OK. So it looks like we have people coming in. I'm just going to give it a couple seconds as the number's coming up. So I'll go ahead and start. Good morning, my name is Holly Clark with the CAEP Technical Assistance Project. I am the tech host for the session you are joining right now. I just want to go over a few things before we get underway this morning.

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Thanks very much, Holly. Thanks for the introduction. I'm glad to see everyone here. A few more still joining, but we're glad to have you all participate today. Peter?

Yes. If you could take a moment in the chat and please just enter your name, your institution, and your role, it'll just help everyone to know who's on in this session, and it will give us a better idea of who we're talking to since I'm just looking at my computer here. Oh, good. Great. Thank you, thank you. We'll take a minute and let people just see who's here. Beautiful.

All right, well, while people are doing that, I'll just quickly introduce who we are. My name is Peter Simon. Jennie Mollica and I are partners in a new venture called the High Road Alliance. We're working really to expand the availability of programs that they integrate teaching, learning, academic workplace, digital skills, really leading toward high road employment, and access to high road employment. By which we mean good jobs with benefits that have some form of career ladders.

Sometimes that takes the form of apprenticeship, but we're casting a much broader net than that. We're working with a number of partnerships. [audio out] office, [audio out] workers' unions, employers at both schools and community colleges, workforce boards and community-based organizations as well. So, welcome. It's nice to see you putting in your introductions there. Welcome, everyone. Jennie, you can talk about the objectives of today's webinar.

Sure. So good to see everyone here. We thought about a few things we wanted to cover on today's webinar. And really, I think the main focus is to explore the role that we believe is so important today for adult education in preparing adults to participate in the state's economic recovery. And doing this through programs that are accessible to basic skills students, and accelerate their pathways to high quality jobs.

So that's our main focus today, and we want to go about that by sharing some models of programs that bridge adult education students to really valuable work-based learning, apprenticeships, paid employment. And also go into some of the strategies that we think make these programs accessible to adult education students. And the theme throughout that I think you'll see is the really central role of partnerships in making these programs work. Especially these programs that are aiming for employment success, partnerships like the types that Peter mentioned we're focused on with our organization with [audio out], labor organizations, other community partners. So that's what we hope to cover today.

OK. And we're going to start out by just talking about how, I will actually say, equitable economic recovery must include today's low wage workers and adult education students. Next slide, please. So as I think all of you already know, the pandemic has really impacted low wage workers, essential workers, with the greatest risk of unemployment. The data is pretty clear. A recent report by the economic roundtable pointed out that 50% of Latinos faced risk of unemployment, whereas for all other ethnic groups it's more in the high 30%.

So I don't think I have to explain to this audience the impact of the pandemic on the people who are your students. What's also going on-- again, as we're all aware of-- is the labor market is in great flux. That certain industries, like hospitality, travel, other areas, restaurants, are really retooling in terms of how they can even stay in business. But with all this sort of grim news of the pandemic, we also view this as a remarkable opportunity right now for the people we serve in adult education to be put to economic recovery. And also a time, really, given both the wide open field and the need for innovation, it's a really great time to try new and innovative approaches.

Next slide. Jennie, who are California workers?

Those of you who listened to the opening statements by Javier Romero this morning heard a similar statement, and I think we all can agree, that it's an important time to include adult education students in California's economic recovery. And part of the reason that we feel it's so important to emphasize this, and to get this word out, is that we're not talking about a small set of California residents who need some kind of special consideration. We're talking about California's workforce, in really significant numbers, who are ready to benefit from adult education.

And so the role of adult education in this economic recovery is just all the more evident when people can see the demographics of our state, and the reality that two thirds of our lower wage workers have limited English proficiency. And as they look at job opportunities in the current economy, or career options moving ahead into the future, are going to benefit from some career education and English language training and other adult education services. If you look at our lower skilled service sector workers who, as we just said, have been so impacted by the pandemic, three quarters have low numeracy and limited digital skills. And so what an opportunity to provide the kind of skills training that they need now to confront the current economy.

And then this final figure that nearly half of limited English proficient adults, and 17% of all adults in California, lack a high school diploma. So probably nothing new to this audience to share this kind of data with you. But it is a very important time to be letting this information be known to the wider California community.

There's a slide here that I think makes really evident why, when we talk about the California workforce, we're needing to include adult education students front and center in how we talk about that. If you look at the demographic changes in our state and in our working population, and the projections for the years to come, we must include our adult education students in this economic recovery we're talking about.

