Paola’s adult education program is ending, due to a loss of grant funding, but Director Karen Ulanski-Swank is determined to find a way to keep serving community members. She has worked at the Paola Adult Education Center for 28 years, and says she submitted a grant application for a five-year grant that would have funded the adult education program to the tune of about $225,000 each year.
In March, she was notified by the Kansas Board of Regents that the grant request was denied because the application was incomplete. Ulanski-Swank said responses to three important questions on the fillable pdf were left blank, but when she checked her saved version, they were filled out. Despite multiple attempts to contact state officials to fix the misunderstanding, Ulanski-Sswank said the decision to deny the grant was upheld.
Without funding to support the adult education program, Paola USD 368 Board of Education members voted during a special meeting in late April to shut down the program. Superintendent Matt Meek says it would not have been sustainable for the school district to take on the cost of the program. Ulanski-Swank confirmed that she will remain with the school district to oversee the alternative education program, which serves middle and high school students who lack the resources to succeed in a regular classroom.
