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CAEP Annual Plan: 2020-21 30 Mendocino-Lake CCD

Status: Consortium Approved

California Adult Education Program : Annual Plan : 2020-21 Produced: Aug 14, 2020, 09:58 PM UTC Mike Gorman

30 Mendocino-Lake CCD

Plans & Goals - Consortium Approved

Executive Summary
The mission of our consortium is to collaborate and share resources across historical and institutional boundaries to provide adults in our region equitable, seamless and integrated educational and career pathways and services with multiple opportunities for successful entry and exit. As we continue to effectively collaborate to support this mission, we have accomplished some of our targeted goals, but not all. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the public health order to shelter in place, our educational services pivoted to remote instruction and other distance educational modalities. Our agency members who provided high school diplomas, and HiSET prep and testing continued to provide and assist adult students to continue their goals of finishing high school equivalency requirements in order to obtain their diplomas or pass their HiSET tests. Our Basic skills and ESL classes continued to run in the adult schools and at the college as non-credit classes. Instructors reached out to students via email, telephone calls, social media platforms (WhatsApp, Facebook, etc.) to motivate students to continue distanced learning and learning from home from their teachers and peers support. Many of our adults students also had to navigate learning at home with their school children who were also learning from home since all public K-12 schools were closed and schooling was transitioned to distanced education. Due to the closure of many businesses, many of our adult students also lost their jobs or had reduced time at work. Needless to say, many instructors of Basic skills and ESL reported that it was a challenge for students to persist and to carve time out for their own classes when they had the added burden of taking care of their children’s home schooling as well as financially supporting their families due to loss or reduction of work hours while experiencing the stress of their health and safety the midst of the health crisis. Our CTE programs continued to operate via remotely and extended their classes through the mid-summer, so that CTE students can fulfill externship requirement hours to graduate and find jobs. In fact, most of our medical assistant students were promised jobs at their externship facilities even before they completed their program. Our AWD students were not left with alone with no support from their program teachers. Individual AWD students were contacted and teachers continued to connect with students via phone and video-chat. Teachers continued to provide life skills via video conferencing or Zoom. One of our AWD teacher sent cooking supplies to the student’s home, and taught a cooking lesson via video conferencing with the AWD student following along via video. The CAEP allocation for this fiscal year remained at the same level as last year with no additional monies given for enrollment and COLA in our CAEP-funded programs. Therefore, we will have to reconfigure and leverage existing resources to sustain most of our programs. For example, we will make sure wrap-around services for our students are accessible and available. We will continue to fund our support specialists in remote areas so that students will have points of contact locally and connect them to transitional services whether in basic skills/ESL to CTE program. Our implementation of Community Pro Suite as an online referral system will be a valuable to tool to have seamless support and communication among agencies involved in wrap around services for students. In addition, all our monthly consortium meetings are now done remotely, which will reduce travel expenditures for the next fiscal year. Also, we will drastically reduce our budget for fee-based professional development activities but will continue to attend webinars, conferences and workshops via online for our professional development activities. To address the systemic racial inequities re-surfacing in our country, we are mindful of serving all students not only in all the seven CAEP areas but also making sure all adult learners of color have easier access to our programs and classes. However, in implementing our remote teaching strategies via online, the disparity in internet and technological access and availability were more pronounced among our low-income economically-disadvantaged students and households. In fact, our geographically remote areas of Anderson Valley, Round Valley and Fort Bragg have limited internet access and broadband capabilities which hindered and made it difficult for adult students in our our programs to continually engage or to complete their classes.
Regional Planning Overview
These strategies and goals approved by the consortium for 2019-2020, include all these listed below and the outcome/results of meeting these goals. In addition, we have also included plans and strategies on how we want to accomplish upcoming goals in 20/21 based on our 3-year plan: 1.Identify, develop and expand offerings of non-credit Mendocino College non-credit offerings. 2. Improve enrollment in existing programs based on community needs data, According to the Launch Board Adult Education Pipeline data, our consortium steadily increased the number of students we served in all our programs during the last three years. From 2017 to 2019, we served about 1800 to almost 2000 students. However, primarily due to the COVID-19 health crisis, we have a dip in the numbers in 2020 to about 1700 (TE Summary Data). We hope to continue to review our data in Launch Board, TE and CPS and strategize how we can continue to increase our enrollment, retention and persistent rates. 3. Create and implement strategies that improve the sustainability of our health care programs. Our Health care programs in our two locations have consistently been filled and students are graduating from the Vocational nursing, certified nursing assistant, dental assistant, medical assistant and phlebotomy programs. We have increase graduates from these programs at a rate of 10-15% in three years. We will continue to fund and support these CTE programs and draw interest and student enrollment from our geographically remote areas where students do not have many career education opportunities.4. Improve the ease with which our students connect to outside support agency services. Due to our partnership with Career Point in Lake and Mendocino Counties, we are able to share and circulate information to our consortium members which they passed on to their students. Information about job openings, training and workshops and other work-related services that are available at their Career Point sites are passed on to our adult students. We hope to continue passing on of job-related information, basic need and student-worker support services information and other wrap-around services, as we continue to implement the Community Pro Suite student and agency engagement tool 5. Complete pathway maps in the priority industry areas. We have already completed the medical pathway map and brochures have been published and have been circulated to our members and our consortium partners in the community. The non-credit construction curriculum and the Microsoft office application curriculum are work in progress ans we hope to offer these classes in the Fall of 2021.6. Continue to collect, analyze and improve the accuracy of our student data.7. Improve student retention rates from enrollment to completion of educational goals.8. Equitably fill program gaps throughout consortium. Several of our programs are located in remote areas which are geographically and more importantly, culturally distant from the epicenters of educational services which are mainly in the capital towns of our two counties (Ukiah in Mendocino County and Lakeport in Lake County). Therefore, it was important for the consortium to work with local districts and agencies that could assess and meet the needs of their communities more efficiently and equitably. Locally-run programs for real community needs. For example, In Anderson Valley, not only did we hire a local resident to be an outreach and support specialist, but the community requested classes in ESL, ESL for home health aides, Basic literacy skills and basic computer skills which are offered in their local adult school location. Another remote area in Mendocino County that we serve through a community collaboration effort is Round Valley. Residents are primarily Native Americans and usually do not have easy access to adult educational services. We have an outreach and support specialist at that location to enroll and support adult students in high school diploma program, ESL basic skills, and basic literacy skills. . Additionally, we serve adult learners in our region who have multiple barriers to employment among the top two listed barriers are: low income and low literacy.

