Somerville Center for Adult Learning and Education (SCALE)

I just added two new nodes to the map, the first being SCALE. Essentially, SCALE is an organization under the Somerville Public School system that provides classes for adults in basic education, secondary education (GED), and English Language Learning (ELL). It is a fairly big program, serving about 1200 adult a year, and fun fact, is funded in part by Tufts. I asked the woman I talked to about SCALE in relation to the economy, and she said they have been affected in two main ways - decreased funding and decreased number of students attending class. Their enrollment numbers remained the same, however, indicating that people wanted to continue their education. It's just the economic situation forced many of their students to pick up more jobs or longer hours, and as a result weren't able to come. She also said that SCALE has recently increased its services a bit in an attempt to help their students get social services support and subsidies outside the classroom, so that hopefully they can spend more time in it. The woman seemed very interested in our project and I think is definitely someone would participate once it is up and running.