nova-logo-final2

CAEP Annual Plan: 2020-21 62 South Orange County Regional Consortium (SOCRC)

Status: Consortium Approved

California Adult Education Program : Annual Plan : 2020-21 Produced: Aug 20, 2020, 04:19 PM UTC Patricia Romo

62 South Orange County Regional Consortium (SOCRC)

Plans & Goals - Consortium Approved

Executive Summary
The South Orange County Regional Consortium (SOCRC) saw gains in meeting the needs of adult learners within the region in areas identified by our 3 year strategic plan as well as areas brought on by the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our focus comes from the 2019-2022 three-year strategic plan to address the four goals created to move the work of the SOCRC: 1) develop support amongst members to deliver adult education, 2) build on strategies to engage learners through professional development, 3) meet individual student needs and interests by career exploration and goal planning, and 4) align and articulate programs in the consortium. From these goals come our vision to continue our outreach and programs to local communities to engage Adult Education students across the region to achieve their goals. During the 19-20 year, sites added ESL pronunciation and conversational classes in response to student surveys. Saddleback College continued classes for Adults with Disabilities (AWD). Through pass-through funds, Saddleback supported the enhancement of the Career Technical Education (CTE) in the areas of Pharmacy Technician, Surgical Technologist and Dental Assistant offered by College and Career Advantage (CCA). The Surgical Technologist, Pharmacy Technician, and Dental Assistant programs articulate with courses that begin at the high school level. CCA has worked to locate placed internships which can lead to employment. Irvine Adult School added a CTE Culinary Class for fall and spring. Saddleback added CDCP certificates Adult English as a Second Language (AESL) for the Workplace, Basic Culinary Arts, and High School Equivalency (HSE); and a CDCP certificate in basic technology is currently going through the approval process. Full-time faculty at Irvine Valley College (IVC) and Saddleback collaborated to create an AESL course pathway to begin the work of dovetailing with other program efforts. Our resource allocations reflect these efforts and are consistent with our three-year plan. We continually assess our ability to address the five program areas under CAEP. Through the update of the SOCRC governance plan and bylaws completed in December 2019, members developed a new commitment to participate in the consortium. In March 2020, members along with a majority of the US were faced with the challenge of shifting all course offerings and support to distance or online learning due to COVID-19. Each member rose to the challenge by supporting faculty as they learned new platforms such as Canvas, Google Classroom, Zoom and others. For some students, the class they were enrolled in had to not only teach the content of the syllabus, but also the digital literacy skills needed to navigate or access the courses. Members also addressed the needs of students and faculty by providing technology, textbook access, mental, social and emotional support and shared COVID-19 resources. The plan focus for 2020-2021 is to have members continue to increase the retention of AEP students and their successful completion of coursework in AESL, CTE and general education curriculum classes. Classes provide students a variety of modalities within the consortium including onsite, online and hybrid platforms. Due to COVID-19, the majority of the classes provided will be online. Professional development offerings this year will include an embedded focus on strategies for online teaching and student support. SOCRC members will continue to develop a program map that articulates the paths to success from adult programs to college or workforce readiness for all learners in the region to reference as they create their individual plans and goals. Curriculum and articulation retreats will be scheduled to begin the curriculum alignment between community college and school district agencies. Members will maximize the impact of their funding allocations in alignment with this plan and the three-year plan. Primary focus of the allocation will be on continuing to offer a variety of classes to help all adult learners achieve their goals of building language skills, workforce ready skills, and bridge to certificates and degrees. SOCRC members continue their commitment of providing equitable access for every individual wanting to take courses. CAEP funds are used to offer tuition-free classes for all students. Work continues to train staff on areas of discrimination and systemic racial injustices and ways of supporting students through equity and inclusion to achieve their goals. If budget reductions were placed on CAEP allocated funds, SOCRC members would work to keep the the priority on maximizing course offerings and support with a reduction in staffing or furlough days scheduled for staff. Some members shared that sections would have to be canceled if reductions were placed on funding. Certain goals of the strategic plan would also be paused due to limited funds available to progress with the work.
Regional Planning Overview
To begin the development of the 2019-2022 three-year plan, each agency reflected on the quality of collaboration among SOCRC consortium members, and the impact of the collective work in the surrounding communities in the areas of capacity, connection, entry, progress and completion/transition. Four goals were created to move the work of the SOCRC: 1) develop support amongst members to deliver adult education, 2) build on strategies to engage learners through professional development, 3) meet individual student needs and interests by career exploration and goal planning, and 4) align and articulate programs in the consortium. The plan focus for 2020-2021 is to have members continue to increase the retention of adult education program (AEP) students and their successful completion of coursework in AESL, HSE, CTE and general education curriculum classes. Classes provide students a variety of modalities within the consortium including onsite, online and hybrid platforms. Professional development will be offered to share the best practices in these modalities between agencies. SOCRC members will develop a program map that articulates the paths to success from adult programs to college or workforce readiness for all learners in the region to reference as they create their individual plans and goals. These maps will be shared by each agency with their communities. Curriculum and articulation retreats will be scheduled to begin the curriculum alignment between agencies. Action plans for each of the goals have succinct steps with checks and balances to monitor implementation. Embedded in the action plans are established dates to check progress.