Meeting Regional Needs

Regional Need #1

Gaps in Service / Regional Needs
Improve access and alignment of HSE/HSD throughout the region based on best practices.We offer High School Diploma classes in five of our 10 Mendocino-Lake ACE locations (Ukiah, Upper Lake, Kelseyville and Willits and Round Valley). HiSET prep and tests are offered in Anderson Valley and in Ukiah. We also have HiSET testing in Ukiah .1. The northern portion of Mendocino County contains the highest unemployment rate.2. Anderson Valley has the largest population of limited English speaking adults.3. The northern section of Lake County has the greatest need for high school diploma/equivalency program offerings.4. Poverty is significant throughout both counties, with the most significant in the northern most regions of Mendocino County and Nice in Lake County.
How do you know? What resources did you use to identify these gaps?
This data was captured from the American Community Survey 2017.Looking at Labor market data, we identified the top three industry sectors that have the highest potential for employment in the next 5 years which healthcare, construction and trades and business office technology.The demographic data gathered from Community Survey, the aligned with programs that we currently offer. In other parts of our district this data has helped us prioritize program expansion based on need. For example, Anderson Valley has the highest need for programs for English language learners, and indeed, Anderson Valley Adult School in collaboration with Mendocino College offers the most robust set of classes and programs for English language learners in the district.Upper Lake, Lucerne and Nice (all part of ULUSD) were previously not represented at our consortium. Data shows that this area has the highest need for high school diploma and or equivalency programs. In the past year, Upper Lake USD joined our consortium and has now been given on-going funds to create and sustain a high school diploma program. The data collected in this planning process has reinforced this as a huge need and allowed ML ACE members to easily prioritize and allocate funds to build a better program to meet the community need.Building new programs in Northern Mendocino County to address issues of poverty continues to persist as an unmet need. The towns in Northern Mendocino County are small and geographically spread out making it extremely difficult to cost effectively provide classes in these rural areas. The most isolated and impoverished community in Northern Mendocino County is Round Valley. Based on this, the consortium prioritized bringing classes to Round Valley early on, and we have successfully offered HiSET prep, diploma and ESL classes for several years.
How will you measure effectiveness / progress towards meeting this need?
Student enrollment and outcome data (high school diplomas achieved, HiSET certificates given and GED certificate awarded) and data monitoring.

