Morning, everybody. Welcome to the Directors' Event 2020. I am going to start off the day by introducing Dr. Carolyn Zachry and Javier Romero who are our co-administrators of the California Adult Education Program or CAEP. Dr. Carolyn Zachry is the State Director and Education Administrator for the Adult Education Office at the California Department of Education. And Javier Romero is the Dean of the Adult Education and Apprenticeship Programs within the Workforce and Economic Development Department at the California Community College's Chancellor's Office. So I'm going to just pass it directly off to Dr. Zachry. Welcome. 

Thank you very much, Renee. Let me get our slides going here. All right. So thank you everyone for coming and participating today with our Directors' Event. Trying to see how I can work here on my slides. There we go. 

So I'm going to be talking about first giving you sort of a review of what we're going to do today. We have a lot of great things in store for you today. And that includes hearing from-- I'm looking for the agenda, sorry. That includes really talking about the impact of COVID-19 on your programs, from several different stakeholders, including OTAN and how OTAN has really helped to support all of you as you pivoted to online instruction. 

Then we're going to hear from WestEd and CASAS and dive into what the data looks like and how are we measuring success during this time period. And so that's sort of what our day is going to look like. There's going to be opportunities for you to chat amongst each other in the chat box, to have some small group interactions in breakout rooms. We hope that you'll have a wonderful day. 

And so Javier, I'm going to move on to the next slide if you want to talk about funding. 

Good morning. As you all know, and we were all greatly relieved, our funding this year was not reduced. So it stayed the same, which I think bodes well for our program and reflects well upon you all. Other state programs were cut. Others are in precarious situations. And I'm involved in some. 

And so I congratulate you all. And we have to have our eyes open. We are in unprecedented times, we don't know how this pandemic is going to continue to spread. So those will have impacts on revenues. And I believe our revenue situation was better than anticipated. So we'll see. 

Relatively speaking, I believe Adult Education is in a good place. Think about it. We're not performance based. We're based on regional need. And who was impacted initially by COVID-19? Those in low paying jobs, if you will, in sectors in hospitality, retail. And often it was the immigrant population. It was the populations we serve. 

So I think that need is going to stand out. And that's why we're optimistic. But we'll see. Let's just keep moving forward. Next slide please. 

And looking forward in our own positioning, one thing as we go forward, we want to learn more from is CAEP's response to the disruption. What can we learn from the current successes and struggles with the current pandemic? It's all struggle. But certain things, I'm assuming, were more successful than others based on need. 

What can we learn about using online instruction distance learning? How will that impact us beyond the pandemic? How has it changed us forever? What can we learn from that to better serve our students? And from what we've seen and what we're going to be hearing from the policymakers and what you've seen regionally, can we do more? 

One topic. I was sitting in the meeting in the context of early childhood education. CDE actually received a preliminary grant. And now the grant moving forward is health and human services. And one of the topics was early childhood education working with parents. And our program came to mind. 

One of our program areas is for adults helping students succeed academically in elementary and what have you. So that's something that we're going to continue to watch and see what's happening in our program. So these are things that we're looking forward to. And Carolyn actually has some data about the response thus far. 

Yeah. Thanks, Javier. So we do have some data from a couple of different surveys that we have had going on. And these are. Statewide surveys, not just CAEP oriented but CAEP and WIOA agencies. So I wanted to share some of that data with you. 

So first of all, we asked how programs are going to be offering classes in this fall semester. And as you can see from this slide, almost 82% of our programs are being offered online. And 15%, almost 16% are being in a hybrid manner. And a very, very small number are being offered in person. 

Then we also asked-- we have a lot of questions that we asked. But I just wanted to give you a sampling of those. And we asked how you were going to be registering students for the fall. And most of you are doing an online registration process with a small percentage of you doing some in person. 

And then we were wondering while you're doing those in person or those online registrations, how were you going to help students who might need assistance? And the majority of you are going to be doing that through phone, email. And a small percentage are doing that also in person. 

We also wanted to find out about services that you're offering to your students. This is orientation counseling, transitioning services. How are you referring them to other agencies? And again, the majority of you are doing these all online. And so I know this disruption as we talk about it is really looking at perhaps a new way of us doing business in our world. 

And how are you assisting students in the fall? Again, this is looking at how you're helping those students. And again, most of you are doing this online and remotely or both. A small number of you are struggling with being able to do that. 

Then we wondered what programs did you have that might have been affected by COVID that you're not able to fully offer? And not surprisingly, the majority of those were CT programs. And we asked a follow up question from this, wondering what types of impacts did you have. And those impacts included limited enrollment, more time for teacher preparation, and just generally a reduction in hours to your programs. And so that's how your programs were impacted that you've told us. 

Then another question that we asked had to do with how are you going to let students know that you're back in business. And the top two ways that you all said you were going to do that was by emailing students and using your online catalogs, your website, social media, and then, of course, word of mouth. And we know word of mouth is really important. 

[INTERPOSING VOICES] 

So the other survey-- and these surveys are developed by a group of practitioners. And so really thank that group of practitioners. I don't have the list of everyone here in front of me. But we also have this ongoing survey that is related to student technology and the technology that they have access to to do online programs. And we've had over 3,200 students take the survey as of last week. 

And of those, 683 said that they connect with their phone. Over 2,800 said they connect through their home internet or Wi-Fi. About 1,300 students said they have or may have, because they didn't quite know, data limits. And interestingly, almost 2,400 students didn't have a device to study online. 

And this data is ongoing. And we're wanting you to continue to offer this to students, to have students take it. It is available in multiple languages. Because it's an online survey. Again, we had a couple practitioners help us put this together. 

But we want you to continue to have students take this survey so that we can share this data with legislators. We can share this data with the superintendent and the chancellor so that we know where the need is. And it will help us, I think, to promote the fact that we need more devices. When we look at these 3,200 students, 2,300 almost 2,400 don't have a device to study online. That's significant. And that's important. So we need to be looking at ways to assist those students. 

The last survey that we did, and it was a really fast turnaround survey, was related to PPE. And we were asked by a division at CDE, as well as the State Assembly for information on K-12 adult schools who needed PPE. And I'm pleased to say that I found out as of last Friday that it is starting to be delivered to your county offices of education. And so if you completed that survey, you should be getting a contact from your county office to get your PPE. All right. 

And Javier, looking ahead. Javier? I'm not sure where Javier went. So I'll go until he jumps in. So Javier, just talk over me when you come back in. 

So now we're going to start looking ahead, start looking at the next three year planning cycle, and looking at what that's going to entail, and perhaps some potential policies such as looking at performance goals, better data collection and benchmarking, using the data that we have. And how do we improve what we're doing out in the field with collecting data, and looking at what's working and what's not working? Also looking at our CTE industry sectors and clusters. And how are all of you partnering at your local level to ensure that your students are involved in career pathways that are leading to jobs? And then also looking at some co-enrollment strategies. 

All right. And let's see. The next slide has to do with that process. Now this should not be completely unfamiliar to many of you. Because this is the process that we've been using for the last time we did our three year plans. And that is going through some pre-planning assessment, looking at your community needs. And that's where hopefully when you're looking at your community needs, you're also looking at your industry sectors and the needs of the workforce in your area, that you're identifying some goals and strategies, and that you're piloting and implementing. 

And I will tell you that for WIOA Title II programs, we are doing a new continuous improvement process or plan, getting rid of many of our deliverables. And that is going to just marry nicely with your three year planning process. So that you're not feeling as if you're going in one direction. If you're WIOA and CAEP funded and you're going this direction-- if you're going this direction for WIOA funding and this direction for CAEP. We really want them to be coming together in this whole idea of goals and strategies. 

And I saw Javier came back in. So I'm hoping he can pick up from here. 

Yes, I apologize, Carolyn. I apologize to everyone. My internet just went down. I'm using my iPhone now. 

Got it, OK. 

So perfect timing. And the gardener came at the same time, as well. So with immigrant integration, once again looking forward to a topic of interest by many will be immigrant integration. And this year will be the first time that we will actually be benchmarking this data. And I say this as what's reported out. This is the first rollout application of the COAPPs. This is familiar to you all-- 

[AUDIO OUT] 

So we will use that to benchmark. This is what's going on out there. And I'm sure the data will prove more what we've learned from it and so on. And once again, as we talked about, the COVID response to this population has been severely impacted. This will be an area of interest. 

In fact, the Labor Workforce Development Agency has reached out to Carolyn and I regarding wanting to align their English learner pilots to the stuff that Carolyn has [INAUDIBLE] in place. We need to build from that, link that to our immigrant integration work and also our work at the chancellor's office in the area of pre-apprenticeship. 

And these are some things, moving forward you'll see an RFA from us in the near future, and which is really going to spell that out. And really, it's going to target you as somebody that we are inviting to build on some of your programs. Let's identify some apprenticeship programs because of this crisis, and move into that. And let's-- so that's something that moving forward, we're going to focus on. Next slide, please. Uh, next slide, Carolyn. I don't see I don't know what happened to my screen. 

We're on the CAEP Research slide. 

OK Let me pull up-- OK here we go. And to do this, this is something really Neil's been leading the way, is identifying individuals that could help us and really identify the emerging topics. And one of the things as always, we believe the innovation's already occurring, we just need to identify it, and what our resources are on these points. So I will be attempting to identify model practices and experts in those areas, to try to create a situation in which we're learning from your peers, and we're learning from what works when the topic comes up we can actually identify case and points. Much like the English learner pilots and when they reached out. We're-- [AUDIO OUT] --and we're both compiling information for they'll have to see. [AUDIO OUT] --what's occurring thus far. [AUDIO OUT] --good integration, we're going to look at that further, what's working out there. 

Like I said, we'll have data for the first time, and then also we'll look at what works. And there's already been some research out there. That's something a topic of-- is of interest, is the pre-apprenticeship model or other models that are creating opportunities to do transitions from be it key control that community colleges is not credit to credit but that's something we'll be focused on. And you know what we learn from IET so far. Contextualized instruction, dual enrollment, a new policy. So these are some of the areas we will be delving into learning and seeing what are some of the things that we should put emphasis on. Looks like and it sounds like I'm breaking up. 

So this is the CAEP Community of Practice. 

With the research, yes, the CAEP Community of Practice. This is something that we'll be looking to become more intentional about, and cultivating peer to peer learning, leverage the expertise you all have, identify those out when we have an issue occur in one region. Let them know about another region that's handled it, and how did they handle it. Basically it's going to be based on available resources, regional idiosyncrasies; however, there's principles and lessons to be learned that can be shared. We'll include regional experts use TAP to connect field needs as they have been. But now have-- hope to create a network of experts which become part of the discussion. 

And Carolyn and team have already started moving towards seeing how we could better align WIOA II with CAEP. You guys are already doing in the field. But also, we would, like we said, be more intentional about it. And then better connection with professional development. What we know, what we need to focus on as far as your needs and that's based on a dialogue. And as always, more webinars highlighting effective practices moving forward. Next slide, please. There you go. I apologize for the-- all the difficulties but if there's any questions that we can-- I'm sure there's some in chat, I can't see it unfortunately. 

Well I do have to say, Javier, that Neal didn't think we could do it in a half an hour, and we did. So-- 

So are there any questions? I don't see the chat either. Oh, there's the chat. 

There were a few questions, Carolyn and Javier. The first question was were students asked if they had internet connection in the student intake survey or technology survey? 

Yes. 

OK and then the next question was from Kathleen Porter, and she asks Carolyn do you-- do the accounting offices know who responded to the survey? We got a call last week from someone with San Diego County Office of Education who did not know about the survey. She was assessing needs all over again. 

So we were asked to survey the field from the CDE as well as the assembly. And so I don't know that county offices-- I don't know where the communication went. We kind of did our part and scrambled with the help of the adult ed associations and got that survey out. And so I'm not sure why your county office would be reassessing needs. So perhaps you and I can talk offline and figure out what's going on there. I know you filled out the survey, So you should be getting some PPE from them. 

OK and then Laura says Carolyn will the county officers know that the PPE is earmarked for adult ed? 

Yes, and that was very specific and the message I got on Friday was from Victoria and so I'm not sure if Victoria is on, but she can perhaps put in the chat how she was contacted. I know that she just sent me a message saying they were-- they had gotten it, or it was going to be delivered to them this coming week. So it's earmarked for adult schools and for CTE programs. 

OK and then the last question, Neal answered. And so I don't see any additional questions at this time. 

All right, great, I can stop sharing then, and-- 

OK, thank you to both Carolyn and Javier for leading us off and kind of setting the vision for this next year. We are going to transition to Neil Kelly. Neil is a specialist in the Adult Education Program within the Workforce and Economic Development Department at the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office. You will recognize him as our expert on all things CAEP. Neil is here to provide us with CAEP 2021 updates for the field. Are you all set? It looks like he's all set. Take it away Neil. 

OK, I lost my-- my screen share changed kind of how I'm looking at things. But let me get the chat open so we can start having a lovely chat discussion. So this presentation is not going to be your standard CAEP update because you guys probably know all this stuff anyway. So I'm going to probe a little deeper into some of the survey questions that Carolyn asked. More of a-- on a CAEP level, like administrative level. And then kind of ask you to respond in the chat to get some feedback from you on a certain question. So with that, let's begin. And I'm trying to find-- Veronica how do I advance my slides? I'm not seeing the-- 

There, so if you hover at the bottom, there should be left and right arrows, or back and forth arrows. If you-- 

Yeah, it's not 

--hover over the bottom. To the right-- I mean to the left of my screen. 

Yeah it's usually it shows up. But today for some reason it's not showing up. I don't know why. 

OK so I'll-- 

I agree, Neil. Mine looked different, too. 

OK so I'll-- if you stop sharing, I'll share your slide deck and advance your slides. OK, so stop sharing. 

Yes. 

All righty, sorry about that everyone. And then there's-- there are some questions. So while we wait for that sharing, Carolyn's question about-- from Annabell is the PPP-- PPE earmarked for adult ed, will it be distributed to adult education schools outside their agencies? 

I think I need clarification on that question. 

OK, right. Annabell, if you could clarify that-- 

If she can type that, and I'll monitor the chat for that. 

OK. All right, so we're going to talk about-- today we're going to talk about enrollment, funding, deliverables or requirements, student needs, we'll talk about the data, professional development planning, model practices. But this is all going to be getting feedback from you, so be prepared to participate. So if you've been multitasking while Carolyn and Javier have been talking, if you're washing the car or taking the dog for a walk, get prepared for-- we need your feedback so stop doing all those things if you were. 

All right next slide, please. All right, first, participating poll here. Although it's early how much is your rollment-- enrollment down since you opened this fall? And pick the one that best describes your situation. So if everybody can see the polling that Veronica posted, or Holly, very interesting here on the percentage. We'll give you a few more seconds. And if you're in between the percentages, just pick the closest one rounding up or down, whatever floats your boat. OK so looking at the data, I think the majority, over 80%, are 25% down, 25% or more. 35% are down 50% or more, which is kind of what we've been hearing. But it is still a big blow to our program. But we understand that it wasn't going to be easy. 

So the data that we had from last year, we were down about, I don't know 10% to 15%, in the data-- that preliminary data that we saw for 19-20. So we expected it to be down the beginning of 2021. So all right. So Veronica or Holly are going to share the results. We're going to get a look at that. And can everybody see the poll there? So we're going to move on to the next question. 

All right and then I'm going to-- so this is a chat question. So if students are staying away, type in the chat why are they staying away. If you'd like to share. So feel free to type in the chat. A digital divide, being overwhelmed, struggling, being parents, oh, all kinds of good responses here. Probably not going to go through all of them, but we are going to capture and review these. This is really good feedback. And as usual, you can always save the chat in the bottom right hand corner typing on-- clicking on the three dots there. It'll save you-- save the chat to your own computer files. I plan to do that at the end of my presentation, so I can capture all your input there. 

OK, we'll wait for just a couple of more responses. I think we got tons of responses, this will really inform the state level of what people are going through at the regional and district level. OK, thank you so much for sharing. And if you want to, you can read through those responses on your own time. 

So here's another poll. So, pencils down. In your program which CAEP program is most affected by the current pandemic. So like, I'm thinking I know the answer, but I want to ask you. You know, we've heard anecdotally a certain program, people aren't showing up. And then we've heard anecdotally another program is difficult to offer online because it's hands on. So let's see what we get. OK, so far ESL is way out in front. Initially we thought CTE, but we've been hearing our ESL students are not showing up. So that's interesting. And it's kind of being confirmed by what you're telling us right now. Because language acquisition is a tough subject to teach online, especially with our student population. 

OK, we've got 74% of the votes in. We'll give you just a couple of minutes. Maybe not even a minute, maybe 10 seconds to vote. All right. --got a good idea. OK, do we want to publish these results? All right, so ESL 55%, CTE 32%, and then to a lesser extent Basi-- ABE ASE and Adults with Disabilities. So thank you for sharing, once again. And we will go to the next slide. 

So here's a chat response. So get ready, you're going to have to think. So with the funding, it's based on need, you know, those need categories you're very familiar with unemployment, which is now pretty much double-- 

You're wrong. 

--the census data that we used. Limited English proficient, low literacy, no high school diploma, high school equivalency, poverty, we don't require payment points so it's all based on need. You're getting this funding because we know there's a need in your region. So what keeps you up at night in regards to funding? And you can put that in the chat. What are your what are your issues with the funding? I mean you can say not enough, but we all know that. But if there's other things that are problematic with the funding related to CAEP. 

And there's no right or wrong answer. It's what-- something you think about constantly related to funding. Even though we have this nice needs-based system with CAEP and you get the money, I'm sure there are some issues that you have. People are talking about cuts, unknown impact, effectiveness of district level oversight, return on investment, a lot of things that people worry about. Both to use funding to help students housing, food, and child care, drop in enrolments, short term, want to do the best for the students, a lot of good responses here. Getting outcomes with funding we are spending. All right. 

This is going to be the most in-depth chat that I'm going to read through, I think, in all our webinars. A lot of good information being shared here. And you all have access to this as well. OK just maybe 10 more seconds on that, if you have any last thoughts jot them in the chat. Pressure in districts giving challenge with future fiscal situation, spending restrictions, figures are all over the place, enrollment fluctuations are caused by uncertainty, and continuing to manage programs, late money. [INTERPOSING VOICES] make it look like we are not spending. Need for additional program, OK. 

Let's move on to let's wrap up there, pencils up. Next slide, please. OK here's a poll. What are the most critical support services ranking one being the most important and I don't know if-- Veronica were you able to make this a ranking one? Or is this-- 

No, Zoom-- 

--pick the most-- 

Zoom does not allow ranking. 

OK. 

So it's just the most critical. 

The most critical. So you can't rank them, you have to choose between one of the six. Because I know in the survey a lot of these were listed, but we didn't know which one was the most critical. It's interesting here. We're going to wait till we get about 70% of the poll-- polling. And somebody said which wasn't listed, actually access to technology would be number one. So let's go down, so Supportive Services are like the food, childcare, housing those type of stuff. Referrals are working with your county, Social Services, or mental health, or Workforce. And then internally we have Student Orientation, we have Counseling Services, Transition Services, which could be a lot of different things. We have Immigration Services. 

But maybe you can explain in the chat because we're seeing kind of a mixture with about 70% Supportive Services are the most critical, meaning food, childcare, housing, those kind of things. But then Counseling and Student Orientation are also-- to a little bit of a lesser extent important as well. And then you get into transitional-- Transition Services a little bit farther down, and then Referrals and Immigration Services are at the bottom there. OK so and then people are explaining their responses maybe it wasn't phrased-- or the poll wasn't set up as great as we could. 

So we're going to move on to the next slide, and I think this is a chat response. OK so in the chat, how are we telling our story through the data? Got to switch gears here, we're going to talk about data. So Greg says through retention, that's how we're telling our story. How else are you telling your story? I like the one word answers. Retention and completion, completion, outcomes, impact, highlight positives, supportive services, completion, transition, transition rate, student success equitable access. OK now they're coming in fast and furious. Outcomes, pictures from graduation parties. 

OK let's switch to the bottom question. So we're going to have you pause for a second. How do we tell the stories that the data can't tell? So maybe those are those success stories graduation pictures, but I don't know let's hear. So testimonials, right? So this would be how do we tell the stories that the data can't tell? Surveying students, non-data student success stories, Facebook, this is all good stuff that we didn't know about that you guys probably do every day. 

Personal stories, student stories of grit, student feedback, social media, referrals, success stories, great stuff. Talking with students personally, asking teachers, putting together videos, student accomplishment, surveys every quarter, testimonials, social media, Facebook, social media seems to be popular. Connection with local partners to place students. All right, great stuff. Very, very good information that you're sharing there. Let's go to the next slide. 

And professional development, this is a chat response again. What PD or technical assistance is working well right now? So you're going to have to switch gears here. OTAN, Jay, so that's like Elvis, right? Jay is our Elvis? First name only. Webinars are great. OK, OTAN and Jay, local PD OK, right. 

