Cherise Moore: Education Office in the Career and College Transition department at the California Department of Education. And as you are aware of, Dr. Zachry's responsibilities include administering and managing the federal WIOA at Title II grant as well as co-administering the California Adult Education program, CAEP program.

She spends her time and energy serving us in the field but also serving in other organizations with her role as a representative with the NASDAE group, the National Association of State Directors of Adult Education, as well as with NAPE, the National Association for Partnerships and Equity. She's started herself as a practitioner. And we are delighted to have her continue to share her experiences and lead us as a state in moving forward with serving our students.

So with that, I am going to turn it over to Dr. Zachry, our special guest, who will be getting us started in today's presentation.

Carolyn Zachry: Thanks, Cherise. And then Kathleen is going to start the slides here. Wait till she gets to my first slide. So I was asked to really sort of set the tone for today's training and to provide you with more of the bigger picture about the Continuous Improvement Plan.

The idea behind the Continuous Improvement Plan was to help make things-- I put things in quotation marks there-- more efficient and more effective for all of our WIOA at Title II grantees. Next slide. The Adult Education Office really began this process years ago with this question that I had posed to them about how does the professional development plan, the technology and distance learning plan, and the IELCE plan-- how do they work in harmony to help agencies improve and move forward?

How do these plans that are written during the year-- how do they align with what you did in your budget in July and August? And how do these plans actually use actual student data to provide targeted growth? And it was really sort of asking that question, as Admiral Grace Hopper once said, that the most dangerous phrase is "we've always done it this way."

And to really start looking at this plans differently and for us to look at them in a different way so that we weren't always doing the same thing. And we had a great opportunity with WIOA to do that. And then as we moved into this new grant cycle, it gave us the opportunity to set this new plan in motion. Next slide, Kathleen. One of the really-- to me, one of the most important components of your CIP is data.

And that we're really asking in this Continuous Improvement Plan that you look at your student data, that you look at regional data, that you look at trends, that you include this data in your smartphone because it does need to be measurable. And that's where the data will be included in there. And then it's also going to help you determine that you've accomplished your goal. So digging into the data is an important component of the CIP. Next slide.

Teamwork-- another very important piece of the CIP. And whenever I think of teamwork in my mind, I hear teamwork makes the dream work. And I don't know who said that. But that, in my mind, I always hear that. And that really makes me think about the dreams that our students have for themselves and their families and how being in your program is going to help them to accomplish their goals and their dreams.

Teamwork is essential to the SMART goals so that the SMART goals are not siloed at your agency. Teamwork helps to encourage all of those to be involved to understand the data. And it gives voice to the multiple individuals who are on your staff. And it not only gives them a voice, but it helps them to take ownership for the plan and the goals.

And of course, once they take ownership, then at the end when everything is accomplished, you should all take the responsibility to celebrate your accomplishments. Next slide. Reflection-- again, another component. It's not in the steps of the CIP, but this is another component that is important to the development of your plan. What is it that you're doing at your agency, and why are you doing this?

And is it working? And what does the data say about whatever the area is that you're looking at? And asking these questions are going to will help you and your team to develop your plan. Next slide. And so as we move together-- together, all of us, in this change, we are a team. The Adult Education Office, we're part of your team. Our Zig leadership projects, they're part of your team, right?

We're all a team in this together. And that at the local level at your agency, this CIP is really designed to help you develop goals, to make real progress, to help your students meet their goals. And one of the important measures-- I believe-- for adult education is the accomplishments of our students. And I'm confident that the CIP is going to help you to assist your students to accomplish their goals. And now to Kathleen.

Kathleen Porter: Thank you, Carolyn. And hello, everyone. Welcome. I'm super happy to be with you this afternoon where we-- I'm sure, we'll be doing some learning together. And so the first thing I'd like to do is bring up a poll. Cherise told you a little about me. But I'd like you to answer. It'll be hard for us to have 122 introductions. So I was hoping you could just answer a poll and let us know a little bit about you.

