The Open Door of Delta

"We’ve had 100% of our students who were tested with GAIN pass their GED.”
The Open Door of Delta, Inc. is a non-profit organization that assists people through mentoring, education, financial literacy, and housing to achieve self-sufficiency. The board members realized that education was key to helping its constituents long-term, rather than providing only food and money.  This prompted the creation of The Bridge Center, a subsection of Open Door, that provides GED prep, financial literacy, and job-seeking skills to adults.

We've had 100% of our students who were tested with GAIN pass their GED.

Paula Jean Savage, Volunteer Prep Teacher

The Challenge

The organization started a GED prep program, implementing a commonly used pretest, but they weren’t happy with it.  “The GED was going digital, so we thought it would be a good opportunity to switch to a computer-based test,” says Paula Jean Savage, a volunteer prep teacher for Open Door. “GAIN (General Assessment of Instructional Needs) was our first choice.” 

The Solution

“I think the test is easy to understand and to take, even if you don’t know a lot about computers. It helps to get you going. It tells you what you need to work on to get you started, and then you’re on the way to getting your GED.” according to Darlene Brown, a student from Savage’s class.

The Results

Open Door quickly realized their first choice was the best choice: both Savage and her students love the score report. GAIN gives the students a better idea of what they need to study. They take reports home to share with their families because the results give them something to be proud of. Thanks to the targeted guidance, Savage’s students are motivated and are able to see their progress, giving them something to hang on their fridge. Open Delta has had phenomenal success since switching to Wonderlic. “We’ve been extremely pleased. In fact, we’ve had 100% of our students who were tested with GAIN pass their GED.” That’s 100% impressive. Driven by the outstanding results and her desire to prepare her students as best she can for the workforce, Savage hopes to add other Wonderlic assessments into the program. “We want to include Wonderlic Assessments to help identify gaps in work readiness and skills testing to evaluate math, English and office software proficiency,” she says, “But whatever we do, we know we’re going to include GAIN with it.” We’re open to that, Open Door.

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