OK, so switching gears. What are your continuing PD or technical assistance needs. So we know things are working well from your responses. But what do you need going forward? What are some things that you could use? Online teaching, online course design, social and emotional training, online teaching, equity in online teaching, virtual learning, virtual student engagement, tech training for students. More resources for online course design, best practices, online teaching cert state-aligned industry recognized platform, devices, cool enrollment strategies social and emotional for teachers, staff, troubleshooting tech, video models, better internet, self student care, updated tech, ongoing tech support, all right. 

Online courses, time to develop our stories, student engagement, tilted credential training, best practices on finding out why students leave programs. OK, social emotional, persistence for educators training. Digital literacy curriculum for ESL students, great. OK Veronica how am I doing on time? 

You have 25 more minutes. 

Oh, OK great, so because I didn't want to cut people short, but I wanted to be fair with our time because everybody's adding in so much or contributing so much good information. OK let's go to the next slide. And Veronica, are they able to do a show of hands, or is it a click on the Yes-No button in Zoom for the first question? 

They are able to raise their hands. 

And where would they find that? 

And so when you hover over your name-- 

Oh, I got you. 

Yeah, or at the bottom of the participant list, you should see a Raise Hand. People are using it. We have a few people who have raised their hands thus far. So it's at the bottom of the participant list, or you can hover over your name and select more, and then it should have a Raise Hand button. And we have more and more people who are raising their hand. 

OK so let me ask the question. Are you ready to start working on a new three year plan? So raise your hands if you're ready. Let's see so we got like 152 people here, and we're seeing a-- seeing some hands Carolyn are you ready? Just kidding. 

Am I ready for what? 

To raise your hand for the three year plan. 

Oh, sure I can do that. 

OK let's see. Some people are not ready. I don't know, Veronica, is there a way we can qualify this-- quantify this, these numbers? Or is it difficult? 

No, you can't quantify unless I count individually, but I would say if I have to estimate, I would say probably maybe 10% to 15% may have raised their hands. And then we have quite a few no's or not quite in the chat 

Uh-huh. 

So-- but the majority of people have not responded. 

OK so you're either indifferent, or you haven't figured out you haven't figured out how to raise your hand. OK, we'll give you a few more minutes. 

We also have people who are using the yes-no so we have three yeses that's we're able to quantify there. We have three yeses and we have three guesses and about 12 no's. 

OK all right and then we'll-- I see some comments in the chat. We owe a plan due this year, it's a bear, we are required to be involved. Any planning may involve a couple of different scenarios regarding social distancing. Some may be consortium members but not consortia leads they're not sure if they can or should raise their hand. Interesting, yeah. I'd like to see the 21-22 budget before planning again. Nice suggestion there Crystal. Stumbling block to planning, unclear about actual effects. 

OK let's move into the next question. If we ask consortia and their members to set goals and targets for the next three year plan. Where do you foresee some stumbling blocks in goal setting and target setting? OK we're barely into our first year of current planning, and our future is unclear. So if we did roll out guidance, it wouldn't be until next year, but you would need at least a year to start the planning process, because the three year plans are going to be due in June of 2022. So if we roll out guidance in the spring of 2021 to give you a year head start, June 2022 will be on you before you know it. So I know you're just starting into year two of your three year plan. But before you know it, you'll be into year three, and you've got to give yourself a year its head start to get going on that. 

So let's see. So a lot of people with the uncertainties. It's tough to plan when things are happening. But people are say yes, roll out guidelines in the spring. A new version of the self-assessment tool kit could be good. Let's see, there's more responses, I missed some of the responses above, sorry. I agree with planning-- I was reading some. I'll wait you guys go through. 

So let's see spring of 2021 to-- oh. Let's see, I was trying to get Beth's comment in there. OK all right, so if we roll out the guidance in the spring, at least we'll have the governor's proposed budget in January, which is just about three months away. So endemic amendment that's interesting. OK a couple of more comments. 

Oh, I see, a pandemic addendum to the current three year plan. So really you don't-- I mean we still need to talk about this in the guidance but you're not really submitting a brand new three year plan. You're kind of updating it. What you're submitting will be the goals and targets. So you won't have to do a 200 page three year plan. I mean you can do that if you want to, but that's at the local level. What we'll be asking for at the state, and we still need to talk about this, is what are your goals. What are your targets in the next three year phase cycle? 

You know, and so we still have to get the data out to, share with you. What are statewide averages? How does that compare in different regions? What are the federal performance goals? What are the state community college vision for success goals? So we'll share all that information, and then you guys will do your self-assessments and other tools that you use for planning to come up with your goals and targets. You'll have the CASAS TE data, you'll have the launch word data, you'll have your community college data, you'll have LMI data, those kind of things. 

So don't think about it as doing a brand new three year plan, think about it like you said, an update. But the new thing will be the goal setting and targets. Targets will be depend if students are able to come back. OK, so that's the kind of thing we're going to have to use that planning year to figure out. What does the landscape look like? What are we gearing up for? There's no right or wrong answer in goal setting and targets. We're not going to say, oh your targets are bad or we will give you whatever data we have, whether it's survey data, whether it's three year-- the last three years data. 

I know it's difficult in a pandemic to kind of plan based on that last three years. Our 19-20 data should be kind of an indicator, because we did take a close to a 15% drop, and so we can speculate on what that means. But you know your region, and you know your district as far as your school or your programs. So we'll begin talking about this now, figuring out how do we provide the technical assistance to discuss goal setting, where do we display that information about goal setting in the data. What does that look like. So I think setting targets will be most challenging to do right now. 

OK, so moving on to the next question, I have just about 15 minutes so I don't want to leave any of the slides out. So next slide, please. OK so now we're going to do some polling it's yes-no polling. And so I'm going to-- thank you. I'm going to run through a series of innovative practices, and you're going to tell me yes or no. If you're using that currently. Maybe you're not using it as much given the attendance or enrollment drop, but maybe you've used it in the past and you plan to continue using it. But we just want to see kind of in the field which innovative practices are percolating more than others. So next slide, please. 

The first one is number one how many people are using the following-- OK, integrated education and training. So you can click Yes or No on that. And then the next one after that is guided pathways, yes or no. If you're using that practice and the third one is contextualized instruction. So is the poll open because we haven't had anybody respond yet. OK here we go. 

So it's like a horse race here. And then further down you have to scroll down, pre-apprenticeship is number four, dual enrollment number five transition specialists, six, and immigrant integration, seven. So use your time to respond yes or no, and I'll just give you an update as you're wading through. So for IET, 71% are using IET. Guided pathways 58%, contextualized instruction 75%, pre-apprenticeship only 32%, dual enrollment 65%, and dual enrollment could be a lot of things. So use your imagination. I'm not going to define that because there's many ways you can dual enroll or co-enroll. Transition specialist 65% and immigrant integration 22%. 

OK we've only had we only have 89, let's see if we can get up to 70% of the respondents. So I need a few more votes in there. All right. Someone let's see some are moes, what? It's tough to navigate this chat because you're so-- no's, not moes, I like moes. OK that's funny. 

All right what are we at 64% let's see if we can reach our target. Speaking of goal setting, let's see if we can reach 70% here. And then you won't have to hear me that much anymore. So that's a good incentive. 

I'm not able-- Usha says I'm not able to submit for some reason. We are doing almost all of them except guided pathways. A lot not implemented yet. That's OK. If you haven't implemented it yet, just say no. We just want to see how it's going in the field. And then if we need to promote practices or get more information out, we know where maybe some of those areas are that people need a little more information on. 

So OK, come on just a couple of we didn't get to 70% Veronica. We were only at 67%, but maybe we ran out of time. So it looks like immigrant integration and pre-apprenticeship are a couple that really need to be [background noise] more work. So all right so how much time do I have, just a few more minutes? 

Are we at time? 10 minutes. OK, so let's go to the chat. If there's any questions-- 

We have the Wrap Up here. I'll monitor the chat now to see. OK, if you have any questions or follow up, I'm going to actually click on the three dots in the bottom right-hand corner and save my chat. So if you want to do that, you can do that now as well. There's a lot of good information to go through. 

Allen says other incentives for pre-apprenticeship? Well if you've got one of the pre-apprenticeship or the apprenticeship grants, there's really no pre-apprenticeship incentives right now. I don't know if Javier is still on the line, if he wants to talk about kind of the future of pre-apprenticeship, and how we're planning or trying to incentivize it. If Javier is available-- 

Can you hear me, Neal? 

Yeah. 

OK. Yeah, so basically for pre-apprenticeship, we provide seed funding for grants. I mean we hope to see that the incentive is the outcome. So we believe it's a good strategy. Granted, there's a lot of things that have to be in place for it to work. But should you have those, the partnerships, the employer, the apprenticeship programs, the link to, then the outcome is there. So there is no set aside to maintain it thereafter. It would be something we'd see, good work. Hopefully there'd be leverage funding that sustains it thereafter. I mean that is the model. 

Thank you so much, Javier. Let's see, another question. Franks says make sure you're keeping tabs on the California Apprenticeship Initiative through the Chancellor's Office. And then Allen asks, what is seed funding? So seed funding is-- I think Javier would describe it. I don't know. Javier, are you still on the phone? 

Yeah. Basically it's funding to get it started. So maybe you need to do an application, you would have some preliminary agreements and some need to identify the partnership that are there and said, with this funding, we could get this going. So it's startup. 

OK And let's see the Rethink Adult Ed Challenge is a $750,000 grant. Let's see. I lost my chat. OK I lost my chat there. Let me get back to it. Sorry about this is. It's so difficult. The US Department of Education invites Adult-Ed programs to design programs that better learners for apprenticeship and beyond. 

So that was in the newsletter. Thank you, Angela. That was in the newsletter last week. So we advertise that. So that's another opportunity that you can apply for that grant. Greg adds $750,000 challenge, advanced apprenticeship open to adult-Ed funded agencies. Well AEFA, is it only we owe it to? I would imagine. If anybody has any information on that. 

And then Adele says small LEAs are my concerns. It felt like pre-apprenticeship and IELCE, which is integrated education that's with the civics model, were difficult to establish given limited resources. The college's cooperation both strategies, as there are more resources available to these programs. 

OK and Frank adds, received the $500,000 grant three years ago to start his pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship program. How can an agency apply for the seed funding? Is it only community colleges or K-12 can apply for this seed funding? All right, Javier, seed funding, is the application process going to change? Or is it the same application process? 

The process will be the same. It will be an RFA that goes out. And yes, the K through 12 would be eligible. It's about $98. So LEAs and districts can apply. And we hopefully we get the RFA out, probably sometime in November. But I must admit it's difficult getting RFAs out the door. But that's something that we're starting to work on. We just finished up another one. So just keep a lookout. Once it's released, we'll put in the same 

OK you kind of broke up there, Javier. 

She sent a memo out. It's posted on our Website, on the RFA's. I was just saying that it was out sent out. And it's posted on our website. But also I was saying that we'll advertise in our newsletter as well, letting the world know it's out now. And then hopefully the content will be different in the past be very more intentional as far as looking to target ESL students and adults with basic ed needs, and calling out CAEP system as somebody that should really step into this opportunity space. 

Granted, there's a lot of challenges. And the input is good as far as the work we need to do on other program areas to get them into be more receptive, as far as the partnership to get this going. So the input is good. We know the barriers. And we're working on it. 

All right, thank you. Kelly mentions that there was a good webinar last week, called Critical Considerations for Developing Apprenticeship and Pre-Apprenticeship Programs: Grow Apprenticeship California. So I'm imagining that would be on the California Apprenticeship Initiative web page or Hub. Pedro says we have partnered with local Webs to implement a pre-apprenticeship in manufacturing. We have implemented this for three years. It's labor intensive. [INTERPOSING VOICES] 

-- Program to apprentice entry-level jobs. And then, let's see, Serena says part of the way we were able to focus on students first is determining the most important deliverables for staff in order to shift systems and be successful. Are there any deliverables at the state or federal level that will be delayed, postponed, or canceled to ensure we all have sustained capacity to meet the current needs? 

For the CAEP, I don't think we're postponing or canceling any data we're not a pay per performance program. So that data will not be used. Your funding is based on need. So maybe I'm not understanding the question. OK, and let's see. We're wrapping up here. Sophia posted something. Maybe that was the webinar, two minutes. 

OK, so thank you, Sophia. And with that I'm going to relinquish my time back to Veronica. I appreciate all the information. I'm going to save the chat one more time just because there was so much good information shared. So thanks again. And I'll turn it over to Veronica. 

Actually I'm going to jump in. This is Renee Collins, again. And I thank you Neal so much, for really soliciting all of that discussion from the field. You kept us engaged. You kept us working on a Monday morning. And it's and it's good to be able to have those interactions with one another. We don't get them often enough. 

So we're going to transition next into some discussion about COVID-19 and its impact. And to lead us is OTAN or Outreach and Technical Assistance Network. Presenting today are Neda Anasseri our Coordinator of Technology Projects, and Penny Pearson, our Distance Learning Projects Coordinator. So Penny or Neda, are you-- 

I am ready to go. 

Ready to go OK ? 

I am indeed. Good morning, everyone. As was just mentioned, I am a coordinator with Outreach and Technical Assistance Network and also working with me today is Neda Anasseri She is also on the line. And we're just going to have a discussion here for the next 45 minutes. And really looking to provide you in the field an opportunity to talk about your successes. And I know all of you have already shared quite a bit. And it's fascinating to see the chat. I'm like Neal. I'm saving the chat, because there's such great stuff in there. 

But this next 45 minutes is really meant to be a time for us to really talk about how we have found some of those what I'm calling silver linings. And I know this has been a very rough time. And we have lots of concerns. But we're really looking at trying to find out what has proven successful. 

So there's a couple of things I want to do in the beginning here. And first is kind of this high view. I call it the big high world view. And there's a couple of links here in the presentation. And I know that Veronica has posted in the chat the folder where are these presentations can be found. So there are some very high level research projects about the impact of COVID on adult education in particular. And there are the links here from these different organizations, Open Door Collective, EdTech Center for Literacy. They all group together to create a very detailed report. There are slide decks available if you want to look at how they were presenting this online. We'll be hearing more about those as we move along today. 

And then there's also another report here for the whole response to emergency remote teaching and learning. And I know I've heard from several practitioners about really having to-- One week, we had to turn things around. And I admire that about all of us is that adult education is very flexible. So I'm going to move on to some of the same data pieces that Carolyn had looked at. So for those of you that came in just a little bit late, this will be new. Those of you that were here before, you've seen these before. But I think it's important to kind of keep these in mind because to me they all have really good points. 

And I and this first one is how are we going to get started in the fall? And you can see that we're getting started in the fall. Over 81% of us are looking at some type of all online or hybrid class to keep our learners learning. And that is to me, a successful thing to see. I see a very small sliver of no classes at all, and even some traditional classes where we're still offering them in person. 

So the registration piece, this is something too that has been a challenge. And it's very heartening to see that there are those in our agencies that are already working on providing a way and a mechanism to provide online capabilities for registering but also still providing that face-to-face option. And I'm sure we can hear more about those as we move forward here because I'm going to introduce a couple of folks here in a few minutes that will tell their stories about some of their successful practices, both in this way and in some of the others that we're looking at. 

So the assessment, I know this is a big piece. But assessment still has some great success stories, because we still see our agencies providing them not only in person, but also online and remotely. And then they're combining the two. We've seen some wonderful pieces out of CASAS about agencies finding creative ways to do these types of assessments in order to keep their students in a persistence mode, coming back into the classroom, into the remote learning space, in order to keep working. And that's what we want, because we want to see our students meet their goals, no matter if we have a pandemic or not. 

This one is a tough one I think, for many of our K-12 agencies, especially. Because you or our community-based organizations. Because we have these wonderful agreements where we can offer our classes in other facilities. And with the pandemic, we've seen several of those being removed, reduced, not allowed. And that can impact the availability of our adult schools being able to offer those programs. So fortunately we've got really kind of neck and neck stats here about whether or not they have been impacted. And we'll see as we move through the fall, I think, if this reduces or increases. Because as you have all already said, we don't know what the future holds. But yet we still have to plan for it. So I think that this is a testament to all of you that you are still trying to work with your partners, still trying to find ways you can offer classes. 

So this is some of the comments from the field. And I'm not going to read these all. I'll let you guys do that. Because I think that they are some of those silver linings that I was talking about earlier. And they are ways that both our teachers and our administrators and even our learners have come back to us, and offering us some of these very positive concepts and positive things that have happened, even though it's been a very difficult time. So just take a moment to read. I'll shut up for a moment here. And then we're going to hear from some of our friends. 

And I hope that you recognize yourselves in some of these comments. OK, so now I was able to ask, both Ned and I were out soliciting some of our adulthood partners out here. And I'm going to ask Paige Endo from Mount Diablo to talk a little bit about some of her successes in the field at her agency. So I see Paige is online. Paige, I will navigate the slides for you. So whenever you're ready to go, you may begin. 

All right, thanks. And hello, everyone. Not surprisingly, our first response was, What? No in-person classes? And so we really appreciate it and feel like a success that we benefited from was actually the state success, with OTAN being quick to jump on and offer lots of resources. And of course our teachers were accessing resources on the internet right and left and connecting with other folks. Some of our teachers work with other agencies as well. So there was a lot of resourcefulness going on right away. 

And a couple of our programs were already using Canvas. So for them, for example, our CTE program and our high school program. They just made a smooth transition and took everything online through Canvas. So for them, that was a fairly smooth success. And then we had some programs that were like no, adults with disabilities, no we can't do that online. Preschool a.k.a. school-readiness classes, no, we don't want to do that. Court-ordered parenting classes, no. Low-level ESL classes, no. And yet very quickly, we went from no way to over 40 classes a week online for our adults with disabilities. 

And we've got three programs in our adults with disabilities department. We have an acquired brain injury program, a developmental disability program called Life Skills. And then we have a high functioning autism or Asperger's program. That group was very happy to go online. And we quickly learned too that we had to create norms for the classrooms, because they were very comfortable, too comfortable online. So that was how we responded in the spring, and then we planned for in the fall. 

So we have all of these classes running now. We've got our school-readiness classes going via Zoom for our three to five-year-olds and their parents. And this is in two programs. We have our ESL family literacy program, which is partially funded by our First 5 Contra Costa grant. And then we also have our parent education co-op program, which is funded by LCFF. 

And we moved all of our face-to-face registration process to all online for all of our ESL students. And so we have all levels in classes going on right now. We also increased our numbers in our Early Childhood Education and Intro to Healthcare Careers, which was exciting for us. We still don't have huge numbers. But we have more than we did before. And we really believe that as a result of the changes that we implemented in registering students. 

So some of those things that we had to do during COVID are things we actually want to keep going forward. And all of our departments have found little nuggets and things that are really working well for students, including that reduction of barriers that was mentioned, not worrying about child care so much or transportation. 

It was a good reminder for me anyway, and I think for some of our coordinators too, of how important our teachers are, how much heart they have, and how they really rise to the occasion in support of their students. They just cared so much about their students, and continuing to serve them. And they just really rose up to the challenge. 

And something that was very helpful for me personally was the messaging that we got from our school district. We've been increasingly been getting closer and closer with our K-12 school district over the last few years. And while we were all waiting for answers and for what to do and how to go forward, we got this clear message consistently over and over, connect and engage and support your students. And so I was able to pass that on to our coordinators, who then pass that on to their staff. We weren't behind. We were doing just fine. And we were doing the best that we could to connect, engage, and support. 

I think that's all I've got. I'm sure there are many, many more successes. We have them too. But those are a few of our highlights. 

Thank you, Paige. I'm not sure if you can see the chat, but there's some comments there that I'd like you to be able to review. And if anyone has a particular question for Paige, we can ask them quickly. But we're going to be also moving on to some other successes. And then I'm going to break you guys out into different groups, so you can also have an opportunity to talk amongst yourselves. Because I think that we have a lot of successes that we need to celebrate. 

So it looks like we're ready to go on, I think. Paige, thank you so much for your time. And I'm sure you'll have more to contribute in the breakout rooms as well. 

So coming up next, I had talked to a Corona-Norco and Thoibi Rublaitis. And I hope I did not butcher your name too badly, Thoibi But hopefully, you're online. And you can give us your perspective on some of the successes that you and your team have been able to enjoy throughout this terrible time of our pandemic. Thoibi, are you online? 

Thank you, yes I am. 

There you go. 

Yes, I'd like to piggyback on what Paige just said, which is about connect, engage, and support. And our district and the very many fortunate events that happened for our district, which is first of all, we were very fortunate to have a group of team leads who went to DLAC last year. So thank you OTAN. And the year before, for two years, they've been preparing for technology distance learning. And so this came in very handy when COVID happened. 

And the second part is how our district has been very open and willing to support us, and help us connect with our students and with the district. So to begin with, our district in July started talking about school opening and a safety plan. So the link that I have on the slide, if we click we would see the school opening plan for Adult Ed. The same plan that we had, we also made it student-friendly, by creating something which was all picture-based and getting our school ready for a distance learning and a remote learning option in August. 