And just one more sort of framing slide here before we get into some examples. What we hope to explore further today is what some of the key elements can be of adult education programs that really could drive inclusive economic recovery. And here's where we share just a few of these practices in adult education programs that can really make career education and job opportunities accessible to large numbers. And some of these, just to highlight here-- and you'll see these themes sort of return through our presentation as we give examples-- accelerating our students' opportunities to move through these programs and into employment.

And we know a lot, as adult educators, about how to do that. How to make sure that people have opportunities to connect to job opportunities soon. Ways of customizing training so that it's responsive to needs in the labor market. And so that we're playing a role in helping students realize what those opportunities are and prepare for them. Modularizing training so that it can be suitable in different context and meeting different employers' needs. We talk now about opportunities to create shorter-term trainings that are these small modules that can prepare someone.

Flexible modalities. Certainly, we're talking a lot now about online hybrid options as well as face to face. And then on the job instruction, or work experience as a part of training, can be one of these elements of a program that can help to prepare someone for work. So these are just some things that you'll be seeing as we share some examples now.

OK. Well, we'd like to now take some time and just talk about different models of how adult education can play a role in workforce preparation and training. So we're going to start out talking about-- I think there's been [audio out] deal of activity and discussion going on in pre-apprenticeship. It's one of program areas in AB 104 that funds CAEP. All pre-apprenticeship programs can actually prepare students with basic language and math skills. And as an ex-carpenter I want to really emphasize that we not forget about math. Sometimes the focus goes right to language, but for many trades and technical occupations, you need your math skills to be up to speed.

It provides, generally, an introduction to the world of the technical skills that will be in an apprenticeship. Sometimes pre-apprenticeships, and we'll talk about this in a second, some are dedicated just to one occupation. But some introduce people to a range of occupations, like the construction industry, or hospitality. Most pre-apprenticeships involve both classroom and hands-on training, and many incorporate work readiness or soft skills that part of the pre-apprenticeship. And a pre-apprenticeship, by definition, facilitates somehow successful entrance into an apprenticeship program. Next slide.

There's basically two types of pre-apprenticeships. One is the sort of legal definition of a registered pre-apprenticeship, which means it's actually, by agreement, linked to a registered apprenticeship. It could either be through the California Division of Apprenticeship Standards, or DAS. And I might add-- we should have put it on this slide-- it can also be a US Department of Labor registered apprenticeship. And then on the right-hand side, there's a number of pre-apprenticeships that are not actually legally linked to an apprenticeship, but they prepare people for a range of trades.

Next slide, please. So what is the role of adult education in pre-apprenticeship? And, again, it's one of the allowable program areas in the CAEP Program, AB 104. Some adult schools do and can offer a pre-apprenticeship on their own. But most-- and, we would argue, the most effective ones-- are in partnership with unions, community colleges, employers, community-based organizations, and sometimes government agencies.

And we'll talk more about this later, but many pre-apprenticeships, a growing number of pre-apprenticeships, integrate ESL and ASE high school completion GED into the pre-apprenticeship. Either by teaching through integrated education or training, or sometimes as supplemental support. And we'll be talking about some of these programs in a minute.

One example-- and I just want to point out, when we give examples, we made a decision to not name programs, because we want to just focus on the practice. OK. So you're wondering, who is this? Just bear with us on that one. We wanted to highlight one adult education consortium, which, as you can see here, had many partners. They partnered with their local Building Trades Council, which is all of the construction unions. Two community colleges, two Local Workforce Boards, EDD, to offer the MC3 curriculum, which is called the multi-craft core curriculum, which is a union-approved apprenticeship for the construction trades. And it's really focused on getting adult education students into the construction trades.

This program has been around for a bit. They've offered 13 cohorts already. 161 have completed, and now about half are working as apprentices, getting very good wages, and have a career in construction. Next slide, please.

So we're going to continue to go through a few of these different models. And the way we organize this is to share some thoughts on a model and then share an example to kind of bring it alive, quickly. And just wanted to pause here to say, if you have any questions as we go along, feel free to type those. We'll definitely leave room for questions at the end, and there will be a few places where we pause and ask, do you have examples of these? Anything to share? It's not the easiest forum for this, but we'd like to be a little bit interactive.