Regional Need #2

Gaps in Service / Regional Needs
Offering of Certified Nursing Assistant courses in Lake & Mendocino County
How do you know? What resources did you use to identify these gaps?
Through advisory committee meetings, it has been determined that this is the best course of action at this time for Mendocino County. It meets the needs of both the employer and the student/participant with little to no cost to the student. The Lake County Office of Education continues to work with a local skilled nursing facility that serves as the program’s sole clinical site partner.
How will you measure effectiveness / progress towards meeting this need?
A CNA program is now being offered by the Lake County Office of Education twice a year. In Mendocino County, the local skilled nursing facilities offer in house training in Fort Bragg, Ukiah and Willits. Because these trainings are free to the participants and they receive on the job pay along with the training, we are not offering any CNA training at our adult school locations in Mendocino County.

Regional Need #3

Gaps in Service / Regional Needs
Identify gaps and redundancies in services and ensure that students have equal access to programs both physically and electronically in Lake and Mendocino Counties.
How do you know? What resources did you use to identify these gaps?
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the public health order to shelter in place, many of our educational services pivoted to remote instruction and other distance educational modalities. However, all of these programs found two significant gaps: adult students’ computer literacy skills and internet or broadband internet access. Especially in geographically remote areas of Anderson Valley, Fort Bragg and Round Valley, many students were educationally impacted by these gaps in skills and in services.
How will you measure effectiveness / progress towards meeting this need?
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the public health order to shelter in place, many of our educational services pivoted to remote instruction and other distance educational modalities. However, all of these programs found two significant gaps: adult students’ computer literacy skills and internet or broadband internet access. Especially in geographically remote areas of Anderson Valley, Fort Bragg and Round Valley, many students were educationally impacted by these gaps in skills and in services.1.In the current state of pivoting to remote instruction, we will have to provide basic to intermediate level computer literacy skills for our adult learners.2.We will have to work with regional and county entities that are working to bring broadband internet services to remote areas so that our students can have internet access at a low cost or free-of-charge basis.

Gaps In Service

New Strategies

Strategy #1
1. Identify, develop and expand offerings of non-credit Mendocino College curriculum in our priority career education pathwaysCreate and offer a construction corps program for adults in Lake and Mendocino Counties—
Strategy #2
Expand Mendocino College non-credit classes at adult education locations for ESL (incl. Home Health Aide), HiSET prep and beginning computers.—ESL classes in six locations including geographically areas of Anderson Valley and Round Valley. ESL was offered in Anderson Valley and was well attended.Basic skills classes and HiSET prep classes in six locations.Non-credit Basic computer skills classes were offered in four locations (Anderson Valley, Lakeport and Ukiah and Round Valley).
Strategy #3
Create and offer short term intermediate non-credit computer classes (Microsoft Office Suite)We hired a college instructor to create a non-credit sequential workshop-style curriculum teaching Microsoft Office Applications which is not under advisory review and will be submitted to the Curriculum Committee for the Fall. We are hoping to offer these classes in the Fall of 2021.
Strategy #4
Pilot medical scribe program for potential ongoing offering:This program was piloted but was cancelled due to very low enrollment. We will review the need for this program since a consortium-run medical assistant program covers basic medical scribing. . Additionally, data collected from graduates of consortium-run medical assistant programs has indicated that many medical assistants receive substantial on-the-job training in medical scribing after hire in facilities throughout the region.
Strategy #5
Offer Basic Math for Trades as a non-credit MC course—This was not realized this year. However, with the creation and eventual offering of a non-credit construction program in the fall 2021, this class is part of the courses in the upcoming construction program.