However, because of state guidelines and the CDC guidelines, we could not go both ways. We could not have the physical. We ended up having only the remote learning option. However we made sure that we used that plan to test students on campus. So on the slides, you would see the steps we took to bring students on campus, setting up temperature checking station, the ingress and exit separated, all classrooms prepared for having students on board. And so we used that option to create testing centers on campus, bringing just eight students in a classroom at a time. So when we started in August, we planned to have pre-test on campus. 

Next slide, please. So this is the kind of setup we had planned for students. All our existing students were sent this little message with these so that they could get comfortable to come to campus. Next click, please. One more. So the three things that really were big successes were we were able to also distribute devices to our students. And like Kate said, connecting was the most important. Just handing out a device was not enough. So what we did is we brought students on campus by scheduling appointments for students. 

And our tech team, the team that was trained by OTAN, made sure that the students learned how to use the devices and to connect to the districts and the school systems and the Google Classrooms or to Canvas classrooms that we already had. Next click please. 

And so as you can see, that those are teachers helping students to log on and be able to use the devices they are provided. The other thing is like I mentioned, we had pretesting. And this week, we are now beginning post testing. And to get the same system going from the pretest to post-test, again we were scheduling eight students at a time. And if you have a chance later to click the CASAS Post-testing, and you will see the plan we had on how we plan to bring students and test students at staggered times, and for every program ESL, ABE, and ASE. 

We still have the option for students who cannot come on campus to do the remote testing. And we were part of the piloting group of the ESL and ABE testing during the summer. Click please. 

So those are students tested. We started on Friday. You will notice that students were placed at a distance from each other. And one more click please. We learned from our neighboring school district that we could also do more safer testing by Saran wrapping the keyboards. And that's one practice that we had added. And finally, we also will have had-- The connecting with students and the teachers part brought us to having providing teachers with teaching stations. The next picture please. 

So what we did is in every classroom, we had four corners used as a teaching station for our teachers. And we provided teachers with a bigger screen. And they could use the laptops so they can have more access to technology to be able to teach their students with more interaction. And the last one more slide, please. 

Oh, there it goes. So we have teachers teaching from the campus. I put more pictures. And all these little blue links are links that can open to more information about how we did things. Before I move on or before I stop sharing. I'd like to introduce my director Jody Slyter, because of whom we were able to provide one-on-one devices for every student in our school. And this is part of a project that she will share as a success from our district and for our consortium. Jody? 

Thank you, Thoibi. So I'm really going to share with you a little bit more of a regional success, a project that we became involved with through the Department of Housing Homeless Prevent and Workforce Solutions, which is part of the Riverside Workforce Development Board in Riverside. So we were able to leverage a million dollars of CARES Act funds, that were released to the Riverside County Adult schools. That includes three of our consortium, not just About Students consortium, which I'm the director of. But also with the Southwest consortium and Desert consortium. 

So this project included 20 different adult schools that are receiving CARES Act funds, that is primarily and exclusively for the purchase of devices and hotspots to be lent to students so that they can access technology and access learning online. It was the work of our deputy director of housing and homeless prevention that suggested that we do this project countywide. And so we worked with them and the board of supervisors to get this project going. And I was thrilled to send all of the participating schools an email last week that our project was approved by the board of supervisors. And we are in the process now of purchasing those devices and hotspots and getting those into the hands of students. 

We know that this success isn't just a short-term success. But this is something that our students will be able to use even during the process of coming back to in-person learning and being able to utilize those devices during hybrid-type learning environments, et cetera. So it was through the relationships that we were able to establish with the workforce development board in Riverside and the board of supervisors, that really helped us to leverage these funds for students and for these devices. We were able to come together. And it looks like we'll be purchasing over 2,700 devices and hotspots that will be distributed in the Riverside County to Adult Education students that are enrolled in our adult schools. 

Wow. Thank you, Jody. Thank you, Thoibi, Paige, everyone. Just a moment or two, if someone has a specific question for Paige, Thoibi, or Jody about some of the successes that they've done, we can take a couple of minutes to do that. Otherwise we can move on to some specific questions I have for the entire group. 

So I have one Jody, if I don't see one that pops up here real quick, that I would like to ask you. And that's in regard to your device distribution program. Have you yet, or are you working on a means or way that those devices will be tracked or loaned? Or how is that going to work if you know yet? 

Well basically a little bit. So let me answer the question by saying that the funds are being distributed to each participating school district that has the adult schools. And they will then implement their own processes for the loaning of the devices. So the funding doesn't come from or doesn't purchase their devices and then distribute the devices. But it really distributes the funding that can be used for those purchases. Each school district will own those devices, of course. And they will implement their own processes and their own policies for distributing and lending those devices to adult education students. 

That is awesome. Thank you, Jody. 

Yeah to add to that, Penny. All the schools in our consortium have their own practices of loaning devices. And we use the district's guidelines to do that. And that's what we have started by doing in our agency. 

Gotcha. Thank you for that. I think I personally, and I don't I won't speak for everyone, but I'm always interested in those loaner programs. Because a lot of times there's a great deal of concern that you won't get them back, and wondering what type of losses that some of these agencies may have with that. And so far I've seen not too many. I mean some typical device gets broken or something. But nothing that is outrageous. So I'm looking forward to see, both Jody and Thoibi, how that works out by maybe the end of the next academic year. So that's terrific. 

We have asked students to check in at the end of the semester so that we know. And then, as teachers drop students, we have an account of how many students had devices and they would have to return before we really lose them. So far it's just the beginning. So we don't have data yet. But by the end of the semester, we will have some data on how many students never checked back in. 

Gotcha, yep. Well thank you for that. And thank you everyone. It looks like we've got some folks making comments too of what they're doing. And I want to give everyone an opportunity to share amongst themselves because it is important that everyone knows the great things that we're doing. So I'm going to ask Veronica's help here. We're going to do some breakout sessions. Now if you haven't done breakout sessions before, what happens is is that we basically divide all of the attendees up into separate virtual spaces, a little mini room a breakout room, so to speak. And in that particular group, I would ask you guys to be proactive and assign someone to be a facilitator to help with prodding people who may be a little reluctant to speak, but have someone who's going to be a facilitator, a recorder, and then somebody who's willing to kind of report out when we come back. 

We'll be out in for one particular question, probably about eight minutes or so, and then spend another eight minutes or so with a report out by group. And we'll see how many groups we actually get. I'll have Veronica help me with that. And we'll basically start with one first question. And this is an opportunity for all of you to share what's been going on at your agency about one successful outcome that you, your team, or agency employed. And then how do you plan to build upon that success for the future? What are your next steps? I know there may be a lot of dependencies there. But that's OK. I just want you to be able to talk amongst yourselves and ask this question. 

One successful outcome, I'm looking for those silver linings. OK, I'm trying to be Miss Pollyanna. I'm very optimistic, because they are out there. And then how are you going to build upon that? So Veronica, can I get your magic fingers to help? 

Yes, I am on it. 

OK, it may take a second or two. We're going to do this randomly. So we're not assigning individuals into a particular room. And we're not going to stay in this room for the rest of the session today. So we're going to go out. And we'll have a timer for about eight minutes or so. So Veronica hopefully that helps you with setting up the breakout rooms. And when we come back, we will go ahead and report out. And during that time, Veronica will be able to set up the next set of breakout rooms, which will mix you all up again so you're not with the same folks. 

So thank you Neda for posting those instructions in the chat. Most of the time the chat will carry through with us into the breakout rooms. But sometimes it doesn't. So we'll try to kind of flit around a little bit to make sure that everybody's doing OK. And Veronica, I will wait for your queue when you are ready to split us up. 

All right, I am opening in the rooms now. 

OK, when you see the Join Room, please be sure to click on Join. And then we will bring you back into this main space. 

Welcome back, everyone. That might have been a bit of a rude yank-back out of your rooms. But I was able to pop around a little bit, and it seemed like everybody was engaged and talking. So we had lots of groups with small engagements. So I'm going to use the honor system and ask folks to report out. And we can start with-- 

[INTERPOSING VOICES] 

--one. And unmute yourself, whoever is the reporter. And just state your name and your group number. And then give us the highlights of some of the successes that you heard about please. 

May I ask? I don't know what group number we were. 

Well then, you're nominated. You can go first. I'm Mark Beshirs from Jefferson Adult. And we're up in the northern part of San Mateo County. And my other two members, Alejandro and Raoul, they're way down South, one near Blythe and the other one at the inland of my Carerre. 

And one of the things that we found in common was how we were able to integrate either with our K-12 side of our district or with the community college to really foster teacher development. So teachers like at our school, we brought in instructional coaches from K-12 to work with our teachers who were less familiar with some of their Ed-tech options. Raoul was noting that how it-- It was a good impetus actually, to kick start certain online offerings, just to kind of kickstart innovation all around. 

And that during that time, the teachers were taking the opportunity to improve practices. And yeah, that it provided an incentive, I wrote down too, to make changes and upgrades, either in the way we taught or into perhaps some of the technology that we had available to us. 

I got muted there. Mark, thank you very much for the time. And mark started out first because he didn't catch which room he was in. So do I have a representative from room one that can unmute and tell me about what their successes were talked about? 

I think I was in room one. 

OK. 

We talked about some of the silver linings, like definitely populations that we are tapping into that we didn't tap into before. And definitely after all this craziness, whenever this pandemic's over, or we get back to some sort of form of normalcy, it's going to change our school forever. And we'll always be offering distance learning. We definitely saw an increase in our Learning Center of a certain segment of students who probably weren't able to make it in person in classes. So that was definitely a silver lining we talked about. 

Thank you very much, Todd. How about group two? 

This is Wendy. We forgot to designate a reporter. 

Thank you for volunteering. 

So I was with Uta from San Diego and Maria from Salinas. And we talked about the sort of Chromebook or laptop purchasing and loaning to students, as well as Wi-Fi hotspots. And sort of both the successes that that was in terms of leveraging funds and getting things into the hands of students, and also some of the challenges around it, in terms of resistance. And I would say for me, just from the three of us, the biggest success was the lovely Maria de Leon from Salinas started her job in March. And she is still doing it. 

Great, thank you, Wendy. How about group number three? This is Pao Ling from ABC Adult School, base consortium I think, in group number three. In our group we really very excited with the online learning, because most of the programs are pushing not only to classify staff to support the teachers, but also provide more, and a lot, almost a week long training to all the instructors in order for them to get ready for the online teaching at the beginning of the school year. 

So we definitely, all the consortium of those schools that see the online learning will continue. It's another track for the future of adult education. So once we return in person, we definitely will offer the opportunities for the students to choose from the online learning. So that's the one thing that we share and most agree upon it's that professional development is very important. And we will continue providing more for the teachers and definitely we will for online tracking and online learning for the students, and also continuing with the remote assessment. 

Great, thank you Pao Ling. How about group number four? Group number four, somebody? Not sure. I didn't look at our group number. But I'll report out at this time. 

OK, Ryan. Thank you. So for Sweetwater, one of the big I think what I've shared, was the evolution of our tech usage, and how it probably would have taken 20 years to get people to develop the skills that they've developed in a few months if we had had to go through the traditional way of evolutionary change. So I think the evolution, it just accelerated dramatically. And we can leverage that forever now, which is a very real positive that has come out of so much negativity. 

And in Pacific Grove, and they talked about the increases in access for friends and family, like throwing the classes online, you can get people together that could never be together. And barriers have been removed. And the fee-based program is actually one that has kind of taken off as people are pursuing interests in their own personal development. So more positives that have come out, and plus access through the CARES Act. Again, I was cutting in and out on the last part. So I didn't hear where the sharer was from. But implementation and access through the CARES Act was cited as being a positive. 

Ryan, it's Barbara. I just wanted to dovetail on that, everybody. We were really excited to be able to help support our families at home. We recognize that parents are home distance learning with their children. And not just one grade level, but many homes have multiple grade levels at home. And with the language barrier at best and also technology being maybe limited within the household, kids sharing technology. So we were able to help utilize our K-12 success program to help support families at home with the digital divide, as well as with support for technology and distance learning. 

That's awesome, Barbara. Thank you for sharing that. How about group number five? 

So we're group number five. And in our mix of team people we had myself as a director, one county office of Ed individual, and two K-12. So we had a little bit of a mix there. But when we saw the overarching themes were, we don't have a lot of data yet to go on if we have been successful in the sense of how we're building capacity, doing drive-thru, parking lot sessions, all of that. We really don't know if this is working yet. So we don't have the data yet to look on to be able to build on more success. But we are in the process of building capacity, looking at how different ESL students are reacting to what we're doing, CTE programs, so forth. 

We shared out some good practices on how to address getting materials to students with them having drive-thrus and getting materials that way for CTE courses and ESL, how to do an orientation in a parking lot. So those were all about building capacity. We talked about how do we deliver. How do we deliver today? And do those courses remain an entire semester? Do they become mini courses? Do they become hybrid? So those were the overarching themes, which was we don't have enough data yet. We're in the process of building that capacity. And we're in the process of figuring out how to deliver those materials. 

Thank you, Emma. That sounds great. I like that idea of the parking lot orientations and the drive-thrus to distribute materials. That's a great idea. OK, how about group six? 

Group six would be us. My name is Lionel Wiggins, representing Tri-City Adult Education Consortium. And my colleagues and I, I think everyone is generally very excited about how we were able to meet the need and step up to the plate, as it pertained to going to a distance ed modality. And I think collectively that's something that we shared in our group. At the same time I'm at Compton College. I'm a director there. And we're actually a newer college, having transitioned from being a center under El Camino College a couple of years back. And really trying to reach out to our adult schools and ensure continuity, and trying to create some seamless transitions for students. 

We were able to connect with a new program through Apple that we're excited about, with the Apple Consultant Network. So our hope is to really start at a foundational level at our adult schools, and just understanding basic computers. And that we would develop a couple of different pathways to and through the college into the workforce, one with more of a consultant network, being an independent consultant, performing networking, kind of like a cyber security. And the other path is more Apple Swift training that we're offering through a noncredit structure. And we're going to be able to offer it online this spring. 

Thank you very much for that, Lionel. I appreciate that. I'm just looking at the time, gang. And we have just under 15 minutes left. And I do have a second question. So I want everybody to vote using the participants list. Would you prefer that we continue with a report outs from the rest of the groups? Because we had a lot of them. We're only 7 out of 25. Or do you want to go to the second question? So number one, the question is do you want to continue with a report out of all of the groups? Yes or no? 

Find your participant list. And you can check the little green box that says yes or the red x that says no. And Veronica might need your help, just kind of getting a little ascertain here of if they're finding it. 

Yes they are finding it. We have 36 nos and 12 yeses. And we have people in the chat saying yes to report out. 

OK, so it looks like we should move on to the next question. And I think some of you, I've already heard some of them. So this may be a bit of a repeat. But we're going to make the groups a little larger this time. And we're going to stay in them for about-- Oh gosh, I guess we can only stay in about eight minutes, seven minutes to give a little bit of time to get some report outs. So my I don't think I'm sharing my screen, which would be helpful. Oh, it's disabled Veronica. 

So here, I can type it into the chat. Our next question that we will do for everyone is what innovative solutions did you employ at your agencies that resulted in a successful solution or resolution? So it could be anything. Don't limit yourself in any way. It might be something extremely simple. But I'm really looking at, I've heard it a couple of times already, about innovation, and doing something different outside of the box. 

So I want those types of innovative solutions, and what did it result in? OK, what kind of successful resolution or solution did it give you? So Neda had posted that question in the chat. Thank you Neda, for doing that for me. And Veronica, let's go ahead and push everybody out into the groups. 

All right here we go. 

Thank you. If everyone would go ahead. And if you can notice on your screen whether you're muted or not, if you'd go ahead and unmute yourself, we'd appreciate it. And I'm looking at the clock as our participants are coming back. So we're going to say this pretty quickly. So remember please to go ahead and mute your microphones. And Veronica, if you can confirm for me when we've got everybody back in. 

It looks like everyone's back in. Cool, thank you very much. So in the interest of time, I'm going to go ahead and call upon a group eight to report. Now I know it's a random number, because you were in different groups. But what I would like, in the interest of time, is to please have every group lead type a summary in the chat pod while group eight is reporting. So who's going to be my group eight volunteer? I'm hearing crickets. Group eight? No one? 

How about group nine? There we go. 

That's where I was headed. Group nine, somebody. Be willing. Step forward. Share with your peers. [INTERPOSING VOICES] 

Now, you go ahead. 

It's all yours. 

Group nine rocks. We're all willing participants. So we talked about-- Oh my gosh, what did we talk about? We talked about a number of things but learning management systems the first time, with regard to successes. And the second time around, I didn't take as good of notes. But I would say we were talking about remote testing and some of the innovations that our staff members have done with regard to testing and giving out Chromebooks. And I apologize, because I didn't take good notes on that last part. 

Not a problem, Lori. Thank you for sharing. 

Let me add one more thing to that if I could. Go ahead. 

Yeah, and I it's always good to listen to ideas, because they mentioned like for instance parking lot testing. And I know I went around calling other directors to get ideas for our consortium. And where as that might sound really great for you, out here in the desert it's 110, 115, something 120. Excuse the pun. It's not a hot idea to go and do something like that. So we use like a hybrid for all of our members. And then we were also dealing with a malware issue that hit colleges of the desert. And then come to realize that talking to Lori and Muline is that that's happened to some of their members as well. So we weren't alone in that. 

Awesome, thank you for sharing that, Guillermo. How about our next group? And I see the there's folks that are typing. We have a whole 1 minute left. So can I get somebody that can be very succinct in 30 seconds? Jump in. 

This is Dana Galloway from the Chaffey College Consortium. And we just had a really neat idea in our group. And that was in Tahoe for their graduation, they sent the graduates to the top of the ski area on the lift to receive their diplomas. So that was kind of cool and exciting. And then some of the other schools had drive-thru open houses for ESL students, and a drive-thru hiring fair for their security and their health care graduates. 

Wow, that sounds awesome. 

Yeah, lots of fun. 

Thank you for sharing that, Dana. So everybody I'm getting the hook from Veronica here. So we all need a little break. Please Veronica tell me if I'm wrong. We do not want people to sign out. Is that correct? 

That is correct. 

OK so we want everybody to sign out. But we want you to turn off the video on your cameras. Make sure your audio is muted. And then you must walk away. I would take a break from the screen and go get yourself a little sustenance and some water. And we'll be back in 15 minutes. Thank you all. Great conversations. 

OK, welcome back. I hope you all enjoyed your break. It's been a morning that's certainly going by quickly. And before you know it, we'll be at our lunch break. I did want to mention that we have an agenda change. So our presenter at 3:15 by West Ed is unable to make it today. So we are going to bump up our day a little bit. 

We will have Jay Wright speaking on behalf of CASAS from 2:15 to 3:15. And then from 3:15 to 3:30, we will have closing remarks and announcements for the summit. But we will not be having the 3:15 to 4:15 presentation by West Ed. Unfortunately, they were unable to make it today. 

But I want to take us back to the agenda and to the second half of OTAN's presentation. So I also want to extend a huge thank you for all the positive remarks from Paige and from Thoibi and from Jody. And congratulations to your programs for all the wonderful things that they're doing. And also thank you for participating in the breakout sessions, and writing in the highlights and successes that each of you have each of you have been experiencing in your own agencies and consortia. 

So I'm going to pass it back at this time to Penny Pearson and Neda Anasseri. And they are going to take us into the second half of their presentation. So Penny and Neda, you want to take it away? 

Absolutely, thank you, Renee. And thanks for the updates. So we're going to continue here, our conversation. Let me just bring up my screen here. But we're going to take a little different tact. Although I consider myself a very positive person, there is no doubt that we are facing a lot of challenges. Now on this presentation, I had provided the same set of data slides is that what I had done earlier. And I don't really want to bore all of you with that, because it looks like we have a big enough group that we can move forward. 

So again I repeated kind of that high-level view, looking at these reports that were specifically about COVID impact on adult education. Veronica has been posting the folder where all of the slide decks will be made available. Please understand mine aren't there yet because I'm adding the notes from the report outs to the slide decks. So you'll have a little idea of kind of what the general theme was. I can't get every one of them in there. But I'm going to do my best to get the high-level view in those slide decks. 

So those of you that might be looking for the slide deck in that folder yet. I'm not sure if it's there. Veronica, you might have to answer that. But it will be modified. So I'm adding to it as we go along. So just as a real quick overview, we were looking at some of these data pieces. OK, and some of this is also what Carolyn Zachery had shared at the beginning of today's event. 

So this is not anything new from the last time around. So I'm just looking at-- Now let's look at these from a different perspective of OK, I'm registering students for fall. How am I going to do that? Now these guys are talking about this response of going to online and in person. What are the challenges there in doing that process? So think about those as we continue. 