But also, feel free to take these things in as they come to you. And as we move along, we may be able to spot your question and answer something on the spot. So wish we could all be in the room together, but we're doing our best here.

So just another example of a type of program. Pre-apprenticeship being one model, and quite a defined model. Like Peter said, it's somewhat dictated by the Department of Labor, Department of Apprenticeship Standards, although there are different forms. Some of these others are less structured models, but definitely things to be looking at right now.

Something that is getting a lot of attention now, and this coming from the Department of Labor as well as just what's bubbling up as a need in our communities, is more attention on short term classes that lead to credentials. Lead to some sort of a badge or a certificate or some recognition that, even in a very short amount of time, someone can gain a skill that is very valuable in the labor market. And that can be recognized as something that's like that key to entry into a new role, or into a job that needs to be filled.

And so these can be quite short. They're a good fit for non-credit classes. They're not structured as a whole program, necessarily. And so they don't fit that model of a whole comprehensive set of classes, but they can be marketed as something very timely, and something that people can fit in, even to an already busy schedule. They can be delivered online, or even encouraging people to use a smartphone.

So it's something a little bit different that I think you'll see a lot of support for, certainly in the current economy. But also, we expect, in the years to come. I think there's more acknowledgment of this as a viable educational model.

And the example we have here is something that's really just been developed in the last few months. It's something that's popped up as an immediate need now. A two-hour class on infection control, and this has been developed here in California using CDC guidelines, but it's sort of being rapidly deployed for anyone who is seeking employment, or some kind of a skills upgrade in a whole range of industries where understanding of infection control could be a real skill boost that would be valued right now.

It is offered online via smartphone, and it's soon to roll out through some adult schools as a kind of pilot. So it's a very new piece, but it really has responded through interaction with employers who've said, this would be something we would look for in hiring someone new, or in deciding who to retain, or who to move up to a higher role. And really, it's that digital badge that acknowledges that someone has finished this program, and has this familiarity with infection control. Peter, you want to take this one?

Yeah, sure. You know, I think, again, as you all encounter on a daily basis, many of the people we serve do not have a lot of time before they actually need to be employed and making money. So, again, another relatively short term way to move people into employment is, we don't really like the term, but the term's used a lot called bridge camps, which is why we also put bridge programs.

Boot camps.

Boot camps or bridge programs. And these vary in length, but generally they're a short number of weeks. And I've seen ones ranging from three weeks to eight week long. Generally, they're a combination of specific occupational training in a targeted sector, plus job prep skills, resume writing, and interview and attitude adjustments. Some integrate basic skills, and most integrate digital skills that are contextualized to the specific target occupation.

And some that we've looked at, and some that I've worked on, integrated support services from the Local Workforce Boards if people are WIOA-eligible. And, almost by definition, they're preparing students into high demand occupations. You don't want to do a bridge program or boot camp to where there are very few jobs. And maybe that's obvious.

So in terms of an example of this-- Jennie, can you go to the next slide, please-- this is an example out in the Central Valley. And the focus was jobs and warehousing. And I think, we all, again, know that warehousing is not a sector that has dropped after hiring more people, because of the boom in e-commerce. And in this case, it was the adult ed consortium that drove this program. A five week boot camp and involved in partnership with local employers, the local workforce boards that recruited a lot of the students, and their partnering community college in their consortium.

And in this short five weeks, they had classroom-- which was actually done with a computer-based hybrid model-- they taught people how to drive forklifts, and they did a certain amount of interviewing and resume writing. When students completed, they got an industry-recognized credential upon completing the curriculum. And, remarkably, they had nearly 100% completion rate. And over 80% of the students from three cohorts are now employed in warehouse jobs.

What's also great about partnering with the local community college is that this college has a certificate and degree program in logistics. So students, once they get employed, if they so wish-- most of these classes are offered in the evenings-- can keep building stackable certificates. And they're planning, in the near future, to expand this into more of a career lattice, including advanced manufacturing. I just want to note, again, on the partnership front, that this program, the local employers loaned them the forklifts to do the forklift training at the adult school. So it's just a really good example of how it works well when you leverage resources from partners.

Peter, I'm peeking at the Q&A, and there's a really good question here from Ilse. How does one find out which industry-recognized credentials are out there? Can new ones be created in partnership with employers?

