job interview skills, and even connect students with apprenticeships.
In addition to the “best kept secret” status that Reynolds described, he added that the biggest challenge that students face is the cost of transportation. Reynolds steps in to do what he can, driving the school “bus” — a Honda Pilot — from 100 to 120 miles each day, picking up students across central Missouri and dropping them back home at the end of the day.
For the nearly half a million adult Missourians without a high school diploma, the Excel Center exists to provide a tuition-free second chance and an open door to a new future.
MERS Goodwill Excel Center
101 North Fourth Street, Columbia, MO 65201
excel.mersgoodwill.org
573.499.1220
Facebook: The Excel Center Columbia
Youtube: mersmissourigoodwill2489