When we look at the assessment, this is always a big issue with many of you of how are we going to do that. And what are the underlying challenges to doing that 

Successfully? OK, so I'm trying to flip us. I love being very positive. But I know that we have challenges that we have to face. So along those same lines with our facilities, for those agencies that have lost some of the ability to offer classes through the local elementary school or through a community-based organization, where maybe they were in a facility at a strip mall or something like that. OK, how do we work around those challenges? And if we can't, understandable. But we need to be thinking about how would we be able to accommodate learners when that particular physical space is gone, and what are the challenges to doing it in a different space? 

So I took another set of comments from the field. And this is more or less about these challenges. What is going on, not only within our agencies, but also with our learners? And what our learners are facing, and trying to get to school or not being able to get to classes. 

So these are some comments here, just to read over them. And I'm sure that they will resonate with most of you. And so for that process, we're going to go into, let's get some really creative ways of addressing some of those issues as we move forward. And we've heard about some that maybe some of you haven't ever really thought about before. In the success side of the stories, in terms of what other agencies have done, again, we had Paige Endo from Mt. Diablo. And we also had Thoibi and JoDee from Corona-Norco and Riverside, in telling us a little bit about some of those successes. 

But I can imagine that there were some real challenges in getting to those successes. And that's kind of what I would like to talk about next. So I see that we've got some notes in there. I'd like-- Nancy, thank you for posting that. And I hope everyone will take a moment to read her comment about developing and implementing safety plans. And we saw that earlier from Thoibi about what they have done. And I know that's one that's being shared. So if others have that, I hope that you will share that in the chat. 

This is a time for us to be creative and think outside of the box, and really be able to look at what other folks are doing. So I'm going to go ahead and ask my team that spoke earlier to speak again about some of those challenges that they have dealt with. And I'm going to turn to Paige. And hopefully, Paige is back from her break. 

I am. 

And talk to us a little bit about some of those other challenges that you may have met with and then how you resolve them. So I'll turn it over to you. Just tell me when to move forward. 

OK, I will. Thank you. And even as you were talking, I was thinking of more challenges and other successes that we've had. And of course, I'm only going to share a few here with you. There were many, and there continue to be many, in part, just from what we're all dealing with, right? Temperatures and smoke and all kinds of things that are-- and disease that are affecting all of us. 

One of the challenges that we had, and it was just mentioned in some of those comments, were student lack of devices and connectivity. And that we kind of assumed would be true for some students. I think what was more surprising was that we had staff. I guess we just made some assumptions. But we had quite a few staff members that did not have Wi-Fi at home, that did not have a laptop at home. And so as we were trying to move forward, we were trying to move quickly to figure out how to help everyone. 

And so we did some interdepartmental sharing of equipment. Not all-- not all departments had laptops with cameras, for example. We shared Chromebooks. Books we shared a variety of things, primarily with staff, so that they could get on and start getting trained and get training. And then we had students and staff having trouble with usernames and passwords. These are simple challenges. But they're kind of fundamental. And without the devices and without a username and password, we had some trouble. So luckily, our district staff was able to help us with our staff members. 

And then in the ESL department, for example, when we were helping to create Gmail accounts for students that didn't have them, we used a formula. And one of our DLACers-- or maybe-- I don't know if it was still DLAC when she went. But she was sharing that something she had learned from another agency about using a formula to do a single sign on. So we did that with the number of our ESL students, a number of our traditional distance learning students. And so that was very helpful. Because we were able to get them back in. 

Penny, next slide, please. Thanks. 

Our CTEC program-- as I mentioned, they had this smooth transition, because they were in Canvas. But then there were a lot of skills that need to be practiced. We have EMT. We have medical assistants. We have dental assistants. And we've got a lot of equipment. And without being able to come in person, they were not able to practice their skills. Some externships-- I think one group's externship was canceled. But what we've been able to do in the fall now, and actually right before our fall term started, some programs, on a limited basis, with very well spelled out approval plans and safety plans, have been able to return a couple of days a week. And so far, they haven't been on the same days or the same part of campus, so that they could practice those skills. And our CTEC team found an app where they could have the students do a self-- a health self-assessment online. So they see that every morning before any students come on to campus. 

Another challenge that we continue to face, actually, is the reluctance of some staff to return to campus. There's kind of like, well why? We're comfortable. We have everything we need at home. And so-- and Victoria feel free to chime in or add in the chat. But we've been working on it with our district, with our union members. Our teachers are not union, by the way. But some of our clerical staff have, come back. Our administrators have been back. 

So a number of us have been working here, little by little. And we just continue to move forward. step by step, as it's safe to do so. Penny, next one, please. 

And then we had a number of-- sorry, let me just back up a little bit. We expected students, especially our low level students, to have a lack of tech skills, or a lack of comfort using tech, or language. But we also had a lot of staff members. In fact, we have one or two that just-- actually, even one of those one or two is still trying, and still getting a lot of one on one support, so that she can teach. So I think once everyone-- I think there was a resistance for some teachers at first, either on their own behalf, or on the behalf of their students. 

But I think once they realized, look, this is what, this is the way it is, they just decided to get with it and do it. And departments, our individual departments, as well as our school, we've been referring people to OTAN. We've been offering in-house training. A lot of teachers have gone out of their way to do one on one support with their colleagues. So we're getting there. And that's a solution. 

Another challenge I feel is that it's been a heavy lift for our coordinators. We have coordinators over each department. And they're kind of sandwiched between all of the staff requests and questions and the administrators, and saying wait. Wait. We have to wait for more information from the district. So they were kind of sandwiched there. And then at the same time, they are trying to figure out how they're going to do everything, and become Zoom experts on their own. And so they were doing a lot of training on their own. 

And some of the coordinators have said to me, I have to share the load. I have to let go and. I think I'm going to switch from a challenge to kind of a silver lining here, is that by letting go a little bit and allowing teams of teachers to really run with some of the changes that we had to make, like taking a face to face registration process for ESL students to an all online system. One of the benefits-- not only did we get there, but those teachers, then, all became so-- they all became experts themselves. And they understand what we do, and why we have to do it. So that's kind of a silver lining. It was a struggle to get there. And I'm sure we'll still have to evolve as we go. But those are a few of them. 

Do I have time to mention one other thing? 

Yes, one other thing. 

OK, so one other thing I just want to say is that our students are also the parents of many of the children in our district. And our director. Vitoria suggested, why don't we-- why aren't we offering trainings for the parents of the district? And so our parent ed department that I mentioned earlier is funded by LCFF, put together a few very basic trainings. And I feel like that's a silver lining, too. Because we were able to point our students to those trainings. We were able to point some of our staff to basic Zoom, basic SeeSaw basic Google Classroom. And it ended up making us a better support to our district, at the same time that we're looking to them for support. 

So there are many, many more. But I'll stop there. Thank you. 

Thank you, Paige. Thank you very much. And so what I really like about what Paige is talking about is that even though there are those challenges by working together, you see those silver linings. And yes, they're going to take a little time to see, I think. And we heard about that from the report outs before about, we don't have enough data yet. Emma had mentioned that before. And so we're kind of relying on some of that anecdotal and kind of just by the gut reactions that we may see, that things are working out well. 

But as we progress, and we're kind of codifying these, in the sense of at least acknowledging these struggles, and then acknowledging different ways that we've tried solutions, the first time may not work. But maybe the second or third time will. So I think that all of us can learn from each other. And that's why these conversations, I think, are so important. And so I want to go ahead and continue with Thoibi from Corona-Norco, also speaking about some of these same types of challenges. 

So Thoibi, if you're online there, if you go ahead and unmute and say hello. You want me to go ahead and- bring up the first slide? 

So much of what Paige just said resonates with us. And I'm sure it resonates for everybody out there. The challenges are also similar. And how we get over that and try to do our own little things and sharing like this helps. So I'm going to be sharing some of our challenges, and some kind of solution we brought. But it's not the full solution yet. And that's why the conversations later will be so beneficial for all of us. 

So just like Paige said, we were also struggling with student enrollment, especially in lower levels. And so what we did-- Penny? Just-- 

Next one? 

So what we did is connections. So earlier, Paige mentioned again, connect, engage, and support. So we put connection before content. So what we started doing is, our school office staff calling students, connecting with our teachers. Our teachers were so isolated from the school during the upfront time of when COVID hit and the schools had to close. So we started sending care packages to teachers at home. Click Next, please. 

And then we started doing some kind of a coffee and connect every Thursday evening, where whoever wanted to attended. And I facilitated and connected with teachers, and getting everybody to share their ideas and their new learning in Zoom, and all that stuff. And then we started-- Penny, please? 

Yeah, so here are some of the list of all the different challenges we were facing. Low enrollment-- so we started calling students. Just like Paige said, we also worked with our Parent Center and offered parent-- Google for parents. And we are running classes on unusual times. Like in the past, we did not have classes on Saturday mornings. So now we have a class on Saturday mornings, helping the parents, one on Thursday night. 

We have started putting student resources. As most of you might have also heard, and we saw in one of the sessions that Neil did, where what was the highest need, and that was support for our students. And so part of the support was like how to get food, how to get support for paying their rent, et cetera. So our teachers put together a pamphlet where if you click the later, when you have the slide deck, you could click the student resources and see the pamphlet that we have created. 

There are three sets. One is for the emergency, right at the beginning. Another one was during, just on a daily basis, wherever a food bank is happening, or food distribution is happening, where there is support from TODEC where students can get support for immigration, and extending their documentation, et cetera. So more support was provided, all in one place, on our website. And this little link will take us straight to our website, that has a page dedicated specifically for students resources. 

Do you want me to show that? Do you want me to show the student resources? 

If you don't mind? 

Not at all. That's why we have multiple tabs in a browser. 

But it goes straight to that, need support for technology, all kinds of support. And-- 

So here's your survey. 

For yeah, survey for technology. And everything is in there. I think it's linked to something else, resources. Yeah, resources for adult students. It's a Padlet So it's got food resources, mental health. And it's updated on a regular basis. And then whatever the city is providing, et cetera, et cetera. 

Very nice. OK, back to the presentation? 

Yes, please. Thank you. And then another thing that was very, very needed was the social emotional support, both for teachers and students. So our district counselors put together something called a Calming Room. Again, that was another link that took people to all kinds of social, emotional, meditation, music, and anything that can help people with emotional support. So that was provided. 

And then, I shared the picture earlier, we sent care packages for teachers. In fact, administrators on the teachers, they went and delivered one in every teacher's homes. And then when we started back again, because we knew teachers are doing professional development and learning technology on their own, to be able to deliver to students, we sent a packet with from the funds that we usually use to do professional development on campus, we used those funds to put little care package which little sticky notes and all kind of things that students, teachers can use to be able to work at home and do their professional development. 

Then I shared about the coffee and connections. Another important challenge we had was communications, communications, communications. Teachers were all beginning to worry about what do I do next? And how do I do this? So I started putting a newsletter. It was two times a month during the earlier days. And now it's once a month. So the newsletter goes out to all the staff members. And we share in the newsletter. We share good and happy news, most of the time, helping people to think of the positive things, and sharing what's happening in school, and how we're preparing to bring everybody back. 

And when they come back, what do we do? What is required of them? And a little survey, little happy stories. And this here is a little video of our-- it's a very short little video of our graduation, open, in the open, right in front of the city hall. These are little things that uplift teachers and the staff. And so those are the things we focused on. So there are two links in this. We can go back to the slides. 

And So. There are two of them. I've shared at least two of our newsletters, not all of them. So every month, I still continue to share newsletters with the teachers. The other thing our leadership team just recently decided is, let's do this for our students also. So coming this month, we're going to do a newsletter for students as well. 

Now finally, the other big challenge we had was the information overload. All the teachers are getting too much information-- too many emails from the coordinators, from me, from the district. So what we decided to do is put everything in a hub. And this is all thanks to OTAN. Our DLAC team and OTAN learned a lot that they brought back. And everything was being put together at our schools. So if we click the centralized hubs? 

Oops, sorry. I missed it. Sorry, my fault. Here we go. 

It takes us straight to our-- oh, sorry. No access for everybody, because this is only directly to our teachers. 

Gotcha. 

Anyway, it goes to our school website, a school website. And our teachers get a link that opens and has everything in one place. So whenever they need, it's all centralized. And those are some of the challenges and solutions I share. But of course, like Paige said, there's so much more. And we are still learning and growing. 

And before I wind up, I will introduce JoDee again to share a little bit on the challenges of getting the devices from our Rivers County. 

Thank you. All right. So I want to share again, regionally, what we experienced in identifying what some of our challenges and solutions were. So at the beginning of the summer, I conducted a brief workshop, thanks to OTAN, in my region. We had folks that had not experienced distance learning and were-- really needed some guidance. So thanks to OTAN, they shared with me the ideal handbook on distance learning. And we had a two day workshop that really kind of helped some of our agencies get started. 

Since then, we've come miles and miles. And it was just a few short months ago. And then from that came a weekly office hours that our consortium decided to implement, to have everybody in adult education kind of come together and talk about their challenges and solutions, and what kinds of things they're doing. And so from that, we recognized that-- and many of you have already shared this, that devices aren't accessible to our students, often, or reliable internet access. And that surfaced with everyone's challenge. 

And so that's when we sought out additional funding, CARES Act funding, for devices. I was attending a workforce development board meeting. I'm a member representing adult education on the Riverside Workforce Development Board, have been involved with them for many, many years. And I heard about a project that was going on for private schools, and immediately asked on the webinar, the person that was coordinating it, is it possible for adult education providers to also access some CARES Act funding? And that was the start of our project. 

So we knew locally that the devices and internet access was a real challenge. And that was specifically what the private school project was about. So we started by collecting information finding out what the need in the region was. And we also ran into some challenges putting this together. We needed to have a fiscal agent that would distribute the funds to all of the schools. We needed to have someone to coordinate all of the efforts. My office was able to do that. 

And the timing was probably the biggest issue. For some of you, you may, if you experienced anything with the CARES Act funding, the time element is really quick. So we brought all of our participating scores together and said, you know, there's a very short timeline. If you can possibly order and purchase devices and hotspots by the deadline, please be part of this project with us. 

And so everyone acted really quickly. They responded to the call and said, OK. We're going to order our devices, really with the trust that all of this would go through. And as I mentioned earlier, I was so happy to be able to tell all the participating agencies that the Board of Supervisors had approved it. Because we were kind of doing this. A little bit on faith. It was a little bit cart before the horse. Everybody realized that OK, if it doesn't go through, we'll have to use other funding. But thankfully, there was a lot of work that was done to really make things happen. 

Now we'll be faced with the challenges of distributing and doing all of the auditing and paperwork that goes along with CARES Act. But we're really fortunate that Moreno Valley Unified School District stepped up to be the fiscal agent, and they're handling the paperwork, and the agreements, and the MOUs, et cetera, to facilitate that. Their superintendent, Dr. Martinrex Kedziora is really about students, and really positive. And he was willing to really lead his district to help us in this endeavor. 

So starting with a problem and our challenge-- and our problem was devices and internet access, and then finding partners that were willing to help us get there was really, the result of the work that the whole project has come under. 

Wow. Thank you, JoDee, for pointing out that. It sounds like a great partnership that you were able to help foster, and everyone was on board with. That's-- it speaks highly to the ability to bring people together, as well, to solve a problem. And I greatly admire that. And I don't know, Thoibi, if you had a moment to look at the chat. But there was a question that I missed earlier. 

And you had spoken of your care packets. And somebody asked specifically, what did you put in them? 

So basically, some of them were just leftover items from the year. We had some partnerships with our local census 2020 groups. And so we had a lot of nice little items, like water bottle, notepads, and a bag, little backpacks. So we put all of those together for the first round of teachers day and classified day care packet. 

And the second round was as school was starting. So in that one, we put stationary items that teachers will need to work on at home. Because now they were working from home. And so it had notepads, sticky notes, paper, pencil, and some more-- a few snacks. Because usually, at our professional PLCs, we provide snacks for the teachers. So here are snacks which we could not do together. at work. But while you were doing professional development at home, help yourselves to these, and hope these will keep you sustained, a kind of thing, little, happy little notes. And those are what we had. 

That is awesome. Food is always important, right? Well thank you both. And Paige, as well, for sharing how you approach some of your challenges and found some great ways to find those solutions, and partnering with others, as well as really pulling people together. And I think that is what's always so heartening to me is that when, especially as adult education, we face add adversity, we really do come together. 

So I do want to move forward with another round of breakout rooms. And we're going to have another round like we've done before. And Veronica will help me to break us up. Hopefully, bigger groups this time. And Veronica, I think we're looking at 15 per group? Is that correct? 

Yes, I have created 15 rooms. There are between 7 and 9 people in each room. 

OK, so kind of the same set of rules as we did before. We're going to do a question, have you discuss it. And we'll come back and report out. We've got just over 30 minutes. So we'll probably put you in breakout rooms for, what do you think? Think five minutes is enough? You want more time than that? Somebody say something in the chat. I think five minutes? That's what I'm thinking at the moment. 

Because what I'm asking you to do here is to really identify your primary challenge for this fall. Five minutes is too short. Thank you, Veronica. Why don't we do eight. How's that? Let's do eight minutes, if that doesn't mess you up, Veronica. 

No, not at all. I have the window open. 

Awesome. So I want you to identify your primary challenge, OK? What is it that you're struggling with right now? And as you talk amongst your group, decide, which is the most interesting, complex, vexing, however you want to define it? It doesn't matter. And then discuss some solutions. How can that particular agency solve that problem? OK? Everybody all right with that? Eight minutes. We'll have several groups. We'll come back and report out. I'll probably go from set-- note your room numbers, OK? And we'll go by room, all right? So Veronica, let's go ahead and send them out. 

Remember, you will see an invitation on your screen. Please choose Join. 

Thank you, Netta, for posting that. 

You're welcome. 

Veronica, can you give me a one minute warning when we're getting close to being finished? 

Yes I can. 

Thank you. 

Veronica, we have 15 groups? 

Yes. 

What happened? That's the thing. We just pulled you right back into the room. It's the big virtual hook. That's the bad part, I guess, about breakout rooms. You never know when it's just, back you come. But that was cute. I like that. What happened? 

Yes, everyone, as you come in the room, please mute your microphones. Because you were allowed to use both your microphone and video in the breakout rooms. As we get everybody back in, we'll get started with our report outs. 

So I'm going to start with our last group this time. So group 15, get yourself ready here. And Veronica, are we all back yet? I can't quite tell. 

We are getting there. Just-- 

OK. 

Just about, yeah. 

I know. It's that virtual hook thing, right? Everybody gets yanked back in here. So as soon as everybody's back in the meeting, I will ask group 15 to give us a report out. And I see Grace, you are on top of it. You've already got it in the chat. Thank you. 

Everyone's back now, Penny. 

Great, OK. How about a volunteer from group 15? Group 15, what were you identifying as your primary challenge? Go ahead, Marianne. 

OK, well-- I [AUDIO OUT] 

Oh, we just lost you. Marianne, you might-- let me see here. Go ahead, Marianne. 

Hello? Can you hear me? 

Yes, now we can. 

OK, so there were two of us in group 15. And we have some of the similar challenges. So I'll just get started, and then Denise can jump in. But primarily, our greatest challenge was in the technology and making sure that the students are able to use the technology once they have it. So for example, Denise's college, they're just starting to use Zoom. And so we were talking about all of the challenges in walking our ESL students, and walking them through the platform, and trying to get them to be able to enter the platform and participate in the class, and how it takes a lot of their time, just walking them through the platform, so that they become familiar with it and are able to access. 

But there's a lot of little glitches when using Zoom. While it's easy once you're in, there are audio issues. With everything going on, the fires, and the rolling blackouts, that has impacted the bandwidth. And so people are dropping off. And it's difficult to reconnect. And so there's just a lot of little glitches that takes a lot of stuff time and faculty time in trying to get everybody back online. 

Denise, you want to add on? 

Yes, and then we also talked a little bit about how even the students, a lot of our students dropped because of the overwhelming load that a lot of these, our adult students take on. Because they have students that are also working. They have their own children that are trying to get distance learning from home. And they, so they have to help. And so it's just become a bigger load for them. And they eventually have to stop coming to our classes or connecting to the classes. Because they feel so overwhelmed. 

Right. And any thoughts about a particular type of solution to those that problem? More time? More teachers? OK. 

I don't know if we got to solutions. 

OK. I don't think we got to solutions. Yeah. 

Fair enough. And thank you all for taking the initiative and writing your summaries in the chat. I think it's great. I don't see group 14 yet though. So group 14, do you have a quick report out? 

Hi, this is Pau-Ling I'm going to briefly reply for group 14. 

Thank you. Thank you. We felt strongly, assessment is the main issue in the CTE classes. Because according to Mitch, two of his classes, or his group, welding, construction, the whole entire school is closed. So we definitely understand that CTE is, a lot of courses cannot do online. But some do, like we have the packet for the students to take home, do the skill classes via Zoom, one on one. So teachers are able to assess the students through this distance learning part for the skill. By the internship still is a challenge. So we don't have the answer regarding some courses that it cannot do online, or the internship issues. But we are slowly doing the remote assessment for the assessment issues. 

