Produced: Aug 17, 2023, 11:23 PM UTC - By Kimberly Freitas
2023-24
Plans & Goals
- Executive Summary
The Gateway Adult Education Network (GAEN) consortium oversees our region's California Adult Education Program (CAEP) implementation. Our region is a large but lightly populated area in the San Joaquin Valley. It includes Chowchilla (Northern Madera Co.), Mariposa, and Merced counties, an area of mountainous, agricultural, semi-urban, urban, and rural communities. Such a diverse area provides opportunities for adult education expansion and raises challenges that such a diverse territory encompasses. GAEN's regional demographics show that more than 65,000 out of 220,167 adults do not possess a high school diploma or equivalent. Merced Community College, Merced County Office of Education, and the six K-12 school districts in the region will continue to assist hundreds of people in becoming educated and trained through the Network's efforts as we enter the endemic. GAEN top priorities are continuing and restoring essential education services from the reductions during the COVID19 Pandemic years. The Gateway Adult Education Network plan for the 2022-2023 Program Year plans to address educational needs by continuing to offer courses and services that provide the region's adult learners with academic and employability skills needed to meet the student's personal, educational, and career goals. Consortium members will conduct frequent surveys and intentionally analyze the surveys' results and DIR quarterly reports. In addition, GAEN will work on developing consortium-wide conference and collaboration days with the support of TAP. The GAEN consortium will continue coordinating outreach and marketing activities to increase awareness of and access to adult education programs and services members offer. GAEN does hiring events targeting three different populations in our consortium. Culture and Family target immigrant students; DiversAbility targets our adults with disabilities; and CTE training and engaging events to connect students to jobs. All three events focus on helping our students to communicate with services, employment, and the resources available within our region. These events are great recruitment opportunities for our school and community partners.
- Regional Planning Overview
The Gateway Adult Education Consortium will provide adult education services that focus on programs that meet the needs of those seeking adult primary education, high school diploma or high school equivalency completion, learning English as a second language, career and technical education, and certifications. In addition, adult learners will receive workforce and employability skills training and other courses that will lead to family-sustaining wages. As a consortium, we will continue expanding programs and providing support services through partnerships with different community-based organizations to reduce the barriers and increase access and success for our adult learners. One of GAEN's priorities is to continue working as a consortium to ensure that all our adult learners have access to computers, Chromebooks, the internet, digital literacy training, and different instructional formats to continue their education. For the next three years, the GAEN members will continue to use the students' data, Labor Market Information, and Census 2020 data, among other sources of information, to inform our decisions on how to address issues of our immigrant students, students with disabilities, and how we can best serve all of the adult learners in our community at the endemic years.
Meeting Regional Needs
Regional Need #1
- Gaps in Service / Regional Needs
Despite the large geographical area of our consortium, overlapping needs are resulting in gaps in services region-wide that can be summarized as basic skills acquisitions, serving our Adults with Disabilities, and transportation. Regarding basic skills acquisitions, there is a significant need for GED, High School Diploma, ESL, and basic computing classes. These classes contribute to a student’s ability to progress in their educational attainment, secure higher-wage employment, and, in some cases, flee poverty. Serving our Adults with Disabilities has been included in our 3-year plan and is part of each annual plan. COVID-19 has added a new layer of outreach to students in a new modality that relies on online education outside of a physical classroom. Our funding would allow each student to have a laptop in an ideal world, but this is not the case due to budgetary constraints.
- How do you know? What resources did you use to identify these gaps?
The Gateway Adult Education Network conducted various surveys and data collection from recent graduates, prospective students, and the community. The results showed that all deficiencies mentioned in the previous question were identified. The recurring theme is that some students cannot join our classes due to some or all of the barriers previously mentioned. And now, during a pandemic when distance learning is the safest method of instruction, additional barriers relating to Internet connectivity and computer access are affecting our student's ability to enroll, attend, and progress.
- How will you measure effectiveness / progress towards meeting this need?
We will measure the effectiveness of meeting our needs via an increased number of adults served, completion rates, employment attainment and certifications, improvement in CASAS tests, and decreased transportation needs.
Address Educational Needs
2023-24 Strategies
Improve Integration of Services & Transitions
2023-24 Strategies
Monitoring Student Progress
Activity that Applies to this Strategy
Monitoring student progress
Metrics that Apply to this Activity/Strategy
- Progress: Participants with Educational Functioning Levels Gains ABE (AE 400 - ABE)
Develop a Transition Plan to help students navigate the different programs and identify the support needed to ensure the student's seamless transition to higher education or the workforce.
