Students seeking to teach children in their earliest grades can take their first two years of college at Georgia Perimeter College and finish their degrees at Gordon State College in Barnesville, thanks to a new agreement between the two institutions.

Georgia Perimeter and Gordon State launched the articulation agreement for early education students this fall. Rob Watts, GPC interim president, and Dr. Max Burns, president of Gordon State, signed the official documents at GPC’s Decatur Campus Oct. 7.

The new 2+2 agreement allows Georgia Perimeter students who earn their Associate of Science in Teacher Education to transfer seamlessly to Gordon State to finish their bachelor’s degrees in teaching.

Students will be certified elementary education teachers in pre-K through fifth grade after graduating from Gordon State’s program, says Dr. Ursula Thomas, GPC’s director of field experience and assessment for teacher education.

“This semester alone, we have more than 200 students in teacher education—and almost 60 percent of these students have stated their interest in elementary education,” says Thomas.

“This agreement will help us to attract quality students,” said Gordon’s Burns.

Teacher education courses are available on all five GPC campuses and online. At GPC, these students must post at least 30 hours of classroom observations and volunteer service in schools before completing their associate degrees. GPC has agreements with 27 public school districts across the state, as well as an additional 41 for-profit and non-profit academic institutions, where students volunteer. 

Thomas said that early education majors will go on a bus field trip to Gordon College later this fall to explore the campus.

This is the second 2 + 2 articulation agreement in education for GPC; last month the college signed an agreement with Clayton State University for secondary and high school teacher education students.

 For information on the programs, contact Thomas at ursula.thomas@gpc.edu