Thank. You Thank you, Pau-Ling How about group 13? I didn't see a report. I'm trying to scroll through the chat. So is group 13 able to report out? Maybe the one that has a question mark was a group 13. It looks like we've got a lot of folks reporting in the chat, which is awesome. Thank you. It's a way for us to be able to gather that information, and be able to share that with Carolyn and Neil, and all the other leadership projects as well, so they understand some of your challenges, too. 

We may have been group 13. I'm not 100% certain. But some of our challenges were access to technology, how to support students with using technology through a remote platform if you are not allowed to bring students to campus. Other issues included once students are enrolled, how to keep them retained, and despite all the kind of additional barriers and layers that students are facing? And then some proposed solutions were to focus on the students, and focus on connecting with them, having classified staff call, having office hours with support from teachers, and just overall kind of partnering with outside agencies to try and provide a more holistic approach to address some of the social and emotional challenges. 

And then for the tech, access to tech, possibly partnering with industry agencies. And in terms of how to teach computer skills remotely to someone who hasn't used a computer, we didn't have any solutions for that one. So we'd love to hear what other folks might think of. 

Yeah, that seems to be a running theme in looking at the reports in the chat as well, So you're not alone. That's definitely quite the case, too. And it looks like from what I'm seeing, unless somebody can tell me in the chat, looks like everybody's reported out. So we will have time. We've got 10 minutes left to do a quick second question. We'll only do this-- Veronica, can we do the next group for five minutes? I know it's short. But it's pretty simple and straightforward question. And let me know. 

And it's really all about, do you feel fully prepared, OK-- that's kind of the key question here-- About. Getting ready for working in the fall term, of program development, staffing, reporting, or other administrative tasks? Are you able to get to what you need to get to, in terms of reporting? Do you have enough staff? Do you have programs being developed the way you want? So let's just pop out, five minutes into those groups, and come back. And we'll do the same thing. I'll have you start in the chat, reporting out. We'll try to get a few people to volunteer before we break for lunch. So go ahead, Veronica. Break us out. Thank you. 

And remember, you will get an invite on the screen to join a room. So please do so. 

Veronica, can you send me to a room? I didn't get an invite yet. 

OK, I will now. Thank you, Uta 

Thank you. 

I need a room too, Veronica. 

Thank you, Barbara. We'll send you to your room. 

Let me find you guys. One second. Uta I found you. And Barbara, let me find you. 

I can't wait for the one who says yes, I feel fully prepared. 

Do you think it was a trick question? 

It's a yes no question. Uta did you not receive the message? I just sent you to a room. no, You too Barbara I mean-- 

Maybe behind one of your windows. But we'll just wait. I'll just wait until they come back. 

OK. 

We can converse amongst each other, if you want. 

Sure. 

Definitely. We can make our own room. There you go. 

Let's do that. 

See, we're all innovative groups. 

So all right, no, I do not feel fully prepared, but somewhat. I think somewhat prepared, in the sense that moving into remote or blended or long distance-- let's call it blended learning environments was always a goal for us. If it's completely remote right now, that's only a good learning opportunity and strategy to prepare for the future. I don't think we're going to go back to a normal, the way it was before anyway. So I think we're prepared for more flexibility, for more changes. So that's good. 

That is a good thing. 

Yeah, and it focused-- I think we are more focused on our program development, just by necessity, but also by better understanding that we have some pandemic resilient jobs, that we are actually well prepared, training for. So that's the silver lining. 

Right. How about you, Barbara? 

I think one of the biggest challenges I have a staff feeling safe to come back to work. Even though we have an operational plan to return, for me, I haven't left the office since March. I come in every day. But I think the more you come in, the less fearful you are. Because you are-- your situational awareness, right? You've developed a plan. We only have one door in and out of the building. We have a sign-in procedure, plexiglass. We have a survey online that connects right to our district office, that has all the health questions. 

So we have all the-- we have all of the policies and operational plan in place to return. Most of our adult teachers are older. Specifically in ESL, they're like 70 and above. And so they're not comfortable coming back face to face. And so many of our adult programs, like I said before, our adult programs might have a hard time with enrollment and sustainability. But our fee based programs, they tripled in numbers. 

Because you know because you can only have like 25 people in a zoomba room or dance room. But now you're going to have 60 or more. And we offer the friends and family plan. People in San Diego, come in Monterey. If you're a son and daughter, separated due to COVID, meeting with your parents, your elderly parents via Zoom, and taking like a sign language, or a French class, or Spanish class, all together as a family, it really brings people together. 

So, but as far as our ESL numbers, testing is going to be a huge challenge. We've started the e-testing. Our high school diploma numbers have gone up, right? We were graduating more students, which is great. And then our K-12 system is just doing great. We're supporting families at home. And we're able to support those families with technology, even furniture. 

We have-- our school had all of the furniture in the district that was just being in storage. We decided to clean it out, because our custodians needed work during this time. And we just put it out Facebook [background noise] come get one. 

OK, Barbara, we've got everybody coming back into the room now. So thank you for that sharing of that. That's very interesting. And as folks come back in the room, please remember to go ahead and mute your microphones, please. And as soon as everybody's back in, we'll have a really quick report out, because we've only got about four minutes left. So I will start with group one, as they come in. So Veronica, let me know when we've got most of the group in. 

For those of you that are back in the room, if you have assigned somebody to report out, can you go ahead and put your comments in the chat, please, so we can capture your information, thoughts, et cetera? And for those of you, once we're all back here, I'll start with group one to give me their quick report outs. 

And I'm only going to do this for a couple of minutes. Because I got to give everybody a sense of completion by being able to put things in the chat pod as well. So we've got some of those. And we've got everybody back yet, Veronica? 

Yes, everyone's here. 

OK, so any-- someone in group one, can you kind of give me your answers about your preparedness with the fall? 

Is that you, Serena I see you brought your camera up? Mic up? No. She's shaking her head no. Nobody from group one? 

I would like to comment on that. 

OK, go ahead, Rhonda. Either I or Rhonda. Yes, Rhonda, go ahead. 

[MIC static] 

OK, Rhonda. why don't you go ahead? 

Well, we didn't really have very much time to chat. But we did-- I mean, our schools are up and running. And everything else is going as it was, I guess you can say, but under very stressful circumstances, and not the way we want it to go. But as far as our systems are in place, we're doing everything that we can to bring people in. It's just not the same. So that's all that we really were able to discuss. 

OK, thank you, Rhonda. Appreciate that. How about group two real quick? I didn't see that in the chat yet. Anybody from group two? 

We talked about the fact that what we feel bad about is, we don't know why, in some of the instances, our students are not showing up. Because it's the unknown that we're struggling with. 

Right. Gotcha. I'm loving that everybody's posting. So I'm going to lead with one question that we didn't have time for. And this is a very speculative question. I want you to think and ponder on it. I'm not going to break you out into groups. But as you, we break for lunch, it might be something to think about. And just give us an idea on the chat when you come back about, what do you see that this-- will be the impacts for our future of education? What are you going to see education in one year? Maybe in five years, what is it going to look like? 

And with that, we are not going to go into breakout rooms. But I am going to give the floor back to Renee Collins, Director of Adult Education at Sacramento County Office of Ed, to send us out for our lunch break. Renee? 

All right. Thank you, Penny. Yes, thank you for joining us this morning, everybody. It's been an engaging 3 and 1/2 hours. So I'm excited to see what the afternoon will bring us. We are going to have a one hour lunch. And then we will return promptly at 1 o'clock. And we will engage with Judy Mortrude and her panelists, to talk about equity and a leadership's role in equity in adult education. So I am excited to hear her at 1 o'clock. 

And then following Judy, we will have Jay Wright, talking about measuring the impact of COVID-19. And then we'll do a wrap up of our day. Because remember that our 3:15 session was canceled. So we will finish the day out by 3:30. So I'm feeling like we can hit the-- we can hit the finish line together. Thank you so much. I know I was motivated this morning by all of the successes and the solutions to some of the challenges, and all of the engagement in the chat. 

So enjoy your lunch, and we will see you at 1 o'clock. 

Thank you. 

Good afternoon everybody, and welcome back. I hope you have a good lunch. We are going to start the afternoon with a presentation from Judy Mortrude, who is a Senior Technical Advisor with World Education. And she is going to be talking about equity, a leader's role in distance learning. And she's here with a panel of members that she's going to be working with. And then we'll have a break from 2:00 to 2:15. We'll pick back up with CASAS and Jay Wright. And then we are going to finish the day at 3:30 with closing remarks and announcements about the upcoming summit. 

So at this point, welcome back, and get ready to engage this afternoon in more learning. And I'm going to turn it over to Judy. Are you all set? 

Thanks, Renee. Yes, I think Veronica's going to run the PowerPoint. So she can bring that up. And if you can make the-- 

Is everyone able to see the PowerPoint? 

Not yet. I'm not seeing it. 

I can see it. 

OK, let me share again. 

How about now? 

Yes. There, I see it. Perfect. Thank you. And you'll take care of making all the panelists be able to mute or unmute and all of that? 

OK. 

Thank you, everybody. I'm really thrilled to be here. Judy Mortrude. I used to be at CLASP Some of you may know me from that. And even though I've been in DC for all this time, I have had the pleasure of hanging out with you Californians as AB-86 turned into AB-104, turned into AEBG, turned into CAEP. And it's really been an honor to be following you and engaged with you as California leads the way with your consortia model. 

And as consortia directors and administrators, you have this really awesome job of bringing together everyone in your community who really shares the goals of strengthening the adult education system, providing better and more equitable services to adult learners. And I'm here today representing another powerful consortia, the Ideal consortia. So really, I'm filling in for Jen Vanek, who is my colleague and a director at the IDEAL consortium. IDEAL is a network of state leaders in technology enhanced learning. IDEAL states have been working together now for, supporting each other for many years. 

But as you could imagine, in the spring of 2020, they became a real lifeline of peer support for one another, as we all pivoted to this emergency remote teaching and learning environment. OTAN has obviously been a really important partner in this work, and I'm thrilled to bring you four more IDEAL partners. So next slide? I have not actually seen what side you're on, Victoria But I know you're going to get this. 

I think-- the next one beyond that. You know what? We all did our best in the rapid pivot during the spring of 2020. We know how important it is to start thinking about the long game, the long game of building equity into our work in digital access and digital skills and digital resilience, both for the people we serve, and for our own colleagues, It was really inspiring this morning to hear what JoDee and Thoibi and Wendy and others have been doing with partners, to really ensure digital access and support. 

But I just couldn't resist throwing in, as I was listening to you this morning, something I've read recently. I encourage you to take a look at this very recent September 2020 Deutsche Bank report, especially as you are talking to partners about the importance of access and skill building for the people you serve. You could just see how really racialized this issue is, and sort of the terrible consequences that this gap could have as our society and our economy continues to exponentially digitalize. We are in danger of leaving more and more people behind. 

So take a look at that. But for now, let's go to the next slide. And I'll quickly walk through this agenda and get you to the people that you want to hear from. So there we go. So I'm going to introduce these four other IDEAL consortia partners. They'll each give a brief presentation, and I'll have a few follow-up questions as I am talking to them. 

If you have questions, please put those in the chat or the Q&A. And Renee will be monitoring that. So we'll have some time for that. And then I'll just bring us to closing comments. So next slide? Here are our panelists. I'll give you a little bit more about each as they start. But just quickly, we're going to hear from Corina Kasior from Arizona Department of Ed, Sherry Lehane from both the Providence Public Library and the Rhode Island Tech Hub for Adult Ed, Ginette Chandler from New Hampshire Adult Education, and Diana Satin, who works in Massachusetts as the Digital Literacy and Distance Learning Specialist for SABES, which is sort of the equivalent of California's CALPRO. 

OK. So moving to Corina, next slide, slide 6 we're at. So I can tell you about Corina a little bit. She began her career over a decade ago as a science teacher in the-- high school science teacher in the Texas K-12 system. She moved to Arizona to teach online courses for Grand Canyon University. And as a result of teaching both those face-to-face and virtually, she developed a passion for educational technology, and realized its power to transform instruction and connect classmates and teachers, and prepare students for this digital age that we are all living in. 

So Corina's love for Ed Tech and teaching continues to be fed as she serves now as the Arizona Adult Education Director of Educational Technology, while continuing to teach online part-time, as well. So take it away, Corina. 

Hi, everybody. Thank you for having me. Just to give some background, the Arizona Department of Education just adopted a new vision statement, which is, "equity for all students to achieve their full potential." And the Adult Education-- Distance Education Policy is strongly aligned to this, as it is inclusive to all three NRS proxy reporting models, which are the learner mastery, the clock time, and the teacher verification models. 

This allows flexibility for our providers to determine which model or models is the best fit for their students' needs, both academically and technologically, so their digital literacy skills. The policy includes guidance as to the acceptable evidence for each of the reporting models, and state-approved online curriculum is identified for each of the three-- of the two models, so clock time and learner mastery. And that's what you see here in this infographic on the slide. 

It's kind of a quick summary of our policy. This is our second year implementing the teacher verification model. And at the start of the pandemic, we added a provision that allows for print materials to qualify for proxy hours to ensure that all students, regardless of their access to technology, could continue to be served. 

Great. Great. So thanks for sharing this graphic with us. As you say, your policy in Arizona is inclusive of all three of what the National Reporting System allows. We owe a title to report on. But you really leaning in on this teacher verification model there. Why is that? 

So I wouldn't say that we're necessarily leaning in on the teacher verification model over the other two, as we don't insist that our providers use one model over the other. However, since the teacher verification model is our newest rollout, and this is only our second year with it. And by its nature, it requires the most technical assistance. 

Our training efforts have been focused on this model. The teacher verification model allows for flexibility, creativity, and perhaps most importantly, it gives teachers the control that they need to be able to best serve their students. Prior to our implementation of the teacher verification model, teachers were already creating contextualized lessons, even entire courses, in their learning management systems, and giving students choice in their learning assignments. 

But they were not reportable proxy hours because they didn't match-- they didn't align to the clock time model or the learner mastery model in any of those approved curriculums. So now that we work-- now that the work the teachers have put into creating these lessons, and the students put into completing them, with the teacher verification model, they're able to be accounted for in our federal tables. 

Great. And, Corina, like who is-- what is your typical-- who is your typical distance student, maybe pre-pandemic and then now? 

So I mean, now everyone since we're all virtual. But pre-pandemic, it's actually written into our grant contract that all providers do blended learning. So all of our students do some type of distance education. 

Last program year, 2019-2020, we had a distance learning pilot where we targeted opportunity-- the opportunity youth population, which are ages 16 to 24, and they were in rural cities. So we tried to see if distance education was best for that population. And that's another big reason why we implemented the teacher verification model, because we knew that this type-- this population would likely need something more than canned curriculum to remain engaged. 

As far as guidance, what did you ask me about guidance? 

Well, I mean, this is guidance, right, the fact that you have established this policy and that-- and then have extended and expanded on the policy as you've seen a need, and even target populations. But I wonder about the policy you have about access. Have you seen-- do you have a state policy about device access? Have you seen locals putting in place policies or guidance around access for the populations they serve? 

So at the state level, our only policy regarding access guidance is that all eligible students requesting services to be served need to be served, regardless of their technology situation. So it's up to the local providers to determine what that looks like. Our state library system has done an amazing job of mapping free Wi-Fi throughout the state, and providing technical assistance to those who need it. 

So we provide that information for our program so they can utilize it and partner with them. In addition, all of our local providers must submit a yearly technology plan. And in the plan, programs are to address how they are going to serve those with limited and/or no access to technology. So while we don't mandate they do it a specific way, we do inquire as to how it's being done to ensure that equitable instruction. 

Interesting. Great. Well, I've seen some questions, and we'll get back to those after we hear from our other panelists. But a real quick one is just on your graphic, the acronym AAEDMS. Is that your data system? 

That is. So that's the Arizona Adult Education Data Management System we call AAEDMS. 

OK. Great. Great. Thank you so much, Corina. And we'll be back to you. OK. We're going to keep moving. 

And I'm going to introduce you to Sherry Lehane, who's worked in Adult Ed for over 20 years as an instructor, and as a professional development specialist. For the past four years, Sherry has been the Rhode Island Tech Hub Coordinator, as-- and the Rhode Island Tech Hub is a state and federally funded program for the development and delivery of professional development, technology PD for the field. She loves working hands-on with the practitioners. And of course, in the last six months, she's had a lot of opportunity to do that. And she has found it particularly rewarding to help the field really transition to blended and online learning. So take it away, Sherry. 

Thank you, Judy, and thank you everybody for having me today. So as Judy mentioned, and you can see on this slide, I straddle two fields-- adult education and public libraries. Because the Providence Public Library in Rhode Island has been the fiscal agent for all of the work that I've done in Adult Ed for the past 20 years. 

It's been interesting to see the growth mindset of learners as we were trying to work with them for many years in integrating technology pre-pandemic. And since March, we have seen this steady increase and eagerness and hunger of practitioners to learn more about technology and improve what they're doing. And even from the early spring until now, we've seen this transition from tools-- learning about tools to learning how to better create distance learning and deliver distance learning programs. 

So it's been really exciting. And now we're looking at better ways to help them structure their synchronous and asynchronous learning, how to support them in onboarding and supporting learners, and support learners throughout to keep them engaged and productive. 

Great. Great. One of the questions-- and, Sherry, especially since you're a librarian and I always like to ask the reference librarians for information. Can you give us the really quick definitions of online, blended, hybrid, synchronous, asynchronous? 

Certainly. So I will say that some of them overlap, or are used interchangeably. And interestingly, right now in Rhode Island, we are developing a handbook. And one of the first things that we're doing is clarifying terms, so that at least in Rhode Island we're all speaking the same page-- same language, and we're on the same page. 

And one of the things that we've looked at is how these terms have changed just within the past six months. So synchronous now certainly is live. But live can be in person, and it can be virtual. And that's the same as blended. We're now broadening our definition of blended to include for those programs that are having limited in-person instruction, they can have in-person, face-to-face, but they can also have face-to-face virtual. 

So blended is a combination of doing some work at home asynchronously, but also doing some work "face-to-face," quote, unquote. And that face-to-face can be virtual or in-person. Asynchronous is self-paced, not as a group, and-- was there another one, Judy? 

I think I said online, but that's probably pretty self-explanatory. 

Yeah. Yeah. Where we've drawn a line is hybrid. And we're now not using-- we're not going to in the future use hybrid and blended interchangeably. Because we've identified different models of hybrid that don't necessarily involve technology. So yeah. So we're just in the process of kind of ironing that out and putting it in print to share with our field. 

Oh, great. Great. Thank you. So the same question about access, access to technology, how have you helped both adult education learners, but also Adult Ed instructors with technology access? 

Yeah. Well, when we looked at the issues around what I'm going to say digital inclusion, we first decided to look at the barriers. And we decided that we needed to take a deeper dive, because the barriers to accessing technology weren't always around the hardware or the devices. So that was one barrier. 

But there was also, for example, the English language barrier. So they might have had devices. But we needed to address the fact that we needed staff, or programs needed staff, to be able to communicate with them. Because at a distance was more challenging than in-person. 

Then we had the digital literacy skills, of course, where there is a range of levels of proficiency. And then the other barrier that we addressed was the reality that our students are facing, and that was competing priorities, like child care, work schedules, and supporting their children during home schooling. 

Right. 

So shall I go on and talk about some of the ways that we addressed those? 

Sure. Yes, please. 

OK. We partner-- we made that-- we forged a lot of partnerships. So one of the things that we did was we partnered with the K through 12 system public libraries and Adult Ed organizations, and K through 12 professional development. And we kind of had to edge our way into this system through a lot of conversations. 

But what we wanted to do is make sure that our adult learners have the same technical support that the K through 12 families did. So we partnered with them by asking Adult Ed organizations to provide some of the services, as well as library staff, that enabled us to offer with the K through 12 system a 24/7 helpline that was available in 60 different languages. So our adult learners, children, and their parents, could access help for Google Classroom, problems with hardware, problems with Chromebooks, or any other software or hardware issues that they had. 

We had a short pause during the summer, and that has resumed in the fall. So that was one of the partnerships that was really helpful. Another partnership that we formed, and I'll say that how we did it was the Adult Ed, the Tech Hub as a PD system, we did the legwork for on behalf of all of our local programs. And then we shared the information out. 

Another partnership that we had was through workforce development. So we have partnered with our one stop employment centers, and some initiatives from the governor's workforce board to help our learners access job training programs, write resumes, and navigate the unemployment system that they needed to. So for example, one of the job training and onboarding programs, the stumbling block was helping learners with resumes virtually. 

So we took on that task through a partnership with the Providence Public Library in a program called The Learning Lounge. And The Learning Lounge is an informal just-in-time help, no appointment needed, free service, that gives one-on-one help to individuals-- adults that need help with any academic skill, technology skill, or employment service. And so we were helping them specifically with the resume writing. 