Meeting Regional Needs

Regional Need #1

Gaps in Service / Regional Needs
Increasing capacity and continued access for AEP Students: The data from Cohorts 1, 2, and 3 of our Data and Accountability Study indicates that AEP students want more access to a wider variety of courses and locations on top of maintaining current offerings. This is especially true for Career Technical Education, where students are often waitlisted for classes due to high demand. We are working to address this gap by developing additional courses such as non-credit business computers and culinary arts, and class sections and responding to regional needs for more job and vocational skills preparation. Also with the need to move to distance learning due to COVID-19, there is a need to sustain access to courses even if they cannot be offered on school campuses.
How do you know? What resources did you use to identify these gaps?
The SOCRC has built in a system of checks and balances towards its progress by using both institutional and external data to ensure effectiveness. The members have worked together to create a collaborative Mission and Vision Statement in 2018, a comprehensive three-year plan in Spring 2019, and this collaborative annual plan in summer 2020. All expenditures made by SOCRC members are presented to the consortium for review and approval under AEP and Education Code guidelines. When a large expense such as a capital outlay project is being sought by one of the members, the SOCRC must review and approve the expense to ensure that it is tied to one of the five AEP Program Area Objectives and allowable. The expense must directly respond to one of the regional gaps identified in both our annual plan and three year plan. Service gaps have been identified through analysis of data from CAEP reports and cohort studies. Specific gaps identified included: a need for more advanced AEP classes, more CTE classes, and more Adults with Disabilities classes. When possible, funds are directly applied to close these gaps. Schools had to move to distance learning due to COVID-19 State stay-at-home orders and campus closures. All classes either had to move to an online synchronous or asynchronous delivery model. Classes or internships that require hands-on or in-person critical skills training were put on hold waiting for the opportunity to complete when it is safe to do so. The move to distance learning gave schools the ability to better identify students who lack the digital tools or skills needed to access online learning. Teachers were trained on resources to provide online learning such as Canvas, Zoom, Google Classroom and YouTube. Native language tutorials were developed for students to assist them with registration, orientation and access to technology for remote learning. Students were also provided tutorials in Spanish, Farsi and Chinese. Schools in the consortium will continue to offer distance learning for fall and spring. Learning from the move to distance learning has shown areas that need to be further developed to include more student and teacher interaction through live sessions. This will help to further build students’ skills and abilities to progress to meet their goals even in a pandemic.
How will you measure effectiveness / progress towards meeting this need?
As a consortium, we meet monthly for regular planning meetings and four times a year for quarterly consortium meetings. Time is allocated at each monthly meeting to discuss the progress and identification of next steps to ensure the goals are achieved throughout the consortium. All members are asked to share out about their progress in the goal areas to monitor progress across all programs in the consortium. Class offerings and attendance numbers are part of the sharing which helps other members know what is being offered throughout the consortium.

Regional Need #2

Gaps in Service / Regional Needs
From the work of the three-year plan, we identified a gap in service and regional need to align and articulate programs. We identified the need to increase agency alignment and articulation of programs including education and training programs with coordinated and consistent student support. We also identified that program maps needed to be developed that delineate requirements and align employment, career pathway opportunities, postsecondary education and training transition, and skills gains, across members and partners to increase successful transitions.
How do you know? What resources did you use to identify these gaps?
There were several different resources used to identify this gap. Members were surveyed with Consortium Program Quality Self-Assessment while developing the three-year strategic plan. From the assessment, members identified the need to have clear completion and/or transitions between programs as well as coordinated student support. The cohort studies also identified from students the need for programs to have clear pathways to achieving employment or entering degree programs. At our monthly meeting with members, we also collected data through discussion about students transitions from adult ed classes to credit earning classes. Finally, partnerships with other consortium leads have been developed to look at their best practices and identify areas where our consortium can improve.
How will you measure effectiveness / progress towards meeting this need?
As a consortium, we meet monthly for regular planning meetings and four times a year for quarterly consortium meetings. Time is allocated at each monthly meeting to discuss the progress and identification of next steps to ensure the goals are achieved throughout the consortium. All members are asked to share out about their progress in the goal areas to monitor progress across all programs in the consortium. In the three-year plan, we have action steps with timelines for meeting our goals. In March of 2020 a draft program roadmap/pathway was presented at the consortium planning meeting. The approved draft will be taken to a marketing department or consultant to create a final draft for approval with the goal of sharing out to communities by June 2021.

