No one likes tests, but they are a fact of life for many school and career opportunities.

That’s why, for the last year, the Green River College and Enumclaw Campus Director Chelsee Redmond have been breathing more life into the city’s satellite campus in order to broaden education opportunities, and make continuing education more realistic for those working a nine-to-five.

Redmond joined the college almost a year ago exactly, and quickly learned that there is a strong local need for numerous state certifications, especially for General Education Development (GED) tests.

“We had a lot of kids fall through the cracks with COVID and didn’t go back to high school,” Redmond said in a recent interview. “There’s a need. We have probably a list of more than 100 people that need to take GED tests that are waiting for us to get… up and running.”

Now that GRC’s Enumclaw campus is partnering with state certified testing center Pearson Vue, locals will be able to not only take a GED, but more than 460 other certifications, from American Academy of Financial Management to ZTE telecom tests (for Guangdong, China ZTE University students).

If you needed to take any one of these tests, you’d normally have to go to the Auburn GRC campus, which may be a problem for those with transportation issues. Additionally, the final test of the day starts at 2 p.m., which likely prevents many that work during the day to take a test.

The Enumclaw campus will have a dedicated testing day on Friday, and the last test cut-off time will be 9 p.m., Redmond said — and additional accommodations could be made if the situation calls for them.

This is all an effort to make college education and testing more realistic for the current economy.

“You can’t just be a college students anymore. You’ve got to work,” Redmond said. “… unless someone is paying for you to go to school, you [have to] do both.”

Being more flexible, which includes making 70% of classes an in person/virtual hybrid, has led to a sharp increase in Enumclaw campus enrollment — 578%, Redmond continued, from 54 students to 330.

“In one quarter, we tripled our enrollment… there’s definitely a need for the college to be here,” she said. “It’s just figuring out what the community wants.”

Additional education opportunities starting in the fall include new evening cyber security classes, and that’s just the start, Redmond continued.

But while there’s a plan to bring more traditional classes back to the Enumclaw campus like math, humanities, etc., Redmond is interested in hearing from the community about what classes or educational opportunities locals would like to be a part of.

GRC Enumclaw campus testing is expected to start in July. To sign up for a test, head to pearsonvue.com to find a test and a testing location. You’ll have to sign up for a free account, but note that the sign-up process asks several questions first. (You will not be able to find the GRC Enumclaw campus as a testing location until closer to June.)

To contact Redmond, email her at enumclawcampus@greenriver.edu or call her at 253-2351-6601.