Seamless Transitions

New Strategies

Strategy #1
Provide student access to academic guidance services:Outreach and student support specialists in our three geographically remote areas are supporting giving academic and wrap around student services so that students have seamless transitions from basic skills or high school equivalency classes to CTE programs or non-credit classes at the college district in our region.
Strategy #2
Provide pathway presentations in appropriate adult education courses to build awareness and help students stay connected.Mainly through our support specialists our adult students in our programs are connected to our offerings and receive educational and career/job information through intra-agency and inter-agency communication in our region.
Strategy #3
Finish Business pathway map with inclusion of career centers as part of the student services:This upcoming year 20/21, after the non-credit construction curriculum is approved in the different college and state level approval system, we hope to hire someone to create a business pathway map.
Strategy #4
Finish Construction/Trades pathway map with inclusion of career centers as part of the student servicesThis upcoming year, after the non-credit construction curriculum is approved in the different college and state level approval system, we hope to hire someone to create a construction/trades pathway map.

Student Acceleration

New Strategies

Strategy #1
Connect our students to wrap around services needed for academic successWork of outreach and support specialists in our three geographically remote locations.
Strategy #2
Embed service providers at adult school locations including Career PointIn progress
Strategy #3
Create work based learning opportunities in our priority pathwaysIn progress

Professional Development

New Strategies

Strategy #1
Consortium members and our consortium partners will have the opportunity to participate in several professional development activities in the next 3 years which will enhanced accomplishing our goals.Strategy #1Data workgroup meetings reviewing agency DIR, table summary and other applicable reports from TE or Launchboard.
Strategy #2
Attend annual CAEP Summit, CASAS Summer Institute and other regional workshops and webinars that align to our strategic plan.
Strategy #3
Address racial inequitiesAddress racial inequities by first increasing awareness and knowledge about structural racism and institutional racism in our educational system. CAEP educators need to know learn and understand the issue before plunging ahead and creating perceived needs for such program that may not be equitably accessible to all students.

Leveraging Resources

New Strategies

Strategy #1
Implement Community Pro Suite (CPS) with participation from Career Point agencies.In March of 2020, before the COVID-19 health crisis and before our regional shelter-in-place order, we held a Community Pro Suite training in which we invited our consortium members and community partners from Workforce Alliance of the North Bay, Career Point (Mendocino Private Industry Council) Mendocino and Lake Counties, Career Hub (Center from Mendocino College), etc.. to begin implementing CPS and its many function as a student tracking, referral and data management system which we can share with consortium members and community stakeholders.We plan to continue and invite more community stakeholders who can share and benefit from this system to track and provide referrals for students so that the students are able to get wrap around services from the community.
Strategy #2
Continue outreach to agency partners to provide integrated services and leverage resourcesThrough the CPS training in March of 2020 and invitations to attend our regular consortium meetings, we have reached out to our agency partners and community partners like Career Point in Mendocino and Lake Counties, the Workforce Alliance of the North Bay, Redwood Children Services, North Coast Opportunities, Ukiah Valley Association of Habilitation, Adventist Health etc. In 2020-21 we will continue to reach out to our community partners and potential partners like the Career Hub Center (Mendocino College) Native American Resource Center (Mendocino College), and other community service providers.
Strategy #3
Create and utilize an instructional services agreement template with Adventist HealthThis has been done through the work and instructional services agreement between Ukiah Adult School and Adventist Health of Ukiah. Ukiah Adult School began a service agreement with Adventist Health to use an employee of Adventist Health to teach and direct the Vocational Nursing Program at Ukiah Adult School.
Strategy #4
Combine healthcare advisory committees into one meeting for all programsOur consortium members have been represented in the healthcare advisory committees in Mendocino County.
Strategy #5
Continue annual marketing plan with the regional marketing firm, Pacific Sky.WE have continued to utilize Pacific Sky for our marketing needs to advertise courses, programs in the CAEP areas that we offer and support. We also utilized Pacific Sky to print our Medical Pathways Map Brochures which were widely distributed in Mendocino and Lake Counties.
Strategy #6
Hire Outreach & Support Specialists to serve Anderson Valley, Ft. Bragg and Covelo areas.In 2019-2020, the consortium hired outreach & support specialists to serve Anderson Valley, Ft. Bragg and Covelo areas.