That's a really good question. I think there's two parts to that. I mean, the way you find out about which ones are already out there is oftentimes, they're industry associations in various sectors. Travel, aviation, in this case, transportation and logistics. It's an interesting question about, can new ones be created? I think that, again, goes back to partnership. That if you have an alive, active partnership with a group of employers, that would be a really interesting process to find out from them what a valuable credential would look like. And there's nothing stopping you from developing a new one. A great question.

I would add to that, I think, the industry-recognized piece of that is really valid in your region, in your community, and in the community where your students will be looking for work. And so it's important, even in answer to the first part of that question about, what are the existing industry recognized credentials? It's essential that you know that those are credentials that will be recognized by the industry partners in your community.

And so even if there are some that are promoted by maybe a national industry association, being able to somehow vet that and see what kind of validity that has for the jobs that your students would be seeking is really important. Many community colleges have those industry advisory boards in place, or they may be other regional industry advisory boards. Or it can come about just through more individual communications with employers, and developing those partnerships on your own from the ground up.

And one more thing I'd like to add, because I think this is a really important area to talk about, is one thing we've become aware of is in a number of industries, employers or employer groups have their own training at their companies on the job that deliver industry [audio out]. This, again, is one of the initial steps when engaging with employers, is to find out, how do they train their workers already? And oftentimes, you can piggyback on some of that.

OK. So we move on?

OK. Yeah, let's give another example here. This model is going to come up several times in our presentation. The opportunity to co-enroll students in adult basic skills and CTE courses. And this can be just such a good fit for adult school students who really do still need to work on their basic skills. They can't bypass that to go right into a job training program necessarily, but they really also would benefit from moving quickly to employment. And so a model known to many is the I-BEST model, or its integrated education and training, can bring these different forms of instruction. And bring together different learning objectives into a single program, so that students are simultaneously enrolled in what would otherwise be separate classes.

And we're going to talk about a few ways that this can be implemented. But there's a real opportunity here that we want to make sure people are aware of, that an adult school teacher can be embedded in a college CTE class to provide this. And this is a model that actually works very well in California, where these two teachers are co-teaching across systems. And I think we gave you an example of this. Let me see.

Ah, this is an example where adult school students were given an opportunity to enroll in a summer class at the community college. And so that class was then co-taught by their GED teacher, who they were already familiar with, and who knew what basic skills they were still working on. And the college CTE instructor, who was very familiar with the skilled trades. So the GED teacher was there available in the class to assist students with math that was needed for the skills trade work. They were in the classroom, they were in the labs, and there was some connection being made between the GED classes and the student's interest in moving forward in the skilled trade, or exploring that as a career.

We wanted to pause here for a minute and just see, do you have other examples? And we'd love to hear you share these in the Q&A or in the chat box. If you want to just type a few words, it would be fascinating for us to see. Certainly, we're drawing from experience we have working from programs around the state.

But it would be amazing to have a little bit of dialogue here among those of us participating today. There could be opportunities for you all to follow up with each other if you have great examples, or for us to connect with you to learn more about the examples that you've been involved with. So in addition to questions, just be thinking of that. We really would welcome you sharing that with us.

Don't see any popping up immediately, so I think we'll move on. But hopefully we can have a little bit of dialogue somehow.

Please. Please do throw out questions, because it makes it much more live action for everybody. So, as you know, we're kind of beating the drum of partnerships in this webinar, because we think this is really critical. Jenny, are you OK? OK, there we go.

So I'm not going to read this whole PowerPoint slide to you, but when we look at this list of different organizations outside the adult school world, I just want to say from experience that all of these folks are eagerly awaiting to partner with you. And if there's any anxiety about, well, how do I reach them? You can just pick up the phone and call them if you need to. Or you could have focus groups, or have a breakfast or whatever.

So, obviously, at the top of the list in terms of what we're talking about here is employers, unions, and industry associations. And again, generally, the programs that are most [audio out] are called industry-driven, which is this list of employers, if there are unions involved, and industry associations. One piece of advice I'll just say is it's best to involve all of these folks at the beginning. Generally, people run into trouble when they develop a pre-apprenticeship, or any kind of program leading to employment, and then present it to their outside partners. It's much better if you get everyone involved at the beginning.

So there's the industry, there's community-based organizations. I think a lot of you do partner in your localities with community-based groups. But they, obviously, are very familiar with the population they're serving. They can refer students to your program. And we've certainly seen programs where the CBOs provide some of the much needed case management. In other words, keeping track of their folks as they move through these programs and into employment.