Gaps In Service

New Strategies

Strategy #1
Strategies to improve transitions between programs: To increase coordinated, proactive engagement to students on educational and training options and choices, a consortium wide program roadmap will be developed. The roadmap will delineate requirements and align employment, career pathway opportunities, postsecondary education and training transitions, and skill gains, across members and partners to increase successful student transitions. A roadmap is currently drafted from input of members. Will work with the marketing department or consultant to draft the final design to then vote upon. Consortium will then work on a plan for advertising program roadmap within all agencies of consortium and local community partners by June 2021.
Strategy #2
Strategies to increase existing programs: SOCRC is developing additional CTE Certificate courses and CDCP Certificates. Saddleback College will be offering CDCP Certificates for Academic Basic Skills Certificates of Competency in Language Arts, Mathematics, and AE ESL for the Workplace. Basic Culinary Skills and Basic Technology CDCP Certificates will also be offered. CCA is continuing to offer their CTE course (Dental Assistant, Pharmacy Technician and Surgical Technologist) and added Medical Assistant for the upcoming year. Furthermore, IVC is creating an AESL Professional English course to teach practical communication strategies for effective interactions in workplace, academic, and volunteer settings. The goal of these offerings is to increase student enrollment in career education programs.
Strategy #3
Strategies for aligning and articulating programs: Identified from the 3 year plan is the need to align and articulate the education and training programs between the members. This larger goal is not planned to be completed until June 2022. For the 20-21 year, members will begin the alignment and articulation process by sharing current program offerings and begin the discussion of course articulation and progression within the consortium.

Seamless Transitions

New Strategies

Strategy #1
The South Orange County Regional Consortium works to be informed of regional workforce needs. A representative from the consortium will attend the regional workforce meetings, gather important information as to economic trends in the region. As identified by the three-year plan, the need for alignment between programs and clear transitions for students is being addressed. As listed in Gaps In Service, strategy #2 and #4 will address alignment, articulation and pathways. We are also expanding CTE and CDCP offerings across the consortium as listed in Gaps In Service strategy #3.
Strategy #2
The South Orange County Regional Consortium will collaborate between South Orange County Community College District and K-12 school districts with an adult education program (Irvine, Laguna Beach and Tustin) to develop a plan to support the high school diploma or equivalency certificate adult student to dually-enroll as a special part-time student at a community college as part of SB 554 implementation. Teams will focus on creating a roadmap with staff including school counselors to encourage students to pursue a certificate or degree at the college while completing high school equivalency.

Student Acceleration

New Strategies

Strategy #1
We have identified multiple strategies to implement and to improve curriculum and services being offered by the SOCRC. The focus for the year will be on aligning clear pathways which will include accelerated options to complete courses or programs and allow for transitions into postsecondary education, training, and/or employment. This strategy is being addressed with gaps in service strategy # 1 and #3 which focuses on creating pathway maps and curriculum alignment. SOCRC will also be working towards a 3-5% increase in the completion/progression of students in program learning gains, high school diploma/HSE completion, and/or transfer to college or employment.

Professional Development

New Strategies

Strategy #1
For shared professional development, our emphasis this year will be on faculty best practices. We will work to create two dedicated professional development sessions in 2020-2021 to benefit our faculty, staff and students. These sessions will feature best practices that will help our AEP faculty to deliver the highest-quality instruction and support strategies possible. Due to COVID-19, the two dedicated professional development sessions will have to be online. In design, each will be half-day events with curriculum for all who attend. The professional development will be delivered in synchronous or asynchronous sessions. There is an opportunity if they are offered in asynchronous sessions that more members of the consortium could benefit. Part of the discussion will include staff dialogue on alignment and articulation of program curriculum. This will support the three-year plan goal of having alignment and articulation of curriculum. A consortium professional development survey was conducted in summer 2020 and the results will be disseminated at the SOCRC August quarterly meeting.