We'll take a couple of minutes. As Cherise said, I've been in adult education for over 30 years which I find absolutely shocking and hard to believe. It's making it very difficult for me to lie about my age anymore. I do work with Poway Adult School here in North San Diego County. We have about 100 or I'm sorry, about 1,000 students that we serve annually in our CAEP and WIOA our programs.

And we are a long-time WIOA or "wee-ah" agency. So I'm going to end our polling. I think [audio out] one percent of you voting so far. But this will give us a sense of who's in the room. So looks like we have the majority of us have been in adult education for more than 15 years. Let's see. We have the majority of us with K-12 adult school that we have representatives from all different types of our WIOA agencies in the State.

- And we have a good representation from across the State. So we have NorCal in the house and Central California in the house and also our SoCal folks in the house. So I'm happy to see all of you. I'm going to stop sharing those results now. And [audio out] move us along. Thank you for doing that. So what we had planned today is really just to walk through the-- what are we doing here?

What's the whole context for this work? What's the purpose or goals? How are we going to develop SMART goals? And we'll actually practice, as a group, writing some SMART goals. And then we're going to focus on how your agency can take some next steps. So we will review some of the aspects of what this new deliverable, the Continuous Improvement Plan, which we're calling the CIP. What does it really entail?

So we know it's a new deliverable. We know that it's comprehensive. So what do we mean by comprehensive? It's replacing three plans that we used to be required to do. Those were the Professional Development Plan, the Technology and Distance Learning Plan, and the Integrated English Literacy and Civics Education Plan.

And a part of this new Continuous Improvement Plan is also going to include another deliverable, which is our WIOA Implementation Survey. So all of those things are coming together in one plan. So there are three steps to the planning process. And those are basically to collect relevant data, to analyze the data and set goals, and then to apply so creating an action plan.

So when you break it down like that, it's not really complicated. We're just trying to do these three steps. So here's another poll for us. Tell me what step you think you're on currently? Are you collecting data? Are you analyzing data? Are you in the phase now where you are applying data and setting your action steps?

OK. I'm going to go ahead and end the poll now. And I'll share our results. So at this point, it looks like the majority of us are in step one, where we're still collecting our data. And some of us, almost half of us, are starting to analyze our data and identify areas of goals. And then the smallest percentage of us to have gotten to the point where we're applying what we've learned and setting some action steps.

So that's helpful. And I think we'll cover some tips that can help you move along these stages. So let me just ask you, why do we set goals? What's the whole purpose of setting goals? You just type a response in the chat.

Measure progress, give us something to shoot for, helps establish a road map, focus our efforts-- now they're coming in too fast for me to read with 120 of you. Reach for the-- reach for the stars and catch hold of the moon. I love it, Berth. Thank you. Give us direction so we can measure progress. I like it, Jennifer. so we can be clear about what we need to get done.

It sets a state-wide vision, to give us a common sense of direction and success. All of these things are very true. Accomplishment-- avoid being static, very good, Janet. Providing guidance through [audio out]. To plan [audio out] accountability, measuring effectiveness, a setting an end point, great. Thank you.

So these were some of the answers that I think you all captured in the chat. It's really guidance and direction, maybe triggering new behaviors to facilitate our planning effort. I know somebody said strategic planning. To guide and focus our effort, many of you said that. To motivate and inspire and to help organization evaluate and control performance.

So you probably are familiar. If you think back to maybe taking some business courses with Deming and Deming's Continuous Improvement Model. And so if you kind of think about the elements of that Continuous Improvement Model that Deming really authored, I think you're going to see a lot of applications to this Continuous Improvement Plan that we're working on now.

So Deming believed that improvement is a learning process. And so he identified these six different steps that improvement is based on small changes, employee ideas are valuable, incremental changes are easily implemented. So that's kind of an interesting idea because he's talking there about if you can find small incremental changes, you're really able to move your organization forward.

This whole idea of employees taking ownership, improvement is reflective. Carolyn talked a little bit about the importance of reflection in our practice. And this final one, improvement is measurable and repeatable. So improvement is actually something we should be able to measure and then do it again and again and again and get better as we go along.

