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Monday, October 05, 2009
FCPS Adult and Community Education to Dedicate Plum Center, Host Community Day
Master of ceremonies Kenneth (Ken) R. Plum will perform the ribbon cutting for the new educational center bearing his name, the Plum Center for Lifelong Learning, Fairfax County Public Schools’ (FCPS) Adult and Community Education (ACE) center, at 1 p.m. on Sunday, October 25. ACE will host the open house to dedicate and celebrate its official debut as a unique campus.
The afternoon program will include a full slate of free workshops and class demonstrations, an exhibit featuring artwork by ACE instructors, entertainment, children’s activities, door prizes, giveaways, food, and refreshments. Instructional topics include management of personal finances to attain specific objectives, protecting identity and privacy on the Internet, pointers on using Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel, floral arranging, culinary arts, and CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) techniques for dogs and humans. Games and storytelling for children will be ongoing throughout the afternoon.
The Plum Center is home to a broad spectrum of instruction, ranging from career programs and leisure classes for adults to driver education and elementary and secondary enrichment for youth. The Plum Center also serves as administrative headquarters for ACE. The building once housed an elementary school and later served as home to the FCPS Department of Human Resources until its recent renovation.
The Fairfax County School Board named the educational facility the Plum Center for Lifelong Learning on September 4, 2008, to honor Plum for leading the adult education program “from a small initiative to a world-class program with unparalleled breadth and depth.” According to the resolution passed unanimously by the School Board, the center will also serve as a classroom campus for adult and community education in order to meet the essential lifelong learning needs of the community.
Currently a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, Plum led ACE from 1968 to 1996. In his address to the School Board, Plum said, “Lifelong learning means to me that an education is not the simple acquisition of facts and information at a point in time but is the development of skills of creative thinking and problem solving that will help our students to survive in a future world about which we only know that it will be characterized by change.”
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Note: The Plum Center for Lifelong Learning is located at 6815 Edsall Road in Springfield. For more information, visit www.fcps.edu/aceclasses and contact James Ginther at 703-658-2784 or jgginther@fcps.edu.
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