Workforce Boards. If we were in a room, I'd say, please raise your hand. How many of you work with your local Workforce Board? But if you're not aware of it, they have a tremendous amount of resources. Financial resources, support, a lot of soft skills training, and they can help recruit students, because people who are unemployed show up at their local one-stop. And that example I gave of the boot camp [audio out]. Most of the students came from the local Workforce Board.

And, obviously, community colleges. It's an opportunity for consortiums to act like a consortium and create seamless, stackable pathways from these initial first entry-level programs into the idea of continuous education, which will lead to better jobs. And all of these partners and partnerships really increase your ability to leverage or grade all these various funding sources. So the message is, you do not and should not go it alone when it comes to these kinds of programs.

Peter, I'm seeing-- it's great-- we're getting some really good notes in the chat box here. I'm realizing, some of them, only we can see. If you write to panelists, only we can see them. If you write to panelists and attendees, everyone can see.

So I think you'll all see in the chat box, there's a great example from Tony about a partnership with the National Forrest and Park Service on a wild land fire program. Certainly very responsive to current workforce needs. I'm sure it's so good to see that there's been a way to get that training available right away. There are some examples here that I think are only visible to panelists, of a program that's an intro to construction, working with the general contractors. It looks like that's a partnership between the college and a community-based organization.

Another is an early childhood education pathway, where college classes are offered at the adult school. That's a great model. Really make them as accessible as possible. And students there can also enroll in ESL class for childcare. A great example.

And then here's a plug for a presentation later today from the Tamalpais Adult School on their home healthcare giver program, and that's working with employers in the county, which is a major employer of home healthcare providers. And they've embedded ESL, which is just a great example of allowing someone whose English is sometimes a barrier for them, perhaps, to move ahead with that career training piece. So, great examples. Keep those coming.

We're going to move into this next section here. Really going a little bit deeper with some of the strategies that the adult education providers are using to make their programs accessible to the range of their adult ed students. And so most of these are partnerships, just as Peter just described, but they're really drawing on the expertise of the adult education providers. And I think we want that to be one of our main messages today, is that it can be a huge lack to not have the adult ed providers at the table when these programs are being developed. Because you may have all those partners there-- your Workforce Board, and your employers, and unions, and even a community college-- and if you don't have the adult education voice there, there may be a lost opportunity to include people who otherwise could really take part.

So here are just a few examples. We'll go quickly through and provide some examples of programs that use these. So contextualisation is probably something most of us in the adult ed space have thought about or worked with. It really makes the adult basic skills education relevant to real world topics. And in this case, I think, where we're focusing on that opportunity to make it contextualized for job training.

And this can be English skills, math skills. In this day and age, we're definitely putting more of a focus on digital skills, and there are so many reasons why that's becoming more and more important in our work. And it's just an opportunity now to put things in the context of the workforce in a way that accelerates people's progress toward whether they want to continue with credit education, maybe go on to community college, or go right into paid employment.

So the example here is a multi-level ESL class that's offered along with early childhood education courses. And these are not actually in the same classroom. They're two separate classes, but they're very, very coordinated and the ESL classes, definitely-- ESL for early childhood education. Another thing that's really notable about this program is that these classes are all offered at a community-based organization. And that's another example of just trying to make them as accessible as possible and really open the doors for anyone who might benefit from them. And then they do provide a certificate that really prepares students to move on to the next step in what could be their pathway to really advance in that field, if that's what they're interested in.

OK. The next practice, and I think most of you are familiar with this, the term used in the K-12 and, we owe a world is integrated in education? Those of you who are community college folks probably know this as I-BEST. It's various forms of integrated basic skills and technical skills, and not always co-teaching, but there's various models of how instructors collaborate.

Just a note, I've been involved with a number of these programs, and sometimes people who are from the academic skills side are scared of not being up to snuff on welding or early childhood. But it's not an obstacle, because you develop it as you go. What you do is you develop a set of common learning objectives where you blend the technical and basic skills. Under the workforce, WIOA, there are mandatory elements in IET, which is basic skills instruction, career education, and work readiness. And again, there are WIOA funds available to support these activities.