And I might add that with the libraries, another program that I'm concurrently working with, besides the Rhode Island Tech Hub for Adult Education, is a program that we're working on through a grant with eight libraries across the nation to help them implement informal educational opportunities through mobile learning-- what we call Learning Lounges, just-in-time help, and learning circles. And the target audience is adult learners with low skills. So that feeds into our partnerships in getting the services and educational opportunities to our adult learners who might not fit into the mold of a class, for example. 

Great. Great. Thank you so much. Well, there are some questions for you, but we'll move on so we can get through our panel, and then we'll come back and ask you. 

OK. So the next slide, we're going to move to Ginette. Ginette Chandler is the Director of Professional Development Services at the New Hampshire Adult Education program. She coordinates all of the statewide professional development opportunities. She oversees the statewide Mentor Team, serves on several educational board, manages all of the state supported distance learning, educational management systems, and over the last two years, she has collaborated with the New Hampshire Bureau of Adult Education and a fellow New Hampshire Ideal Consortium member to develop trainings that would help New Hampshire Adult Education programs develop their local distance education and blended learning policies. So take it away, Ginette. 

Hi, everyone. Thank you for having us all today, allowing us to join you. So New Hampshire is a local control state, which means our adult education programs have control over the use of curricular materials, resources, and including distance and remote instruction resources. So as was mentioned, we did spend the last couple of years helping our programs developing local distance ed policies. 

And that was put into place because of the newest RFP that we went through required all programs to offer effective use of technology, services, and delivery systems that included distance education. And the wording was such that, in a manner sufficient to increase the amount and quality of instruction provided, leading to increased learning and performance outcomes. Which helped us when the call to move to 100% remote instruction came. 

We thought we were in good shape. There wouldn't be a heavy lift. It was required by all local programs to offer some sort of distance learning option to provide that quality and consistency and continuity of options for learners to meet their needs. 

And then our Commissioner of Education at the same time provided an edict that essentially said-- he gave us all practitioners across the state permission to meet the learner's needs in whatever form that they had available to them, which led to many realization very quickly. We-- and most importantly, we realized that there was a huge inequity of ability to access the internet. And so digital inequity came to light very quickly. 

And that stems from New Hampshire is primarily a rural state. And so that transition to 100% remote instruction, when that happened, it quickly highlighted the inequity of digital services and ability to provide education instruction to learners across the state. And those-- I will say the State of New Hampshire acted very quickly, and we applied for and were approved for a $2 million grant from the USDA. 

And in the next slide, I have provided resources for people to access information, if they so desire. But that $2 million grant would allow the State of New Hampshire to expand broadband services to unserved and underserved areas of the state. And it is probably more than 80%, closer to 84%, of New Hampshire is considered rural. 

So they are in the process of expanding broadband services, and families are seeing an improvement and they're able to access remote instruction. Whereas, they weren't able to just a few months ago. So this has been phenomenal. 

Additionally, the State of New Hampshire launched an iLearn New Hampshire initiative. And the whole goal there was to provide a standard learning management system. And then we have some digital equity. I have spoken about that digital inequity, which came to light very quickly during the pandemic. 

But as we're trying to diminish that inequity, at the same time, we are providing professional development opportunities to our Adult Ed practitioners by holding a monthly PD water cooler sessions. We call them water cooler sessions. But really, it's an opportunity for all the practitioners across the state to come together to share resources, and to ask questions of colleagues, and to discuss the free, low cost and open education resources that they've been able to use and share across the state. 

And from that, it was just-- it was so-- such a positive event that we have continued it and-- into the fall, we are still continuing this monthly water cooler session so that practitioners can ask questions and share wonderful resources-- 

Sure. 

--with colleagues. Go ahead. 

Ginette, you mentioned families, and thinking about the whole family, and that reminds me that New Hampshire made a decision to move to Canvas during all this time, right, in the spring? And Canvas, as I understand it, the state was-- I don't know if it was the governor's office-- led this idea to coordinate across K-12 and your post-secondary system and the adult education system through the use of this learning management system that would be shared across sort of a K-20 continuum, is that right? And can you talk about that decision? 

Yes, absolutely. That is correct. And due to a variety of factors that inequity of services, but additionally, across the board, practitioners when that Commissioner had said use whatever resources your learners had in hand, it quickly led to time management issues with practitioners, because they had family members on many different levels using-- either sharing devices, or perhaps there was only one device and it was on a phone. And the idea to move to Canvas and to provide that K through 20 experience was to provide a standard learning management system so that a learner from kindergarten all the way up through post-secondary would be familiar and have the skills necessary to start learning from the ground running, no matter where they entered in the system. 

And Adult Ed jumped in on this because we have, along with-- thanks to Rhode Island-- a couple of years ago, we were invited to go to Rhode Island to experience project idea, which originally came from the State of Washington. And that is a blended learning program that we all had access to. It was ESL Access. And that's embedded within Canvas, and Canvas Commons has all kinds of materials appropriate for adult education students, as well as we will be using Canvas to roll out our PD services. 

Great. As I understand the idea, it's specifically about levels one, two, and three in ESL, right? It's sort of the flipped classroom and bringing those tech resources and that distance technology enhanced learning to a population that perhaps wasn't being served in a lot of other distance ed models, is that right? 

Yes, that is true. And it's also highly adaptable. So even though it's intended for ESL students and in certain levels, teachers have-- and this is what we love about OER Resources, when you check out the licenses, we have the ability to augment resources, pull out stuff that is not appropriate for the level of learners in front of us, and then substitute it with other resources. At the same time, it could be adapted for ABE students, something similar to I-DEA. It is certainly appropriate. Not everything that is within the I-DEA of curriculum, but a lot of it could be adapted to suit the needs of ABE learners. 

Great. So one more question just-- as we all experienced and went onto these hours of Zoom professional learning this spring, there is so much content available online. How do you help people identify quality and not just quality of content, but sort of quality in terms of representation of who's in the materials you're using, quality of context, how do you have those conversations? 

So going back to being a rural state-- additionally, I want to mention that as a whole, New Hampshire is a highly educated state. And so coupled with being a rural state, we are also-- receive limited funding as a result of that. So we, as a group, have to be extremely resourceful and look to all of those free and low cost and open educational resources. 

And we highly encourage our-- the Adult Ed programs to go after those sort of materials. Luckily, we have been in touch with Jeff Goumas, who is a-- he designed, developed CrowED Learning, as you can see on the screen, as well as SkillBlox. And so we encourage our programs to use his services. They are free to all adult educators. 

He's extremely innovative, and he saw a need before anybody else. So Jeff takes OER Resources, and he has compiled them. He's organized them by subject. He's organized them by CCRS content. And so he's essentially done all the work put into vetting quality resources. 

And so we really do encourage for our programs to use SkillBlox and go through CrowdED Learning and just really-- he just finished EdTech Maker Space, which I participated in and absolutely loved. I am a huge fan of Jeff's work. And then, additionally, WorldEd offers micro classes, just learning subjects separated by subjects. 

So you can find something on math and numeracy. You can find other micro lessons on digital literacy. It's just-- it's phenomenal the amount of vetted resources that are out there now. 

It's true. It's true. Thank you, Ginette. And I'll just say that Jeff Goumas is coming to work for WorldEd and we're very excited about it. OK. So let's move through the resource slide, and we'll come back to more questions for you later, Ginette. 

So I'm-- now I'm on slide 10. Yeah, you're there with me, Monica. And this is-- oh, shoot. I don't have your name on here-- Diana Satin. This is Diana Satin. 

She has a Master's Degree in Intercultural Relations, and is a Specialist in ESOL, teaching ESOL. She's worked in adult basic education since 1994 as a classroom teacher, a blended and an online teacher, a staff developer, a published author. She currently works as the Digital Literacy and Distance Learning Specialist for the SABES Program Support PD Center. And SABES, as I said, is sort of like pro-- CALPRO in California. She's the Links Trainer. She's an educational consultant. So take it away, Diana. 

So glad to be here. Thank you very much for the opportunity. And I just want to say California, Massachusetts has gotten so much out of the PD materials that you've put out there. So thank you. Glad to return a little bit of what we've gotten from you. 

And then I just-- I'm going to be talking about how the Massachusetts system has collaborated to help. But I'm going to talk about the theme of leadership that is today's theme. And this includes-- the system includes the State Department of Education, and our PD system SABES, and program leaders from the agencies, and how we develop this shared vision about working together to move through successfully during this time of the pandemic. 

And it started with the-- there being a collaboration between the state and the programs and PD before the pandemic. And that's been to encourage the digital literacy and education to be developed and built up. And so SABES has been providing support on that. 

And then big part of how things have gone here now is the wonderful support that we've gotten from the state level. Wyvonne Stevens-Carter is the State Director. And she, from the beginning, had that state as partner meetings and giving direction for what the state's expectations are and using it also for Q&A and getting to know what staff and programs challenges were, and their needs, and being really responsive to that. She's a social worker, so I recommend social workers being in leadership positions. 

And so the main focus being supporting students and staff with all the myriad problems that have resulted from COVID-- job loss and health issues, family needs, and the like. And as far as adapting to teacher and learner needs, Wyvonne gave programs permission to submit-- to amend amendments to their budgets to try to cover the new needs, like paying staff for more PD, for-- permission for them to buy devices and connectivity as loaners for students and for staff. 

And so-- let's see-- and that helped the programs turn around really quickly and send us to SABES, as well, to help people-- to know what people needed and to have support with, and to help them use these new devices to figure out how to buy them, where to get them. The mechanisms for communicating PD, they are various because they're through the PD that we offer, such as workshops, courses, coffee hours, and program-M based PD, program-based coaching. 

We always get staff letting us know what they need, and also sharing amongst themselves, which is like 80% the most valuable form of support that they get. And there are also regional director and regional advisor meetings. So support in that format, and the same for sharing. 

And also, we have different ways of providing our PD, including on-demand offerings from recorded webinars that we had given the previous year. And as far as-- let's see-- responsiveness, a response of PD system. People came in to PD-- let's see-- how many like carry the floor? It was like a million people. It wasn't a million people, but it was a lot of people, a lot more than earlier. 

And they-- another way of support was there's an annual Summit Directors Institute, and that was-- the original agenda was changed in response to the program directors and staff needs. And that-- then it focused on remote intake assessment and orientation. Because of course, people had their eye to September. 

And the resources that we offered, just to name a few, I already mentioned about the funding that Wyvonne-- the flexibility that Wyvonne gave people. And they also needed to know how to-- for example, the devices, and connectivity, which were the number one barriers. And so they needed support on how to loan, what's the strategy, how to get the devices to the students and so program shared, and we shared from ideal states. 

Forms for-- loaning forms and ideas among the states, and our programs dropping them off at students' homes, devices, and meeting students in parking lots. So, yeah, a lot of sharing is very helpful. We also have a Zoom resources page. I don't know if-- maybe there isn't time to click on it, that's fine. The link is there. 

And also, those are resources that were gleaned from practitioners in workshops who said, oh, our program developed this Zoom instructions in five languages. And we're like, great, can you share that? So it's wonderful when we get that information and we share it-- that we can share it out to them. 

And there's also a Padlet, which is a discussion forum, a discussion board, where it's in categories and people can post questions, share resources. And we do, too. One last thing I wanted to stress is program-based coaching and how important that is. Because practitioners can take all the PD they want to learn how to use this tool, or how to address that issue. 

But they need a comprehensive plan, a cohesive structured approach. And so that's where program-based coaching comes in. And so that's another support that we offer. And if we could go to the next slide, I just want to say one quick thing. 

And that is that these are the entities that have supported one another. And there's some quotes here. One quote-- one little anecdote I want to tell you about is that a number of program students who had lost their jobs, they sewed masks to send to their classmates, and also the poor front line workers so-- to support one another. And that is all. 

Yeah, wonderful. I mean, so one of the questions that comes to mind about professional development, especially from a Professional Development Center is like, who in our field has access to professional development? We know that it has never been fully equitable. Not everyone gets paid for professional learning. So what have you seen, what has the pandemic done to change, or hasn't it changed who gets access, how they access professional learning? 

Well, in-- built into the rates that teachers are paid from the state, this has been going on forever, there is an amount that they get, a number of hours. It's been 12 hours for PD. So that's built in. 

And then Wyvonne said that the programs can amend their grants to be able to offer more-- to pay their staff more hours, more hours of PD. 

OK. So that was actually a state policy. 

State policy, yes. 

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. In that program-based coaching, one of the things-- and I-- in one of our breakouts this morning, somebody raised the fact that there's such a disparity in the comfort and level of expertise in teaching staff with pivoting to this remote setting. I've heard that a couple of states-- Minnesota and Delaware, I believe, ideal consortium members, are starting-- what do they call it-- like peer coaching where an Adult Ed teacher who's very comfortable in the remote setting using whichever platform, Canvas or Zoom, sort of raises his or her hand and says, I'm willing to be observed or come and join my class, right? Come and join my class. Let me show you how I run this thing. Is that something that IDEAL is working on as a way to share out that strategy? 

There is a rubric that IDEAL is a work group of IDEAL folks who are working on a rubric for that. And there-- definitely, that happens in Massachusetts. I know of many programs who have said from the beginning they've supported one another in this jump into distance education. 

And by mentoring one another, they either pick themselves up or they are asked, would you be willing to, that can happen naturally. And then-- so the person with the stronger skills can help the other person develop a lesson, develop a unit. And then that person can observe the one who's learning and vice versa. And so that's happening a lot. It's really wonderful that it just came up naturally. 

It is. It's great. It's great. All right. Thanks, Diana. Next slide is just your questions. I've seen some things come in the chat. Rene, do you-- I saw Frank's question. Maybe Frank wants to unmute himself and ask his question, which is a good one. 

Hi, Judy. It's good to see you. Thanks for doing this work. I don't know that it's a question specific to this. It's one that's on my mind constantly, which is, how do we make sure we're not just taking the old system into a new environment? Because we're comfortable with the old system, not because it's necessarily the best system, especially in a new environment. 

It's a great question. Anybody from the panel want to jump in, talk about how do we use this moment to truly walk the walk of differentiated instruction, meeting people where they are? 

I can try to answer, or give my take on that question. And it is a great question, Frank. I think it's important that we ask ourselves that every day with every policy that we develop. 

My take on it is kind of three-fold. One is the power of survey. So not just surveying your teachers, but surveying your students. How are they doing? What do they need? What's working for them? What's not working for them? 

And then find out why it's working or why it's not working. And from there, we can improve processes so that at the end of this, we have the best of two worlds. We don't just-- we can't-- we don't just do face-to-face learning well. We also do virtual learning well. So I think surveying is an important part of that. 

The second thing, I know in the chat you said something about personalizing instruction. And I think that the teacher verification model plays a big role in that. Some examples that I have just off the top of my head of teachers that we featured are, we had this teacher Hrishika Bhat, she created like a menu where a student would create a meal. 

So they would choose something from the appetizers, choose-- which was like a warm-up, and they would choose an entree, which was like the assignment, then they would choose a dessert, which was like extra credit or something like that. So to be able to personalize instruction, I think the teacher verification model really allows for that. 

Another example is in our rural community, there's a really big rodeo presence up North. And one of our teachers would contextualize her math lessons to be like if you're hauling 5 horses this distance, how much hay are you going to have to take with you if it's a three day trip and they eat this much? So being able to personalize and contextualize lessons like that, the teacher verification model is excellent for it. 

And then my last point on that, or my last take on that is also utilizing adaptable canned curriculum. So in Arizona at the state level, we provide three online curriculums for the clock time model. And we are very aware-- we are very mindful when we select the curriculum that they are adaptable. 

So they have like an individualized learning path for students, either via diagnostic or like a previous learning survey before they begin. So-- and then, for example, in Burlington English, as well, that we provide. It's adaptable in that it presents the same topic at different levels so that all students are learning the same concept, but they're learning it at their own level. 

So I think that a combination of those three things allows us to create processes that are going to give us, in the end, the best of both worlds, and not just moving from one environment to another. [INTERPOSING VOICES]. 

Just very quickly, if I can, Judy, I just-- some clarification. So big fan of contextualisation, big fan of differentiation, but I'm talking about actually personalizing the entire experience so that students who are ready and able to work on their own are given more independent work. And those who need more of a high touch, high contact environment, are able to get that in a way that is different than currently everyone signs up for the class, regardless of where they might stand in terms of self-motivation, self-direction, and ability to learn independently. 

Yeah. Yeah. So some of the high flex models that are coming out, I think, are-- they're imagining our future when we always have this remote and asynchronous option for the instruction we're doing. I think try to break down some of those barriers. But, yeah, the personalized that you're imagining, Frank, I think is a-- I think that's an AI solution somewhere in our future. Yeah. 

I'm looking to see if we have any other questions. Rene, are you seeing any? 

We do have a question from Ilsa Any resources out there that make a connection between a digital learning environment and digital workplace skills development? 

Analysts? 

I'm not sure if it answers this question, but probably everybody here is familiar with what used to be GCFLearnFree and is now GCFEduGlobal, I think is their new name. They have a whole section on employment. I think it's called Workplace Skills. 

And I think some of their lessons could fit that need, that they are making that connection between digital literacy skills and workplace skills. I looked at them recently and was thinking of them in terms of different delivery systems. And I think that the way that they're sectioned into modules, you could easily pick and choose some of that content that looks at both areas-- digital literacy and workplace. 

Great. 

I'll jump in and add something. Oh, sorry, Judy, were you going to say something? 

Go ahead. 

OK. The Ed Tech Center has a lovely website. I'll paste the link in the chat. Its Workforce Ed Tech. And they-- I think this may address what you're talking about. 

And it has tools, and there's a blog, and there's also a community of practice on LinkedIn. And that's all about the tools for-- that's-- I'm trying to-- OK. Yeah. Really, it sounds like it's related to what you're asking about tools that have workforce preparation in mind. 

Great. 

From Alan, we have, for class, how do we approach cultural shift to virtual instruction and virtual learning? 

Oh, gosh. You're asking-- I'm not a class anymore so I don't have to answer that, right? How do we approach a cultural shift to virtual instruc-- I mean-- so we did a sort of a synthesis. We put together a technical working group on all the different national organizations in big states like California and Texas that have been doing surveys of practitioners, surveys of learners, just trying to study everything that we've been learning since March. 

I don't know that there's an answer for that yet, but there's a real sense in the field that we're not going back-- in the Adult Ed world, that we're not going back in the higher ed world. I think our partners' in postsecondary and higher ed are really seeing a seismic shift. I think it's harder to imagine that for the K-12 world, but this idea of taking down the barriers to learning, providing access to learning, there are programs that have increased the number of students they're serving because, suddenly, they were able to serve people who had these child care transportation barriers. 

So I think there's a cultural shift, and I think a lot of it has to happen in our minds. One of the other things that that research brought out was this mindset, this idea that only some learners can be remote learners. Only some learners can learn through distance platforms. And what the reality is showing us is that, again, if we design it well and support it well, then anybody can work that way. 

Oh, interesting things going on in the chat. OK. I need to get through my last couple of slides because I see the last few minutes. Veronica, if you'll move us to the next slide. 

I will say that OTAN, as I said, critical member of the ideal consortium, and can help keep you all connected to these wonderful panelists that were with us today. I want to show you this LISTSERV. This is from an organization called the Digital US coalition. Digital US is a group of many national organizations really dedicated to digital equity. Started this LISTSERV as a way to share resources on the topic for a really wide array of stakeholders, including a lot of workforce entity's chambers. 

The next slide are some more resources that if you're not-- if your staff are not already wiped out in professional learning. ProLiteracy and the EdTech Center have teamed up to do Fourth Fridays. And EdTech Center used to do Second Fridays. EdTech really started hosting this conversation in March, bringing together great practitioners, great leaders in the field in terms of digital skill building, digital equity. 

The next slide, because of that work, OCTAE, at the US Department of Education asked the EdTech Center to build some micro learning modules on sort of the main things that a practitioner needs to think about as they start in on a distance ed or blended learning model, things about outreach, things about screening, assessment, how to effectively blend distance and in-person learning. And you can find those courses, and you can point your teachers toward them at that website. 

And then last slide with our final minute to go is just to give you all our contact information. Let you know that in a format like this, we realize we've thrown a lot at you. But you can reach out to us, and we will try to point you toward resources that can help you. And thank you to all the panelists. Thank you to everyone on the call and for all you're doing. 

Thank you, all. This is Ginette. And, Judy, I just wanted to add to what you had mentioned in terms of cultural shift. Honestly, it comes from us as practitioners. We need to help everyone by model and the changes in the shifts. 

There-- what is it? There's a high percentage of careers that require digital literacy of some sort. And that number just keeps increasing. So you're right. We're not going to go backward. And the best way is to help everyone move forward. 

Nicely said. I think that's a great way to end. All right. 

