Central Educational Center

CEO Message

Thank you for visiting the website of Central Educational Center, a national Model High School in Newnan, Coweta County, Georgia (just southwest of Atlanta on I-85).

CEC opened as a publicly-funded charter school in August, 2000. Our joint venture among local businesses, the Coweta County School System and West Central Technical College had its original charter renewed by both our local Board of Education and the State Board of Education in March, 2004. In 2004, CEC was named a national Model High School by a consortium of professional educational organizations including the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE), the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), High Schools that Work, and many others. CEC is the vehicle that seamlessly connects East Coweta High School, Newnan High School, Northgate High School, West Central Technical College and local businesses to create new options for students. We were honored to describe this innovative approach to the Model Schools Conference in Washington, DC as part of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s “Bringing Best Practices to Scale” project during June of 2004.

Why have more than 400 organizations from many US states and 15 other countries visited CEC? And why is CEC featured in Japanese educational literature?

Central Educational Center responds to a rapidly changing economy by SEAMLESSLY combining academics with career and technical education … high school with college … and education with businesses. We are a charter school serving grades 9-12, and our “team members” (CEC jargon for “students”) attend voluntarily from our county’s three base high schools for all or part of every school day. We design our curriculum around the needs and expectations of business. We regularly ask businesses what they “need.” Businesses tell us to focus as much on soft skills (work ethic) as on academic and technical skills. We respond by providing a work ethic grade in every class in addition to a course grade. We provide work-based learning opportunities (job-shadowing, internships, apprenticeships) to hundreds of team members each year in collaboration with more than 100 local businesses. We offer high school students the chance to earn dual-enrollment college certifications through West Central Technical College (CEC serves as the Coweta County campus for West Central Technical College), learning alongside adults. Those dual-enrollment students experience success in both the workplace and in additional post-secondary education. That fact has been verified by two outstanding research institutions. CEC serves as our county’s “workforce development center”, a center for lifelong learning. We teach adults in Technical College and GED-preparatory courses day and night. We house the county’s evening high school. We are home to our state’s leading Performance Learning Center (PLC). And, we provide customized training to local corporations through West Central Technical College. CEC connects Coweta County’s citizens and businesses with the opportunities created by a more global and “technical” economy. As our original steering committee said, “The Future Starts Here.”

We live in a great community, one of the first in the US to create an initiative like CEC. We hope that you will use this site to learn more about CEC. Call on us when we can help.

Mark Whitlock, CEO