One example we wanted to share was an adult school that provided a construction integrated education and training series. It was three courses with two teachers in the classroom. And again, well, we could talk more about that. In this case, it was ESL and construction. The graduates from this program are then encouraged to bridge to apprenticeship or employment. This could work very nicely, also, with a pre-apprenticeship program.

I'm very curious if those of you on this webinar [audio out]. Please, Jennie.

Yeah. So here's just something else to have in the toolbox in thinking how to make these sorts of programs as accessible as possible. And that's the new-ish provision in the Higher Education Act called the Ability to Benefit, which is really designed to allow adult ed students to access Federal Pell grants. So making college as affordable as possible, or any adult ed classes. Students take an exam or complete six units of community college instruction to be eligible for this, and this is just one more way to help students to move as quickly as possible toward whatever kind of workforce training would benefit them, and to allow them to take college-bearing credit courses.

Also, in the last year. I don't know how many you're aware of Senate Bill 554. It's pretty amazing development that basically, dual enrollment and the benefits high school students have had, for instance, in HSE programs. So it allows people working on completing their high school diploma or GED to take community college classes without fees or tuition. It helps them build toward an industry-recognized certificate or degree, and it really encourages adult ed students to, basically, get a jump start on encountering what, in a community college world, is called the program of study. But taking job training programs while they're still working on their foundational skills.

And we have an example for that. No we don't.

OK. So just another point we wanted to make was just the huge opportunity to use applied hands-on learning, and indefinitely work-based learning as ways to bridge students to employment. So this is absolutely integral in pre-apprenticeships and apprenticeships, where it's part of the very formalized structure. But it really could be part of any course or program as a way to allow students to connect their learning to work, to practice what they're learning. It's been a main interest of mine, exploring how work-based learning can be more a part of work-focused ESL classes, because I think it helps students to learn the language in the context of the actual work they're doing.

So it can enhance the basic skills learning. It can also allow the basic skills learning that's happening to enhance the career learning. And what we're seeing now in the current situation is that there are new technologies that can make work-based learning, or work-related learning, accessible from anywhere. So it's an opportunity to move away from some of our more traditional thinking about what an internship could be, or some kind of substantial chance to get on the job, to look more broadly at what this could look like.

There are programs now that are using take-home kits to allow students to get their hands onto things they would be doing at work. Using virtual reality or simulation apps. So a lot of this is new to us, but it comes from a basic belief that the work-based learning can be a really valuable part of the overall learning experience. And that doesn't have to wait until someone leaves their adult school.

Here's an example of a Certified Nurse Assistant training program that integrated ESL and work readiness skills during a program in the classroom, and then it connected every student to, actually, a quite short-term internship. But it allowed the students to get to know the work environment, test out whether this was something that they were truly interested in pursuing. And then it allowed the employers to get to know them a little bit. And in many cases, consider hiring them.

And I think we have one more point here in this list of acceleration strategies. And that is definitely especially relevant now. But the opportunity to use these flexible modalities. And this can be so important for adults who are already working, or for even students who just have many competing commitments. And, especially relevant today, it builds digital literacy skills. So looking at more opportunities to use online and hybrid courses as ways to move students toward their work-related goals.

So we want to stop talking at you, and we really want to ask in terms of all of this stuff we're talking about, we would love to hear from you how you've been doing some of this in terms of adapting courses, programs, developing new programs, to help your student population get back to work and be ready to participate in the California economic recovery. Of course, none of us know exactly what the timeline of any of this is, but we would love to hear from you. And we said here, please unmute. That's not an option, so if you guys can type in some questions, we would love it.

There are a few questions here.

There are a couple questions in the Q&A. That's what I wanted to point out to you guys.

OK. Yeah, yep, yep yep.

So maybe we can take a look at these questions and then be encouraging people to share in the chat or in the Q&A any other ideas you have related to this question that's posted there. This first question from Chanel-- you're probably looking at this too, Peter. So are you saying that SB 554 allows our ASE students to take college classes for free?

The answer is yes. It's quite remarkable, actually, I think. And SB 554 is very, very tied to ability to benefit. Because, again, anyone can enroll in a community college class. But if you want to get student financial aid, meaning Pell Grants, you have to follow the sort of progression of what you have to do under ability to benefit, which we are happy to talk about. But the short answer is yes. And I think a lot of people are not aware of that yet. So, it just got passed last year.

Yeah, it's relatively new. Go ahead, Peter.

