Office of Adult and Continuing Education

The Office of Adult and Continuing Education is the major provider of adult & family education in New York City. We are an integral part of the Board of Education of the City of New York's parent initiatives and the Mayor's Office of Adult Literacy Services.

We offer over 950 classes throughout the city in schools and community based organizations, Monday through Saturdays, day and evenings. In order to further enhance our service delivery system, we are funded as an ACCESS (Adult Centers for Comprehensive Education and Support Services) agency. As an ACCESS agency we operate three ACCESS Centers located in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens as well as regional offices located throughout the city. Most recently we developed a Job Prep Academy with the sole purpose of increasing employment opportunities for ALL. This initiative integrates job readiness skills training with Basic Education/ESL instruction to increase the employment opportunities for students using a contextualized approach to learning.

Through staff development, special attention has also been given to the integration of learning labs and multimedia projects to enhance all levels of staff and learners awareness of technology. We expect to pilot many technologically related instructional strategies FY98-99 to enhance student achievements and assess paradigms of learning/teaching created to meet standards/outcomes.

Mission Statement

The mission of the Office of Adult and Continuing Education is to promote empowerment through decision-making and problem solving skills that lead adult learners to gainful employment through a continuum of services - Basic Education, English as a Second Language, Occupational Training, Employment Preparation or a combination of all.

Our primary goal is to improve the total Adult Education delivery system with an emphasis on life-long learning, family literacy and work.