Nearly 20% of Santa Barbara County residents lack a high school diploma, which is nearly 3% higher than the state average, according to the 2024 State of the Workforce Study.
The Santa Barbara County Workforce Development Board is hoping to change that through a new collaboration.
The Workforce Development Board and Allan Hancock College entered a memorandum of understanding last Tuesday to create a general educational development (GED) testing center in Santa Maria. The board also received $50,000 from the California Adult Education Program to ensure that the two agencies can open and maintain the center.
“Approaching them [Allan Hancock College] with this idea is not something that is typically done, but the fact that they were open to the idea of collaborating and bringing the center here closer to a community, that speaks a lot about them and their leadership,” Workforce Development Board Executive Director Luis Servin said.
The two nearest testing centers are more than 60 miles away, in Paso Robles and Santa Barbara, accumulating a one-way travel time of more than an hour.
Students could take the test online, but Fifth District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino said that isn’t a great option either.
“For a lot of people in Santa Maria, especially if you’re searching for a job, you might not have internet access,” he said.
Servin added that online testing has certain room requirements, creating even more challenges for test-takers.
By removing all barriers, the goal is to get more students to take their GED test with a faster process, recognizing that the lack of a high school diploma or GED certificate can limit access to higher education or job opportunities.
“Having it be locally in this area, it’s going to help students feed into their momentum,” said Andria Perdue-Keiser, Allan Hancock College’s interim dean of academic affairs.
The initiative has been in the works for more than a year. The testing center is going to share the space with the Workforce Development Board’s resource center at 1410 S. Broadway. The resource center already provides workforce-related assistance.
According to Perdue-Keiser, many groups utilize the space for workforce and educational assistance.
One program is Ser-Jobs for Progress Inc., which provides GED education classes to seasonal and migrant adult farmworkers. Currently, the program arranges transportation for students to go to Santa Barbara or Paso Robles to take their test.
Veronica Dominguez, project director, estimates that she and her staff spend 20 hours a week coordinating transportation.
“It’s just a lot of work, and students are losing pay for taking days off,” she said.
In their joint partnership, the Workforce Development Board provides the space, proctors and the technology, while Allan Hancock College provides the expertise.
“Having it at the Workforce Resource Center provides an opportunity to make it more accessible for the individuals that are already coming to the center,” Servin said.
The 20% of local adults without a GED or high school diploma can be attributed to the agriculture workforce in Santa Maria, according to Servin. He said many adults arrive in Santa Maria looking for employment but not possessing a high school diploma or equivalent.
“We have a population that historically have not had that level of education that other individuals in the community have,” he said.
Entering the memorandum of understanding is a preliminary step in opening the testing center’s doors.
The next step is getting everything finalized with the GED testing company, according to Perdue-Keiser.
While the center aims to be an accessible alternative, Servin said he can’t gauge how many people will utilize the testing site.
“We don’t know if we’re going to get one individual a month or we’re going to be bombarded with a couple hundred,” he said. “What we do understand is that a lot of our community members, especially in the north part of our county, struggle trying to make it to the testing center.”
The center, at 1410 S. Broadway, is planning for a soft launch opening in November.