Fiscal Management

A narrative justifying how the planned allocations are consistent with the annual adult education plan which is based on your CAEP 3-year plan.
ML ACE created an internal mini-grant allocation process for non-MOE funds. We call these "project based funds". Over the past three years, ML ACE Agencies have submitted proposals for on-going programs/projects. These projects we then reviewed and approved (or revised or denied). In November of each program year, member agencies provide a detailed presentation to the consortium that shows how the allocated funds are spent and aligns the expenditures to our annual plan. The implementation of these processes gives ML ACE significant over sight of the funds and ensures internal accountability.
An approach to incorporating remaining carry-over funds from prior year(s) into strategies planned for 2020-21.
An approach to incorporating remaining carry-over funds from prior year(s) into strategies planned for 20-21. Each member agency provides their internal plan for spending down their carry-over funds, which must include strategies that are aligned with our current annual plan, at our November monthly meeting. Our policy includes language that ensures the agency can only spend the funds on current approved programs and activities from the original approved project based proposals or previously MOE funds. However, in light of the rapid switch to delivering educational and wrap around services from -face to -face to remote delivery due to the current COVID environment, we will continue to prioritize needs in our consortium and will support and fund those needs appropriately within ML ACE guidelines and CAEP guidelines.

Certification

Anderson Valley Unified - Member Representative

Approved by Noor Dawood

08/12/2020 08:16 PM PDT

Fort Bragg Unified - Member Representative

Approved by Arlissa Tupper

08/13/2020 07:38 AM PDT

Kelseyville Unified - Member Representative

  • Timothy Gill
  • Director, Student Support Services
  • tgill@kvusd.org
  • (707) 279-1511
Approved by Lynn Thomasson

08/12/2020 05:00 PM PDT

Lake Co. Office of Education - Member Representative

Approved by Bill Roderick

08/13/2020 07:55 AM PDT

Mendocino Co. Office of Education - Member Representative

Approved by Tami Mee

08/12/2020 05:02 PM PDT

Mendocino-Lake CCD - Member Representative

Approved by Ms. Euline Olinger Ed. D

08/12/2020 04:55 PM PDT

Round Valley Unified - Member Representative

Approved by Mike Gorman Round Valley Unified School District

08/14/2020 02:58 PM PDT

Ukiah Unified - Member Representative

Approved by Christy Smith

08/13/2020 09:01 AM PDT

Upper Lake Unified - Member Representative

  • Jeff Sturr
  • Coordinator of Secondary Pupil Personnel Services
  • jsturr@ulusd.org
  • (707) 275-0840
Approved by Michael Kauble Upper Lake Unified School District

08/13/2020 07:17 AM PDT

Willits Unified - Member Representative

Approved by Nikki Agenbroad

08/13/2020 12:28 PM PDT