Thank you so much, Judy. And thank you to all of our panelists. That was fascinating. I'm always amazed by how different adult education looks in different states, and also how much we do that crosses over. And it's very, very similar. So it's-- I find it inspiring and just great to grow our Adult Ed window with our partners from other states. So thank you for being with us today. 

We are going to take a 15 minute break, and we will resume at 2:15 for learning about how CASAS has helped us measure impact during COVID-19. So we'll see you in 15 minutes. 

All right. Welcome back. It's 2:15. Hopefully, y'all had an opportunity to get up and stretch a little bit, where if you're like me, you took the opportunity to answer a couple of emails. At this point, I would like to introduce Jay Wright. He is the California Accountability Program Manager for CASAS. And he is here to tell us how CASAS is responding to and measuring the impact of COVID-19. Jay, are you all there? Jay? 

Sorry, had to unmute. Hopefully, every [AUDIO OUT] 

I heard you and now I don't. Are you still there? 

Yes. 

OK. 

Everybody can't-- everybody can hear me OK? 

Yes, we can, yep. 

OK. Sorry about that. OK. Well, I did kind of work it out with the key folks, so it's not all about COVID-19, though there are definitely a lot of issues related to that here. That will be the first agenda item. 

A lot of what we'll talk about is probably kind of the more advanced-- or experienced users accountability that we did a few weeks ago, a lot more COVID stuff, and a lot less data dive stuff. But it was thought a lot of people probably didn't hear it, so we'll kind of do a review of that. 

So here is the overall itinerary. We will start by talking about COVID-19. I added a few slides just based on some of the questions I've seen in the previous sessions. So some of the kind of federal and state level definitions of some of these things I added in here just, hopefully, for a little clarification, a little bit on K programs. 

We've had a couple of recent sessions where it's come to light that a lot of the things you are talking about at the beginning, they are 2017-18 when we started these, have been a little bit forgotten, a lot of new folks since then. So a quick update for 2021 kind of covering some things that might be kind of blast from the past sort of topics, but things that have come up here lately. We'll go over outcomes and services. 

Some of those will just be a review of those things that you've heard again and again. Some are going to be-- we have a new immigrant integration indicator outcome. So I wanted to cover that. 

And then there's also some updates for COVID-19. We've touched on them a little bit for training. There's some issues that you've shared with me the last couple of sessions, too, that I wanted to update on, as well. 

A little bit on the CAEP reports in TE, and a little bit on what are some of the troubleshooting issues. Mostly, that's where the COVID-19 comes in. We won't data dive, but we will look at some of the key things we've talked about forever. Maybe point out some things that really are necessarily going to change whether we all like it or not. 

Other things like demographics and so on that really shouldn't change. So there have been some questions like that related to what should change and what really shouldn't be any different. So a little bit, I'd be interested in the chat. Sorry I didn't get it in. I kind of came in after I was announced. 

But these have been a couple of things that we've talked about it a lot at my network meetings over the last month. We covered this in a session, I think it was September 22, but I'm not sure about the date. But we had an advanced user session on CAEP accountability. 

We were asking these kind of questions trying to see if anybody had any input. That is, there's an age old issue where we have CAEP outcomes that we're doing things that we really want to record, things that we-- good accomplishments that we know students are doing but sometimes having trouble connecting the dots. Which category is that, which outcome should we call that. 

So I'm interested in any sort of situations like that, whether it's a specific class program, specific things students achieve that are causing trouble with recording. I'd really be interested in knowing that. If you come up with any solutions, I'd be interested in that, too. 

But we're going to develop a new workshop kind of covering that, because that seems to be what's on everybody's mind here lately. So any scenarios or results that create uncertainty or confusion on how they're recorded, we'd really be interested in that. We can discuss it today, or I'll just keep it in the chat and take it for consideration. 

And then are there any things that have come up since COVID-19? Maybe special services you've provided for students, or maybe outcomes that are now achieving with-- now that it is COVID-19, maybe more so than before. Anything that's come up is good achievements that you maybe didn't think of in, quote, unquote, "normal times", but it's come up a lot lately. I'd really be interested in that sort of stuff. 

So that's just table setting. Not required, but I'd really be interested in hearing what some of the problems are. I'll get the chat emailed to me after so we probably won't be able to cover it all now. But I'd really be interested in your input. Just wanted to get that out of the way first. 

OK. So moving along here. You can't start anything without referencing COVID-19. So here's the same COVID-19 slide I probably had in every presentation for the last six or seven months. Here is that OTAN COVID-19 website. There's several different sets of FAQs, including one from us at CASAS on all sorts of issues related to distance learning, class creation. There's some updated ones for recording things in TE and for remote testing. 

So all kinds of information on that OTAN website. Looking at it more from a federal level. Again, iTable's set with this every time. There are federal level memos. There have not been any that I know of since the end of May, but when COVID-19 first hit, they came up with three quick memos that really were game changers in terms of federal policy. 

So here's a couple links if you want to look them up. But overall, they basically started allowing remote testing. Making a long story short-- before all this, you couldn't do any testing without an in-person proctor present. So they allowed it at the state level. California obviously checked the box that said yes, we're doing this. 

In the recent one at the end of May, it also talked about self-reported placement. Meaning you could use an informal assessment or whatever you saw was necessary to place the student into an appropriate level. This was kind of a big change because for the last 10 years the feds have required what they call the qualifying pre-test that determines which of those 12 levels the student places into. 

So they're going out of their way to say because of COVID-19, you can place into one of these federal levels and qualify for federal reporting with or without a pre-test. I'll note that it still goes out of its way to say the pre and post-test is still what's required to get that measurable skill gain, and so on. 

So I've been setting it up as they're still staying on both sides of the fence where they're allowing to make it easier to get students placed and make sure you get them into the appropriate instruction and so on, but still leaving the rules as it is for now with that Memo 20-5 at the end of May. 

A little bit on the basics. I saw a couple of questions like this. So this is just straight from the federal regs, the definition of distance education-- that is any formal learning activity where students and instructors are separated by time, geography, or both. There's some of the fine print. 

All different ways that you can do it. So whether it's synchronous or asynchronous. Whether you're doing video checkout, educational software, Zoom meetings, whatever it is you're doing. All of those are technically distance learning. They're are all different kinds of distance learning, but they all technically qualify. 

For the last 10 years or so, this has been the federal definition from a data collection point of view. That is the feds have had what they call the 50% rule. So what they say is usually-- not so true now with COVID-19, I guess, but for the last 10 years, the overwhelming majority of anybody in distance learning most likely is in blended learning. Meaning they're doing some of their instruction with distance learning, but some of the instruction at a distance. 

So the feds have had the 50% rule, meaning if the student is more than 50% distance learning, technically they count as a distance learning student for federal reporting. If it's less than 50%, then they don't count as a distance learning student for federal report. 

So to be clear, this is NRS rules and required for WIOA, too. It's not necessarily required for CAEP, but just FYI, this is how we do it for federal reporting. And if you're having any issues with defining who these distance learning learners are or what distance learning is, just FYI. 

And then I'll just reiterate. In Judy's panel, they talked a lot about these three models. These are also in the federal guidelines and have been listed in the federal guidelines for 10 years or more. That is clock time, teacher verification, and learner mastery. 

I think it was the person from Arizona that said they use a combination of all three, which is permissible in California. There's no way you've got to do it in California, but just summarizing the CDE Statewide Assessment Policy. 

In general, if you're doing synchronous online instruction-- so what we're doing now is an example of synchronous. The instructor and everybody else are all listening in the exact same time. We recommend clock time, that is an hour on Zoom with everybody is the same as an hour in the regular classroom. 

But for asynchronous, it's not necessarily at the same time. It's a video educational software or maybe it's going back and reviewing the Zoom recording rather than being there with the teacher. Then we generally suggest learner mastery. 

That is you define how long it takes a typical student ahead and you put that in your local policy and then you just record that amount of instruction once you're able to verify that student really did watch the video or really did complete the module in the software, et cetera. 

So I'll move on. I guess, sanity check here. Hopefully, everybody can hear me. Everything's all right here. 

Any sanity check at all? OK. 

You're good. 

OK. Thank you. All right, great. So anyway this is just a review of programs. It's come up a little bit here the last couple of months. These are more things that we talked a lot about in training three or four years ago. 

We haven't gotten into this as much, so I wanted to put it on the table. So we now have five basic programs in CAEP. We have adult basic and secondary ESL and CTE. We consider those the three primary programs. Adults with disabilities, parents supporting K-12 success are the fourth and fifth programs under CAEP. 

We have these three programs and we have other things folded in. So if you are new, sometimes it helps to know we consider ABE and ASE as one program. That's different than what they do in federal reporting. That's different than what they do in most of the rest of the world where ABE and ASC are separate. 

Within ASC, usually HSE, which includes HiSET and GDE and high school diploma are different programs, but for CAEP, it's always one. ESL is ESL. CTE, this was a big change last year. We have regular CTE, short-term CTE, pre-apprenticeship, and workforce prep all folded into that CTE umbrella. 

So we've had a couple of those trainings over the last month that gets into the differences among these four areas. So CTE is long-term and focuses on an occupation. Short-term, obviously is also occupation-specific, but is not long-term. There's no real guideline that gives you the cut off, but the number I've used is 48 hours. That's what they use on the college side. That's the only number I know about at all. 

So if you need a number, that's what I'd say, though that's certainly not the required cutoff. Pre-apprenticeship is long-term and occupation specific like CTE, but obviously a different model. Previously, that was its own instructional program as part of the previous ADG7 programs. It's still important. It's still something we're tracking, but now considered under that CTE umbrella. 

Workforce preparation is also one that used to be a standalone program. Last year, that program was changed from Workforce Reentry to Workforce Preparation and also folded under the CTE umbrella. It started as re-entry based on the emphasis on adults 55 years and up. 

It's still allowed to focus on older adults if that's what you choose to do, but a lot of people have brought up over the years that this is useful and appropriate for all students, not just older adults, not just individuals with barriers. So we've now renamed it to Workforce Prep and now openly put this as appropriate as a program for all students. 

So it's non-occupation specific. It's something that can be more general in nature. 

So this is part of the chat, but we'll be covering post-secondary here in a few minutes. So I'll hold off on that question until we get there and then you can sanity check me if it doesn't really address it at all. So here's the summary of the structure. Workforce Reentry is now Workforce Prep. Adult served-- I'm not sure if that matters to a lot or not, but technically we will have an update to our CAEP summary. 

This will basically give us a third category of individuals from 1 to 11 hours. The way it's set up now is we just have the 12 or more and we have those that have less than 12. That is they qualify for outcomes, they qualify for federal reporting, and so on, or they don't. 

So there'll be a new category that will look at those that don't necessarily have 12 hours, but do have something. We've got hours for learners in multiple programs. Again, that's also a year old, but just an update because a lot of people have been asking. 

If you have students that are in more than one program or perhaps a class that addresses more than one program, we have a way for you to designate that MTE where you can mark both programs to a class or whatever. But what we had to do based on the way it is in NOVA is we had to make a command decision on how to govern those hours. 

So it's done 50/50. So if you've got an IET class that's appropriate for CTE and ESL, for example, and you've marked it that way, if you know it should be a 50/50 split, then you can do nothing. But by default, that's how it will go. So if you know the actual breakdown is different, then you should create those two classes. 

Sorry if I'm getting too deep in the weeds, but just wanted to explain what that bullet means. Another repeat from last year as we're not tracking service hours. We're officially recording barriers. We're not linking barriers to Workforce Reentry anymore, but we are recording the barrier of low English literacy for all ESL students. 

And we are recording the barrier of low literacy for all ABE students. That's now done automatically. And the final recap issue is passage of an exam. That was where at the federal level for the CTE or you might say, the Title I Measurable Skill Gains. 

They are now requiring that the student pass some sort of exam. To be clear, it's not necessarily pre and post testing. It's not measured or verified with anywhere near the scrutiny or any of that pre and post testing is, but they say if a student makes gains in workforce programs, there ought to be some sort of skills check or written exam that the student does to verify that they really made that measurable skill gain. 

So again, this is just an overview from a lot of the training material from last year that started to come up. So there's the gory details for those of you that like the gory details. 

So for hours-- again, we're not tracking service hours. Obviously, the last six months have illustrated more than anything that it has nothing to do with delivery time or environment. Obviously, we're still tracking hours even though we're doing distance learning. We're tracking hours under every delivery method imaginable. 

Still the issue is not with that. The issue is associating it with one of the five CAEP programs. That's how we're actually recording hours. So that's why it should be associated with the program and why we're not tracking it for services. The Occupational Skills Gain-- I'll forfeit that until we get to the detailed outcomes. But this is just a reminder that we updated the Occupational Skills Gain. 

Outcome as well as the Workforce Preparation Milestone outcome. And again, it's really the same, only there should be some skills check or written test attached with it. This is looking at the same WIOA wide relating indicators and MSGs to AB 104 outcomes. 

So all of those six categories we have under AB 104 relate to the federal performance indicators or the federal measurable skill gains. So we just point that out that it's not anything we made up. We just directly stole it from the existing federal system. 

And this is just a recap. Everybody's seen this a million times. Here are six categories of CAEP outcomes and all the specific outcomes that are possible under each of those six different categories. 

So we'll start with literacy gains. We're not going to go over every single outcome, but we are going to point out some of those that tend to generate the most questions. Some of those that I referenced in those updates. And we'll also look at a couple COVID-19 situations. 

So to your question, Grace, because I think you're more directly asking about the presentation rather than the chat questions, is for barriers. I think what you're getting at is that it's not a mechanical change. There's nothing mechanical in those barriers that will automatically change anything in your data. 

But I still say that when you mark those particular programs, those barriers will automatically populate because we'll look at everybody in ESL and automatically include that in what we report to Launchboard, what we report to the legislature, and then what we report for federal reporting as well. 

So I think that's what you're getting at. If you've looked at it, it doesn't necessarily change the report, but it's done automatic. I know TAP has a copy of the PowerPoint. You're welcome to send me an email and I'll gladly send you a copy of this if you want. 

So here is for literacy gains. Again, these are the categories we've had for literacy gains for quite a while. Mostly it's pre/post, that's not anything you mark. Carnegie units. That's the high school credits. That's not anything you bubble either, but there's a slide I'll show here in a minute. And there are those other outcomes. 

I'll talk about high school credits for a minute. This is getting way obnoxiously in the weeds, but I always get into this one because somebody inevitably asks how to mark this outcome. So to be clear we've had this for a few years. This is one of our CAEP literacy gains. It's measuring literacy gains based on the high school credits rather than pre and post testing. This is not really new anymore, but it was new for WIOA. 

So this is an official fed table's outcome and it's an official California payment point as well. This is the screenshot in TE that shows how to mark this outcome. It's obnoxiously in the weeds because it's a little bit different than what intuition suggests. It's marking it by level, not credits. There is a place to mark credits, but everybody handles credits a little bit differently at every district. 

So we use this self-reported level to record the outcome. That is you mark it ASE High or ASE Low upon enrollment and then you mark it as ASE High later in the year. And you're suggesting that based on obtaining credits, a student progress from the 9th or 10th grade level to the 11th or 12th grade level in a year. 

So just technically that's the second way to get the literacy gain. And then here are those CTE related outcomes. So I'm sure some of you are getting tired of hearing this because we cover this every training, but it always comes up. So I always review on this one because it's the most frequently asked question. 

So we've got two CTE outcomes. One called Occupational Skills Gain. One called Workforce Prep Outcome. The Occupational Skills Gain suggests a portion of the longer term program. The Workforce Prep Milestone suggests full completion of something shorter term. So the same tired example that we've used forever. 

The example here is a student's in welding. They finished the first semester. They're ready to move on to the second semester. It's a five semester, five module long program. So once the student is ready to move from module 1 to module 2, that might suggest an Occupational Skills Gain. That the wrinkle that we added a year ago with that passage of an exam is we're keeping the conditions the same, but now technically to achieve this outcome, there should be some written test or skills check or whatever you'd normally do within your CTE program that shows they're really ready to move from one module to the next. 

That would be the new difference. Workforce Prep Outcome would be full completion of something shorter term. So in this example, it's a 15 hour workforce prep class on job search strategies. So there's some documentation that just shows they completed that and they get that Workforce Preparation Outcome. 

So sorry if that's a broken record, but I always like to make sure to cover that. What we've done in recent years that relates this a little bit is now that we know the difference between those two CTE related literacy gains, what the heck then is the difference between that and an actual post-secondary outcome? 

So starting with post-secondary, some of post-secondary simply relates to entering college and/or obtaining college degrees, but there's a confusion part because half of post-secondary relates to occupational licensure, certificate, and so on as represented by the bullets in the upper left. 

So what we would say is it's a literacy gain for either partial completion of a longer term program or full completion of something shorter term. If the student achieves full completion of that longer term program, then we would say it rises to the level of post-secondary. Yeah, I would say so. 

I'm not really the decider on that, but for my two cents absolutely. I'm sure for a lot of reasons, the badge is a lot better but absolute. 

So anyway, if they have full completion of that longer term program to where they finished Module 5 of 5 and they now have the official license that sort of use them as a welder in the State of California, then it would rise to the level of post-secondary. They achieved that final prized outcome in that example. So hopefully this makes sense somehow. 

OK. Thank you, Neil for the clarity there. And then just a little bit in the weeds here because this is what people ask for. It's a little more obnoxious detail, but it's what people ask, so here you go. 

For the occupational skills gain, we have two bubbles or checkboxes. There's no real good explanation for this other than we allotted two different ones. There you can see which ones those are. And then Workforce Prep Outcome, we just have one. I know this is pretty innocuous, but a lot of people ask this, so I go out of my way to point out exactly which two outcomes relate to Occupational Skills Gains and exactly which one relates to Workforce Prep Milestone. 

So there's that information. One last clarity on outcomes overall and then we'll get a little more into COVID-19. Is the transition outcomes are also frequently asked questions. So for the sake of argument, there are three transition outcomes for CAEP reporting. There's transition to ASE, CTE, and college. ASE is all under the hood. 

There's no bubble for that one, but technically, if somebody starts the year in either ABE or ESL and finishes in either high school equivalency or high school diploma, that's a transition to ASE. We also have transitioned to CTE in college. Those you do mark. 

There's the three things you can mark for CTE transitions and the two different things you can mark for college transitions. And here's again, the same diagram we've talked about for a long time. The starting points are those two blue boxes to the left. The end points are one of those three red boxes to the right. 

So the student starts in either K-12, Adult Ed, ABE, ASE, or ESL, or starts a non-credit community college, ABE, ASE, or ESL. Finishes to get the CTE transition. Finishes in community college CTE or K-12 Adult Ed CTE. 

To get the transition to college, either one of those would transition into for-credit college. The for-credit is on purpose. If they move from K-12 Adult Ed to non-credit that would be considered more of a quote unquote lateral transition. So just FYI, this is how we track those transition outcomes. 

So a little bit just updating for COVID-19, so we are addressing. The agenda is we've had a few workshops here the last couple months looking at different ways to try to update for COVID-19. Trying to measure outcomes and distance learning. So what we've looked at is aligning some of this to the passage of an exam process. 

So I'll just say this is a little bit why I was a little obnoxious in my level of detail in talking about that change that was largely WIOA I 1 change a year ago with the passage of an exam. That is what the feds are saying on the Title I side. In those workforce training programs, they want a little more documentation for those skills checks, for those advancements, and so on. 

So we're using that general framework for how you might use this in distance learning. So an example might be some of those virtual class assignments. Maybe it's referring them to a website where they have activities. Maybe it's going to be some of the educational software. We've also talked about skills checks and workforce preparation activities. 

When we first talked about this in May and June, we were mostly talking about EL Civics. EL Civics is technically now its own outcome, so you may not need to mark literacy gains for this, but nonetheless doing those skills demonstrations online would be another way in which you could record some of these literacy gains outcomes and some maybe Occupational Skills Gain or Workforce Prep Milestone. 

Here's one side of it. Again, looking at some of the virtual instruction. The way that we've moved into distance learning. So learner mastery I bring up related to one of those three ways in which you can record hours. So it may be the way you really like doing it. It may not be the way you like doing it. But I'll just point out that's been the statewide recommendation for about 12 years. 

Our CTE statewide assessment policy has referenced learner mastery for about that long. What learner mastery does is it basically identifies the software, the videos, the online applications, whatever it is that you're using for distance learning instruction, and then you're defining how long it would take a typical student to complete that module or watch that video, get through the web application, or whatever it is you're offering. 

And then you would credit the student with that amount of instruction. You saw some alternatives that are no better, no worse than what we do in California. So I'm not trying to say we're better, but just so you know what the emphasis has been in California. That is it's defining that ahead of time, putting it in your local policy with the idea that you're recording the same amount of hours across all students equally. 