So we're going to look for some of these elements as we go along. And I think you will see these concepts down in our plan. So as we move our attention to the specific requirements of our Continuous Improvement Plan, we want to think about the data. So step one that we talked about was collecting data. So if you have this document, I'm sure you can see it.

But you have this document, the kinds of data that we're collecting are referenced on page 4 of that document. So I'm going to ask you, what kinds of data are you collecting? What document, Lori asks. OK. This is CDEs-- these are the directions for the Continuous Improvement Plan. So does that make sense? OK. I saw Lori nodding. OK, good.

So the types of data we're collecting-- we are collecting NRS table data. We're collecting CASAS data portal. We're using the CASAS data portal. We're getting DIR data, MSG's, the NRS educational functioning levels. We're measuring persistence, staff input and recommendations. Yes. Let's see.

We're finding out what programs have worked in the past based on attendance. We're getting survey data, the student technology intake survey, demographic tables, enrollment data, all of these are data that we can look at to inform our programs. Exactly. So I made up a Fictitious Adult School and a case study for us to examine as we're going through things.

And I think we're going to put the link to a separate document about this case study if you'd like to see that. Thank you, Vicky. So in our Fictitious Adult School, we have an agency who assembles its data team. And the team decides that it's going to meet quarterly to review performance data. And as this team starts to review their persistent report, the data team finds that its persistence rates exceed statewide averages in all program areas but three, ABE beginning basic, intermediate low, and ASE low.

So what questions would that data team want to start asking to dive into their data and to analyze their data? What are some of the questions? Where can we find data on statewide averages? Sarah asks. OK. So you can find that information in the CASAS data portal. So what might this team-- what are the questions that this team might be asking in our Fictitious Adult School?

How many students are in each level? Very good, Meredith. That's an important point. What systems are in place at each level? We could compare previous year's data. Who are the teachers? Have we aligned our curriculum to the assessment? Is this a new trend or what was happening in previous years? What's the gap between the state levels and the institution's levels?

So you get this idea. These-- when we're diving into our data, when we're really trying to make sense of our data, these are the questions that we're going to be asking. And this is the data that we're going to want to pull to help inform our choice. Thank you, Diana, for putting the link to the data portal in the chat. So in our Fictitious Adult School, the agency decided to run the Persister Report for the prior three years.

And they noticed that the ABE intermediate low was below the statewide average in all three of those years. However, the other program areas exceeded the statewide average in prior years. The data team starts to compare performance to other agencies and its consortium. And the data team finds that one adult school met the statewide average in all program areas in all three of the prior years.

The other consortium schools are remaining consistent. And then the data team reviews teachers self-assessment data for other data that might correlate to why their ABE-- why they're seeing an ABE Persister decline. So moving along then. So our Fictitious Adult School then might start thinking about, well, what goals do we need to set?

And we know that the goals that we're going to set are going to fall into one of three categories. They're going to be around-- it will be a goal around our agency performance. It might be a goal around professional development for our staff. And it might be a goal around student learning outcomes. So we're required to come up with at least one and no more than three goals as you're reviewing your data.

So in this case, in the case of our Fictitious Adult School, the Adult School might want to write a goal that says something like improve the Persister rate in the ABE program. And that would be an example of agency performance. The Adult School might say that they want to provide professional development to ABE staff to better understand CASAS competencies, how to run reports, and use [audio out] inform instruction.

So that would be an example of a goal area around staff training. And an example of a goal around student learning outcomes would be to increase the number of ABE students who co-enroll in workforce training and who transition to ASE. So the Zig Ziglar says, "a goal properly set is halfway reached." So what do you think he means by that?

Oh, Sarah, I see a question you posted in the chat. Can the goal be about only one of those bullet points? Yes. So you get to choose based on looking at your data. What are the important things that you need to do to move your agency forward? And it would be about one of those three things or if you have three goals. You could have three goals about one of those things.

But those are the types of goals that you would be creating. So let's go back to this Zig Ziglar quote. What do we think he means? Diana says, maybe when we set the goal, put it in writing and shared. It's the first action step. Yeah. And Kareema says the goal has to be attainable, achievable. The quote speaks to the continuous improvement process. Yes, exactly, Hillary.