Leveraging Resources

New Strategies

Strategy #1
SOCRC members are leveraging current resources to offer CTE classes to assist students in gaining skills that lead to certification or employment. College and Career Advantage is providing state-of-the-art Pharmacy, Medical Assistant, Surgical and Dental courses for AEP students. To enhance these classes, faculty and staff have networked with local dental and medical facilities to provide internships and assist AEP students with their placement after course completion. Our faculty have contacted local employer groups to serve as advisors to students. CCA staff holds annual meetings with local advisory boards to reflect on courses and meet the needs of employers in the community.

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 SOCRC has taken a strategic alignment approach to spending planned allocations that is consistent with both our annual and three-year plans. Specifically, based upon our Mission and Vision Statements, the SOCRC members have created overarching goals, objectives and action steps that are directly linked to our resource allocations. Monthly-report outs guarantee that all members are updated and aware of the spend downs by our individual members. Requests for large capital outlay amounts are required to be presented to all SOCRC members for review and approval. Any site that is having delays in spending allocated funds will report these delays and reasons at quarterly meetings. Our objectives and action steps are further tied to individual key performance indicators for the SOCRC. We have a bi-annual review of expenditures and open discussions pertaining to the return on investment of the funds. We continually remind our SOCRC members of the allowable and unallowable spending parameters prescribed by the Adult Education Program. We will develop an orientation process for new members including information on spending guidelines. We often consult AEP personnel to ensure that we are in alignment with our resource allocation and regularly attend the technical AEP webinars, reporting back to our consortium members. SOCRC plans to hire an outside auditing firm to conduct a yearly financial audit when the consortium moves to indirect funding in May 2021 In the current year, quarterly budget presentations will be provided by the Fiscal Agent.
An approach to incorporating remaining carry-over funds from prior year(s) into strategies planned for 2020-21.
Every effort is being made to reduce the total amount of funds being carried over by SOCRC members. Specific strategies have included: 1) Requesting monthly updates on percentages of funds expended by members; 2) Collective review and approval of State documents such as the CFAD and other key collaterals that show distribution of funds; 3) Heavy involvement of South Orange County Community College District Fiscal Services Administration and Staff for large transactions; 4) Ensuring that funds are released to sub-recipients in a timely manner to ensure that they are able to spend them on schedule. We have streamlined our efforts to make communication and information regarding budget expenditures available to all members. Reminders are provided to consortium members as to key deadlines for expending funds. Our fiscal representatives from both the unified school districts and the South Orange County Community College District are in constant contact regarding AEP expenditures. We have healthy, collaborative professional relationships and are able to keep all sub-recipients current with their funds. All efforts are made to mitigate the amount of carry-over funds from sub recipients. If funds are carried over, we have aggressive timelines for spending them down and tying them to AEP Program Objectives as much as possible. Conversations are taking place at the consortium level on the codifying of budget allocation amendments to reallocate carry-over funds to support other members who can use the funds to further meet the goals of the three-year plan.

Certification

Capistrano Unified - Member Representative

Approved by Meg Ervais

08/16/2020 03:31 PM PDT

Coastline ROP - Member Representative

Approved by Carol Hume

08/17/2020 07:49 AM PDT

College and Career Advantage - Member Representative

Approved by Patricia Romo

08/20/2020 09:19 AM PDT

Irvine Unified - Member Representative

Approved by Dr. Rebecca Roberts

08/14/2020 06:29 PM PDT

Irvine Valley College - Member Representative

  • Debbie Vanschoelandt
  • Dean, Career & Continuing Education, and Integrated Design, Engineering and Automation
  • dvanschoelandt@ivc.edu
  • (949) 367-8310
Approved by Debbie Vanschoelandt

08/14/2020 05:19 PM PDT

Laguna Beach Unified - Member Representative

Approved by Chad Mabery Ed. D.

08/15/2020 02:25 PM PDT

Orange County Department of Education - Member Representative

Approved by Fatinah Judeh

08/15/2020 10:01 AM PDT

Saddleback College - Member Representative

  • Karima Feldhus
  • Assistant Vice President, Community Education, Emeritus Institute, and K-12 Partnerships
  • kfeldhus@saddleback.edu
Approved by Karima Feldhus

08/14/2020 08:21 PM PDT

Saddleback Valley Unified - Member Representative

Approved by David Gordon

08/17/2020 09:10 AM PDT

South Orange County CCD - Member Representative

  • Kim McCord
  • Executive Director of Fiscal Services/Comptroller
  • kmccord@socccd.edu
  • (949) 582-4843
Approved by Kim McCord

08/16/2020 10:24 AM PDT

Tustin Unified - Member Representative

Approved by William Neddersen

08/19/2020 02:48 PM PDT