So it was developed earlier when it was online or video checkout or whatever, where you might have students that get an hour's worth of instruction and they take exactly an hour, whereas other students might take four or five hours because they're constantly interrupted. So we had emphasized the learner mastery for those sort of reasons 10 or 11 years ago with the idea that we wanted to be sure that everybody got the same amount of hours, whether the student dutifully completed the instruction right away or whether it maybe took a while based on those obvious issues. 

So that's learner mastery. A part of learner mastery that is optional, but we talked a lot more about in the good old days is you might have some exam that you have the student pass before they get the hours. That would be an obvious opportunity for recording COVID-19 literacy gains. Or if they passed that test, that would be a great passage of an exam quote unquote situation. 

Another would be with educational software. Most of you are doing the second bullet a lot more than the first. But that is within all of those software products that I'm sure all of you are using, some of the higher end software products have built-in quizzes where the student has to pass a quiz that covers the material covered by the software before allowing the student to proceed. 

So for the last six months or so, we've definitely been saying let that software and let your software publish or work for you. And that's another really good opportunity to show that the student has done some sort of passage of an exam because they had to get through that content that directly related to the software that's the backbone of what you're doing in distance learning in this example. 

And then some of you have local milestones where if you're doing things like EL co-enrollment, maybe working with your Title I, and they're making those transitions, that would be another way to record outcomes in a COVID-19 environment. 

And then here's just again, more ideas. 

In May, June, we were talking a lot about EL Civics. So you don't really need to record it as a literacy gains outcome anymore because it's now an I3 outcome. More on that here in a minute. But that would be something you can certainly emphasize more in COVID-19. 

I know IET is little far fetched, but if you are doing things with your Title I or with your CTE, sometimes those prerequisites are another way to show that they did something and report it as some sort of literacy gain. If they move transition to a higher level placement in IET, ILCE, you're hearing a lot about that where the student may not necessarily qualify for IET or qualify for the higher level ILCE class, but now they've made enough gains in their ESL class to get there. 

That would be another way you could record something tangibly for literacy gains and then in EL co-enrollment. Again, they move on and get into that Title I program. Or if you're one of those pilots that's doing EL co-enrollment, my understanding is those students are completing some of those shorter term workforce training classes with Title I. 

That would be another way to say yes, here's some students that are making those kind of gains. So again, you're not required to do any of this, but over the last few months and in the spirit of Rene's outline, I think the call is to look for alternatives where we can still do something instead of nothing, knowing we're in COVID-19. 

Knowing that everything is changing here for the long term, not the short term. So none of these are perfect, but this is just giving a bunch of suggestions for how you can still report outcomes and still show that your students are making these gains and doing a great job in a distance learning slash COVID-19 environment. 

Related to this here some trouble shooting examples Thanks again I'll just say Neil is giving me a huge boost here, giving some other suggestions here. I mean that sincerely because I'm not sure I'm on the right track, so thank you. I feel a little better seeing some of these suggestions. 

So troubleshooting. This is what we got into a little bit in the training. We did a couple of weeks ago. I think it was September 22, but don't quote me, but there was some interest in looking at areas that I see a lot of people are chatting. So thanks for your input. I'm going to speed through this and look at it afterwards and get back to you. I don't think we have time to dig in right now. 

But anyway, a lot of you had brought forward suggestions of scenarios at your agency or in your consortium where you know students are doing wonderful things and you know you should be dutifully recording them, but you're a little unsure exactly what category or which specific outcome it is. So one example that came up is workforce preparation classes that are occupations specific. 

So to that answer, it's not that important that you do it the way I say, but just so I give some answer instead of none, I would say that would depend on your CTE program. If it's a workforce prep class that's occupation specific because the CTE program requires it, then I would definitely consider that more like an Occupational Skills Gain. 

If it's more just something they're doing in a vacuum to learn more about that occupation, I'd call it a Workforce Prep Milestone. If that sounds like insane gobbledygook, don't worry about the answer, but for the record that is my answer. Another one is classes required for CTE that are occupation generic. That's basically the same answer. 

And obviously, if it's required by your CTE program, then I'd call it an Occupational Skills Gain. Some are not really having trouble between those two, but having trouble distinguishing Workforce Prep Milestone between short-term services. I admit from a student perspective, they look awfully similar. Quite frankly, they look exactly the same. So I would just use that to relate to the instructional program. 

That is if they're doing things that directly relate to the course of their instruction in ESL or CTE or whatever, then I would mark it as a Workforce Prep Milestone. If it's really independent of all that, then I would be more likely to report it as a short-term service. Again, not right or wrong answer, but just so there's some answer instead of none. 

EL Civics has been a big one, although I think that one's obvious now because you now have a new EL Civics outcome. And then IET/EL co-enrollment. We're developing more on that, but I'll fold that into the same answer as the others, But I'm just throwing these as examples where a lot of you have had trouble deciding how to report it. So I will just tie that to my chat question as I know there are many more situations that cause that sort of confusion than just these. 

These are just examples that I hear about a lot. So the quite frankly here is I want to try to expand some of those examples, so we can get into it a little bit more and really try to clarify it a lot better than I am now, for example. 

Just to clean up outcomes. Here is that bubble boy slide. You've all seen that one. You've all seen this one, TE. If you're new, these are just giving you the update records and TE screenshot perspectives of all the different CAEP outcomes. 

A little bit here on services as well. Here's the three categories we have supportive training and transition. Supported services are ones that focus on individual needs rather than instructional needs. So examples would be child care, transportation, legal and fiscal counseling, and so on. Training and transition services focus more on the instructional needs. 

The ones related to transition are really a lot like training, in my opinion, but they're just related more directly to transition to college or transition to workforce training. We've been trying to relate services to COVID-19 as well. So we've got two slides. One that just tells you what we think the services are in the real world and then another slide that just converts all those real world examples to which specific bubble we think it is or checkbox we think it is in TE or whatever. 

So a lot of things that have come up in the last six months. What are additional health care requirements? That one's obvious. A lot of issues with additional financial services. We've been doing a lot of digital literacy training, getting them up and running in distance learning and other things. 

So those new software applications have been big. Skill upgrades, so individuals can work remotely and do other things in response to COVID. Obviously, a lot of students have lost jobs, so job seeking skills has been another really popular activity. So again, there's many more. I'll just say if you've got some of these that you've been doing that are not on the list, I'm sure you do, I'd really be interested in that. 

If nothing else, maybe some new ones, some better ones to spice up the slide. But in any case, if you've got some additional services, I'd really be interested to hear about those as well. Here's the other services slide, though same information, but the laundry list is just giving you suggestions for what bubbles to bubble or what checkboxes to check rather than emphasizing the real world application. 

So there's one called prerequisite training that you can do for things like digital literacy upgrades, assessment and testing to get new skills, job readiness would be another good digital literacy one, emergency financial services and health services to get at more of the personal side, you might say. 

So many, many more of these, too. If you've got examples that you're using a lot, I'd be happy to hear lots of good examples on this one, too. But this is just giving you a few obvious ones to get you started. And here's the slide for services just categorizing the three different categories of services in the same manner we have that other slide for the six different categories of outcomes. 

So a little bit more on resources here. So here's our remote testing page. You might say it's an hour. We don't have to get into all these details. But I know most of you have heard lots about this. We've had lots of training, lots of resources on our website. Lots of you have come up with lots of new ideas as well. 

I think what I'd like to say about this more recently is our website page is there. It has the CDE memo. It has the agency testing agreement. It has lots of information, lots of videos, lots of PowerPoint documents, lots of guidelines documents, and so on. 

On citizenship interview, EL Civics COOAPs and pre and post testing. The information has been largely the same since May. We've left that the same on purpose, but where we've changed a lot is we've been working a lot more with agencies to pilot new situations, having meetings with you to address new situations. 

So if you have ideas that you think will work, but you don't necessarily see it listed on the remote testing page, we're strongly encouraging you to reach out to your CASAS specialist or to the folks on the Remote Testing Team. Schedule a meeting, give your idea. We'll do what it takes to make sure we can fit you into that car and drive away a happy camper. 

We realize now that everybody has the same basic idea, but the devil in the details is different in every agency. So we're just saying we're trying to be more flexible with specific ways. So again, examples would be some of you are doing parking lot testing. Some of you are doing hybrid testing, which has a proctor onsite and students doing remotely. 

Some are just looking at ways to try to do more ratios, but promote testing. Some of you have figured out ways to get students onsite while following social distancing. Some have a hybrid and a hybrid and a hybrid. So we've got a lot of these starting to sprout up all over. So we're basically just saying contact us, so we can figure out how we can apply that to other-- applying common law, you might say, where we know somebody's done the same thing, but we need to connect the dots, figure out how we made it work for those other agencies. 

So we can apply the same standards to make it work the same way for you. So that's kind of in a nutshell the way we're working it more recently. I'm sure a lot of you have heard this many times, but if you haven't, there you go. You heard it here first. 

Another thing and again, I'm sure a lot of you have heard this one as well, the reading level indicator. This was a large extent in response to that federal memo that came out at the end of May where it's still requiring pre/post for measurable skill gain, but it's going out of its way to say you can self report placement. So some of you have your own way of doing it, but some of you said, yeah. 

We really want to do something easier to make it quicker to place students, but we don't have anything. If so, you might want to look at the CASAS RLI. It's no cost if you're using your eTests or TE. There's the good news. It can be done on a cell phone, that's the other good news. 

No proctor is required. That's the other good news. So if you're interested, you can find it on the website or email me and I can send you the link. But it's an easier way to get students placed. So it does not give you an official pre-test score, but it does allow you to place the student in a level quickly and easily. 

So if you're not quite there yet with remote testing or any of these other practices, but you want a little more than just desperate to get the student in the appropriate class, this might be a middle ground option that might be a way to move forward with students. So this is a little bit more just how it works. 

So this is the TE side. So the technology is the same as what a lot of you know from that Employment and Earnings Survey we've been doing the last couple of years. That is you reach out to students via text, via email, or both. So you go into the Demographics Lister and choose which students you want to have do the RLI. You send the invite. It uses the same method as know that follow up survey to reach students and send either a text or email to students. 

The student receives the email or text, clicks the link on their cell phone, completes the RLI, clicks the final click, and it gets sent directly back into TE. No muss, no fuss. 

Another update. This is not really COVID-19 related, but it is a what's new, is related to immigrant integration. I know some of you, Neil has reached out to some of you recently on this issue. So I think there probably is going to be a little more reaching out on this here soon. 

But anyway, just a reminder, we had the AB 2098 legislation and then the follow up committee there basically met the first half of 2019 and identified a lot of solutions, one of which was relating these immigrant integration indicators to existing EL Civics COAAPs. 

So we've done the work with allies and others and connected EL Civics COAAPs to what we're calling the immigrant integration indicators that allies and others put together, so we now have a combination of-- I'm going to cut to the chase here. We have new reports in TE that we're calling I3 reports. 

Again, I3 stands for Immigrant Integration Indicator. So it's kind of modeled on those CASAS competency reports that you already know and love, where it's relating student performance to instruction at the student class and agency level. But instead of giving you that competency statement or whatever, it's giving you that statement related to the EL Civics COAAP. 

So based on your student performance, you can glean information on strengths and weaknesses that either student class or agency level. So again, these are the I3 reports and they've been in TE now for about a month and a half, two months or so. 

The other update is in the CAEP summary. There's the column. It's a new column in the summary called past I3. It's an outcome. It relates to literacy gain, but not exactly. It doesn't really fit under literacy gain. It doesn't really fit under pre/post either. 

So we just put it in this new column where again, when students pass EL Civics COAAPs, that now can be a new I3 outcome on the CAEP summary. And I did verify earlier today that we have it set. I guess you can try, but I did verify it to say if you're a CAEP funded agency, but you're not WIOAII 2, or maybe you're [WIOAII 2, but you're not doing EL Civics or whatever. 

Nonetheless, you have the ability to select those EL Civics COAAPs on the website and move forward. For WIOAII 2, it continues to be ESL only. For WIOAII 2, there's those focus area issues that I'm sure a lot of you already know and love. Those rules for WIOAI 2 are 100% the same, but for CAEP, again, we're not worried about payment points, so we're not focused on ESL only. We're not worried about IELCE or SIP Prep or SIP Part. 

Anybody that wants to engage in those EL Civics COAAPs in the effort to pass an I3 outcome is welcome to do so. It does require that you at least have that basic username and password on the CASAS website, but that's really about it. 

OK. Moving along here. So I don't let it go, we've got a new CAEP Data Dictionary. I think everybody's heard this. But lots of updates to that CAEP specific dictionary. The other update to make sure everybody here-- you probably heard this, but just to be sure-- we have a new Quarterly Data Submission Wizard. I believe it was just activated last Thursday. That is after we got September 30 in the rear view mirror. 

But starting with this first quarter data submission of the 2021 year, we'll be using the Data Submission Wizard to submit our data and the Data Integrity Report. So the wizard will include CAEP data, CAEP DIR, WIOAII 2 data, and WIOAII 2 DIR all in one fell swoop. 

If you're funded for one, but not the other, it'll just take care of the area in which you're funded. So the bottom line is you no longer need to do WIOA and CAEP submissions separately. And you no longer need to send that separate PDF to CASAS when completing your quarterly data submission requirement. 

Here is the data submission calendar just because it's there. And then here is the same CAEP summary, the same three sections. I think this is Pete and Repete information. But what I did want to bring up here with the CAEP summary is we will be updating this to separate it out between 0 hours, meaning absolute 0 versus those that have 1 to 11. 

So that's the update we're going to do and also the I3 outcomes. But again, I'll just say this still relates to pre and post to the left, outcomes in the middle, services only on the right. Here is that CAEP DIR again. That's largely the same. Same issues. The same information at the top, basically filtering with that wide net, weeding it out to where we have just those that have enrollment in one of those five CAEP programs. 

So we have that one number at the end that serves as the uniform denominator for all 27 items on the DIR. This is just a long winded way of saying what I said wind windedly already. 

This is again, nothing really all that. Just some things that really that might change. We know hours of instruction might change. I think especially when you combine first quarter reporting with everybody being virtual, you're probably going to have a higher than usual total for less than 12 hours. 

So at this point, I'd say very small problem. Obviously, lots of issues for testing in the long run. That might be an issue. But for first quarter, no. We know that there might be some issues with HSC and diploma. And then some of those outcome related issues. 

The number of outcomes that people might get depending on the outcome potentially might be a lower number than usual. On the other hand, things that really shouldn't change any, that is all the demographics. You can still collect those just the same. So gender, date of birth, labor force status, education level. There might be more unemployed or more issues with education level, et cetera. 

But the idea of whether it's included or not obviously shouldn't be affected. Things like barriers and goals obviously shouldn't be affected. And then on those outcomes issues, the number of outcomes will go down, but the ability to qualify for CAEP in terms of having that initial information should basically be the same. 

And then consortium reports. I think most of you have done this, at least those who really want to. But for those of you who are new, or maybe you're not new, but you just never really had a chance to hear about this. But either way, we've got Consortium Manager Reports. 

That is you can do the CAEP summary, CAEP tables, demographic summary, and CAEP barriers to employment are the ones you can access at the consortium level. Again, it just lists by agency. Gives you item count and percentage. There's a way where you can get the one aggregate view where it just summarizes the totals for all the agencies in your consortium. 

You can uncheck that box and then you'd get a separate page for each agency within your consortium. 

And I think I'll just summarize here is I don't really want to get deep in the data diving weeds here, but these are just showing some examples of ways in which you might want to data dive. 

This is relating a basic pretext we talked about a lot where you can use these items 23 to 27 to basically look and figure out. If your outcomes seem low to you, you can use the 23 to 27 to get a general idea as to whether you just aren't marking that many outcomes or achieving that many outcomes, or whether you've marked a lot and achieved a lot, but you've got drop reasons that are preventing them from being earned. 

So I'll just say if you look at this, what we're saying, if you know the issue is drop reasons, then you should still really follow up because a lot of those drop reasons you can probably fix if you know the drop reasons aren't an issue and it's just, hey, there's a lot of outcomes they're not able to achieve right now. 

Well then you've probably done all you can do. But again, the point is sometimes you've done all you can do. Sometimes there might be room for improving them based on which specific issue that shows up here. So I'll give that a mercy killing. Here's that same different ways of measuring persistence and performance that we talked a lot about in the 18-19 year and early in 19-20. 

So again, if you're having issues with testing, these are still really good areas. So just based on getting 12 or more hours of instruction, did they persist from an instructional hours point of view, or based solely on achieving outcomes, did they achieve performance from CAEP outcomes point of view. 

These are alternative ways of measuring that we've talked about way before COVID. So again, if you're having issues with what is performance and persistence in the era of COVID, these same metrics might be good ways to do it that don't rely on your pre and post testing so much. 

So with that, that's it. I'll turn it over to Veronica. 

Thank you, Jay. And thank you to everyone for joining us. I'm actually going to turn it over to Javier Romero, who is going to provide some closing remarks for us. Javier? 

Good afternoon. And that was a lot of information. That was a lot of information for me. There's one thing I want to comment on is Neil and Carolyn, and I both mentioned the three year planning process. 

And that was, hey, we just did that. We're actually going to the first year. But I encourage us all to start thinking about it now. The way I view each of these three year cycles are like chapters. What's the next chapter going to look like? And we've been impacted, all of us in many ways over the past year or two. 

So what is the next chapter going to look like? And I already see emerging themes. There are themes in which things that speak well to the competencies we've always had traditionally, such as digital literacy, but there's an urgency to it. I started off talking about, I said, in an early childhood education meeting. 

Forgive me. I forget the name. Paige had a case on point in which she's partnering with her and her school district to help the parents. So I only point this out as to emergent things. Let's start thinking about what the next chapter is going to look at. And let it say that we continue this strand though that we're outcome oriented, we're need oriented, and we're strategic. 

Within a straight strategy is responsiveness. And those are my observations of the day. I thank you for allowing me to participate and listen to you all. And I look forward to the next year and thereafter. That's all for me, Veronica. 

Thank you, Javier. Neil, I saw you come on camera, would you like to say anything? 

Just that-- excuse my glibness, I'm getting Zoomy Time to wrap it up. Wish you all the best this afternoon with the extra, I don't know, 45 minutes, an hour we're going to give you do something special. Treat yourself. 

Get a double latte or an early cocktail, but see you soon. 

All right. Thank you for that Neil and Javier. 

Carolyn, I don't know if you're still there, but do you want to say anything in closing. I just want to make sure I cover everyone. 

Sorry, my background's not working at the moment. I just wanted to say thank you-- I typed it in the chat-- to everyone who presented today and for all of you for hanging in there on this long day. Enjoy your extra hour. 

Thank you, Carolyn. Well thank you everyone very much for participating in today's session. We hope that it provided a lot of great content and resources for you. 

Our aim as the CAEP team is to always provide relevant information. And so we thought that it was important to really spend a day. I know we've continued to delve into COVID-19 and its impact, but this is going to support us for the future. So we want to make sure that we address all that is relevant. 

Our summit is coming up. We have a full schedule of great presentations, very innovative presentations. We have a full schedule of about 66 presentations. So we definitely invite you. If you have not registered for the summit, please be sure to do so. 

We hit our goal of 700 in terms of registrants. So of course, we would like to take it further. And it's not based on the numbers, it's just based on the fact that because we are in this virtual space and we have the opportunity for more people to attend and to attend for free, we want to make sure that this summit reaches as many people as possible. We are going to be announcing our plenary speaker this Wednesday. 

So we're very excited about that. So we hope that everyone can definitely tap into the summit. 

It will be a shorter four days, but a great opportunity to really see some dynamic presentations. So I'm going to type in the chat the URL to register. So if you yourself have not registered or you have other members within your consortium or at your school site who have not registered, please be sure to let them know about it. We have something for everyone, whether you are a site administrator, a consortium leader, director, or a teacher, a counselor, a transition specialist, we have a lot of great presentations for everyone. 

Thank you to all of the presenters today from CASAS to OTAN to the Ideal Consortium. WestEd was unable to join us, but we thank them for at least signing up to be with us today and we hope to see them soon. I hope I'm not forgetting anyone. Thank you to the CAEP team. 

Holly Renee, as well as our newest team member, Amanda Lee. And thank you to our CAP leaders, Carolyn, Javier, and Neil for supporting us in this endeavor. And again, we hope to see everyone soon. You will in your email inbox be receiving evaluations, so definitely feel free to fill out that evaluation. 

We take the feedback we receive wholeheartedly. We've already received some feedback. So we'll definitely take it under advisement for the feedback we have received thus far. You'll also receive a link to all of the resources and we'll also pull some of the links that have been shared in this chat and add them to the Resources folder, so that everyone will have access to it. 

If you want to download the chat, you can do so by pressing the three communication buttons in the chat and that will give you the entire chat for this afternoon or today's meeting. The email you will receive will also include a link to the video for today. So if for any reason you want to come back and view this information or you like to share with others who are unable to attend today, everyone will have access to it. 

So again, we thank you all very much and we hope that everyone has a great rest of the afternoon. And we look forward to seeing you in just under three weeks at the summit. Take care everyone.