Improve Effectiveness of Services
2023-24 Strategies
Community Advisory Meetings
Activity that Applies to this Strategy
Community Advisory Meeting
Metrics that Apply to this Activity/Strategy
- All: Number of Adults Served (AE 200 - Overall)
GAEN consortium will improve the collaboration with community-based organizations by creating an advisory committee to help us better serve the adult learners in our region. GAEN will refine and improve practices of collecting and utilizing student data to increase enrollment, attendance, and completion rates.
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.
The Fiscal Agent requests its member's quarterly Financial Status Reports (FSRs). The FSRs are reviewed to complete appropriate support documentation and ensure it is consistent with the submitted work plans. Once the Accounting Technician reviews, they are routed to the Fiscal Agent's Certifying Official for additional review. The FSRs are routed back to Fiscal for record-keeping. The Fiscal Agent then reviews the reported expenditures against the approved member's budgets. The members complete a Budget Modification Request Form that is then routed for approval at the GAEN Board Meeting. The Fiscal Agent receives all approved Budget Modification Request Forms and updates members' budgets as applicable. Each Consortium Member provides expenditure reports by object code to the fiscal agent, validated and combined for the Consortia to be reported to the State. Consensus and approval for the programs to be served in our Consortium were agreed upon at the April 15th, 2021, GAEN Board Meeting. All members' work plans include details about the populations to be served, and the work plans were approved at such a meeting. As a Consortium, we serve within all seven categories based on the region's needs. Regarding the 5 percent administrative costs, the Fiscal Agent has agreed not to charge more than 5% of the AB104 funds allocated to the Consortium for administrative responsibilities. The Fiscal Agent will track hours spent for managerial procedures and only actual charge expenses, not to exceed 5% of the award amount.
- An approach to incorporating remaining carry-over funds from prior year(s) into strategies planned for 2023-24.
GAEN members review the Carryover Proposal Modification Requests to approve the use of carryover funds for one-time student-centered projects.
Certification
Dos Palos Oro Loma Joint Unified - Member Representative
Desiree Bryant - Fiscal
- dbryant@dpol.net
- (209) 392-0209
Melissa Kielpinski - Assistant Superintendent of Business Services
- mkielpinski@dpol.net
- (209) 392-0208
Kevin Jones - Principal Alternative Education
- kjones@dpol.net
- (209) 392-0280 ext: 0282
Gustine Unified - Member Representative
Denise Rivera-Pantoja - AE Administrator
- drivera@gustineusd.org
- (209) 854-9575 ext: 600
Le Grand Union High - Member Representative
Donna Alley - dalley@lghs.k12.ca.us
- (209) 389-9400
Dan Silveira - Chief Business Officer
- dsilveira@lghs.k12.ca.us
- (209) 389-9403 ext: 1005
Los Banos Unified - Member Representative
Sean Richey - Chief Academic Officer
- srichey@losbanosusd.k12.ca.us
- (209) 826-3801 ext: 7020
alejandra garibay - agaribay@losbanosusd.net
- (209) 826-6810
Chan Meas - Principal
- cmeas@losbanosusd.k12.ca.us
- (209) 826-8410
Mariposa County Unified - Member Representative
Tammy Kudela - tmkudela@gmail.com
Kierstin Wight - Chief Business Officer
- kwight@mcusd.org
- (209) 742-0220
Sarah Jacobs - Business Services Officer
- ssjacobs@mcusd.org
- (209) 742-0220
Merced CCD - Member Representative
Caroline Dawson - Professor of Mathematics
- dawson.c@mccd.edu
- (209) 617-6207
Kimberly Freitas - Associate Director of Business & Fiscal Services
- kimberly.freitas@mccd.edu
- (209) 384-6202
Merced Co. Office of Education - Member Representative
Mary Whited - Coordinator
- mwhited@mcoe.org
- (209) 381-6677
Holly Newlon - Director
- hnewlon@mcoe.org
- (209) 381-6740
Talia Costa - Financial Analyst
- tcosta@mcoe.org
- (209) 381-5982
Merced Union High - Member Representative
Steven Hobbs - Principal, Merced Adult School
- shobbs@muhsd.org
- (209) 325-2802
Nina Navarro - Admin Assistant
- nnavarro@muhsd.org
- (209) 325-2802