Maybe Zig means that the process of setting a goal is a huge part of the success of the goal. Yes, I agree, Serena. So, I think it's a nice way to kind of introduce this concept of what is a SMART goal. Because if we're really, really thoughtful about what our goal is, as we think about how we're defining it, how we're going to measure it, we know how we're going to get there.

It's starting to make sense of how we're going to get there. So we know that a SMART goal is specific, that S. It's measurable. It's attainable. Attainable can also-- the A can also be actionable. And the R can be relevant, or it can be who's responsible, identifying the person responsible. And then T, it's time based. So we say when we want the goal to happen.

So I'm going to move us into this practice of SMART goals. So I took those really big goals that our Fictitious Adult School thought about. And what we're going to do is to break you into small breakout groups where you will have a chance with your teammates to rewrite two of our fictitious Adult School goals to make them smarter.

You're going to assign one person in your group to share their screen and capture your group's rewritten goals in a Google form. And Vicky's going to paste-- or she's already done it. She's way ahead of me. She's got the link to the Google form where you're going to rewrite these goals. And I'm going to set a timer for 12 minutes. It may not be enough time for you to rewrite two goals.

So just start. But I think this is the opportunity for you to interact with some of your colleagues and get some practice rewriting a SMART goal. So with that, I'm going to ask Vicki. Are we ready to break into breakout groups?

Vicky: We are indeed.

Kathleen Porter: OK, great.

Vicky: Here we go.

Cherise Moore: Welcome back, everyone. I was able to join one of the breakout groups. And the conversation was really enriching. And the opportunity to really start to think about what does this mean to me started to happen. So I hope the other conversations were as enriching and engaging as the one that I was able to be in. Kathleen, I will turn it back to you.

Kathleen Porter: Great. Thank you. And thank you and welcome back, everyone. So I know we had 20 breakout groups. And I see 18 responses so far in our Google Doc. And so thank you so much for the work that you did. So let's take a peek at some of the work that you did. So we'll just use this one as an example by the end of the first-- by the end of the fiscal year, we will improve the Persister rate in the ABE program by a 5% increase as measured by the DRI table 4.

So this gives us a time frame by the end of the fiscal year. What are we going to do? We're going to improve the Persister rate in the ABE program by 5%. So is it measurable? Is it specific? And how are we going to measure it? We know we're going to measure it by table 4. So we'll take a look at some of the professional development. And so let's take-- OK. How about this one?

The ABE staff-- so that tells us who, who's responsible-- will have one professional development. So that's what. It's specific. When? Every two months regarding attendance, enrollment, and curriculum improvement. Is it measurable? Is it attainable? Does it define the people who are responsible? Does it put a time frame? To this work, yes. So I think it would meet the test of being a SMART goal.

So with the ones that we practiced on, I just wrote something that is very specific. So during the '21-'22 school year, increase the Persister rate in ABE beginning basic from 33% to meet the statewide average of 15.2%. How this will be achieved? By including ABE instructors and student support staff in quarterly data meetings and targeted professional development in monthly PLC meetings.

So that's just an example. The second one-- we said, over the course of the '21-'22 school year, ABE teachers, two of them, and counselor will use monthly PLC time to provide targeted professional development on CASAS competencies, running and analyzing reports, and using CASAS tests to inform instruction. These efforts will result in increasing ABE students persistence rates from 33% to meet the statewide average of 50.2%.

Now and we got to see a lot of examples on how to do that. So I'm going to move us along to thinking about this concept from good to great. And so I think this quote, "good is the enemy of great." And that's one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. Really starts to speak to this idea, I think, of personal best or your agency best.

And so you're looking for trending information, you want to be trending in the right direction. You want to be showing continuous improvement. It helps to look outside of your agency, so you can see what others are doing. It might help you pinpoint best practices. But you want that needle to be trending in the right direction toward improvement.

So the next thing we wanted to talk about was this idea of writing goals that are compelling writing goals that serve to inspire and motivate staff. And so when we think about what does it really mean to be compelling, the definition starts to talk about evoking interest, attention, or admiration in a powerfully and irresistible way, not able to be repudiated, inspiring conviction.

So I wanted to state that the goals that you set in this plan really should be the goals that you're passionate about. It should be work that you want to do. Because we're going to be coming back to these goals again and again because we're going to want to see that slow and steady progress. So Michaelangelo said, "the greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but it's setting our aim too low and achieving our mark."

So I think this particular quote speaks to setting goals that are a stretch. And so I know that that might seem to be in dynamic tension with this idea of the A in the SMART goal if we think of A as attainable. And so I think that in order for our goal to be compelling, it really does need to be a bit of a stretch. It needs to be something that you really care about and want to work toward.

And so I want to go back to this idea of the attainable. Because when we say that we want a goal to be attainable, what we're really starting to think about is how are we building momentum in our agencies. So no one wants to hear-- we set a goal that's so lofty that people never feel like they can reach it. And then all of a sudden, you become complacent with never reaching your goal.

So you've got to set a goal that's enough of a stretch that it's going to start to create this momentum. And so going back to the book Good to Great, Jim Collins talks about the flywheel effect. And so most of us would-- maybe I'll speak for myself. I was like, what's a flywheel? But when I apply it to a merry-go-round, I really understood this concept.

So when you first have all your friends on the playground on that merry-go-round and you're starting to move it, it takes a lot of effort. You might have to run all the way around to get that merry-go-round to start to move. And once you start building momentum, you could stand in one place and just hit the merry-go-round to keep that momentum going.

And so that's what Jim Collins means by the flywheel effect. And that's what I mean about setting goals that are lofty enough to get you some momentum going. But they need to be attainable from the aspect that we really need to have people start to see the momentum and see the effect of the good work that they're doing. So I'm hoping that makes sense.

The next thing [audio out] what comes after you set to start the SMART goals. So the next step is that you're starting to write your action plan. And so the plot is really that SMART goal. How you're going to achieve the SMART goal is going to be your supporting strategies or your key action steps. How are you going to know will be your measures of success.

"Who" are your staff accountable. "When" what's the due date. And then this idea of how much or what resources. This is where we want to start to identify how the state leadership projects and how the Department of Education can support the work that you're doing. So what's already existing that can help us move this work forward. So I know this has been a lot of content, and we've got 2 minutes left.

So I just want to give you a chance to think about it. And if you want to post in the chat what your next best steps might be from here-- I'm watching the chat, people. What's your next best step? What are you going to do next?

Cherise Moore: And as you are awaiting that information, just wanted to share a few things. The presentation and PowerPoint will be available on our CALPRO website in about a week. But it will also be available tomorrow on YouTube. And Vicky will be sending a follow-up email with the links for that, as well, for you. We want to thank you--

Kathleen Porter: OK. So I see that people are going to specify goals, gather data, dig further into the data, assemble their teams, try to find a template. Tom Alison says, we will help you Tom. I know how to do that. Wayne says select data, analyze for trends. OK. So it sounds like each of us or at least many of us have an idea of our next best step.

So at this point, I think I'm going to turn things back over to Cherise to close. I do want to thank you for your time and attention this afternoon. I know it was fast and furious. I really appreciate all of you, and I'm proud to be a part of the California Adult Education field.

Cherise Moore: Thank you so, so much, Kathleen. We appreciate you and appreciate the time that you've put to develop this presentation for the field and to share ideas and opportunities that can help us as we are putting together our SMART goals for the Continuous Improvement Plan. I think you saw some feedback from Dr. Zachry in the chat that while you may strive for the state goals, you have to sometimes take baby steps to get there.

And by being explicit in your SMART goals, that will help you have really true goals that are measurable. So we are glad you are here. We hope it was helpful for you. And we look forward to seeing you at the next CALPRO Administrators Forum webinar. And look for information on that, in May that will be happening.

Vicky has added the link for the survey that will likely pop up, too, after this in the chat. She's adding it multiple times because every time we hear thank you, it moves way up. But please complete that and share with us any ideas that you have for future Administrators Forum webinars. Thank you again. Have a great rest of your afternoon. Bye bye.