Oh, the second question from Jacqueline. It's a technical question, so I do not want to venture a guess. I'm not sure. But having said that, I think that probably most likely that they would benefit. I don't know if it has to be a credit class to keep receiving their GI Bill benefits, but my guess is that's not the case. That they would be able to.

Again, a lot of these programs, Jennie and I had the opportunity to work for a couple of years with programs across the state serving formerly incarcerated students. And if there's ever a population that really needs the work yesterday, in terms of staying out of jail, it's that population. So all of these programs that rapidly accelerate people into work are absolutely essential for that population. And I'm aware of at least two programs that have used workforce system money to actually provide stipends to students while they're in their short term bridge program. So, again, really encouraging people to take advantage of those resources.

OK. This is a more general question from Tony. Jennie, do you want to take a threat of that?

Well, I think, Peter, you have a great example of having worked really closely with community colleges and adult schools coming together around the integrated education and training model as just a really concrete example. I think it's worth sharing that. That's what comes to mind.

OK. Well, I mean, and again, maybe you guys all know this. But I'm a retired community college dean, so I do come from that world. And one thing about Title V and community colleges is you simply cannot have two community college instructors standing in the same classroom and pay them. But the beauty of working together with the adult schools, because they're different [audio out] is completely kosher and very effective to have adult school teachers working with college CTE instructors.

But in terms of your question, Tony, having worked with a number of consortia around the state, when this kind of conversation comes up, and I think it works both ways. Lots of times, the adult school people feel like the community college is trying to gobble up their students. I would encourage people to go back. When you first did your initial AB 104 three year plans, you had to provide a bunch of demographic data. And when you go back and look at different consortias' data, you realize that we, collectively, meaning the community colleges and the adult schools, are serving a small fraction of the need out there.

That when you look at-- I'm thinking of a consortium I worked with down outside of Los Angeles. And their service area had 110,000 people were in need of ELL training. Or if you look at the number of people coming out of the justice system who need a high school diploma, we're just kind of, as a friend of mine says, chewing on the elephant's toenail compared to the need. In other words, there's plenty of students to go around if we can figure out how to serve them. That's my editorial comment.

And I think I would add to that that a number of the models that we presented today, things like bridge programs, you could think of as that link between the adult school and the community college. Which should be seen by your community college partners as an opportunity to collaborate that really does create a pipeline connection. And those connections haven't always been there. So it may be understandably that we're looking back at a history where we haven't always prioritized that. But some of these strategies are ones that could be presented as an opportunity to really work together and in ways that will increase enrollments for community colleges, which is, of course, a goal for all.

Well, I was just going to say, to sort of piggyback on what Jennie just said, pretty much every single community college district in the state is really struggling over time with under-enrollment, which is how they keep the doors open. And so like Jennie said, these bridge programs, these initial steps into community college programs are really serving up students to the community college. I work with one apprenticeship program down in [audio out] that is [audio out] graduate from that apprenticeship program is getting a certificate of achievement at a local community college, which is how they get paid.

And also, the other thing we don't really talk about here a lot, and it's a bigger discussion, is what is the relationship between community college noncredit and adult school? And there's some gray areas there. But it's really also a great opportunity to collaborate in that zone. Did that answer your question, Tony? Or did that address some of your concerns?

We're not seeing other new questions coming in, but I want to encourage you all to post questions, or consider this question that's up on the screen here. How have you adapted courses and programs during this time to help adult ed students get back to work and participate in California's economic recovery? I think we're all operating a little bit differently than we were a few months back, and this just seemed like it could be a good forum for people to share either successes you've had, things you're proud of, or questions that have come up for you. Things that you see up ahead in the months to come that you'd like to be able to address.

We have a great group of people on the call today, and there might be some sharing we could do amongst ourselves to surface some good ideas. And Peter and I are also happy to share what we've come up with in our work. I see a comment here. We were going gangbusters with I-BEST and then our fiscal situation and some union CBA issues meant we had to put it on hold. Yeah, I'd be really interested in hearing from others if you've experimented with, tried, had any success with, integrated education and training, or what we sometimes call I-BEST. It's definitely not something we hear a lot about in California as an easy model to implement in every case, but there are some great success stories.

Have others tried this or had any learnings from it?

And maybe I could broaden the question a little and just say, all this stuff that we're talking about here, what have you tried? But kind of, what's the edge? What are the obstacles from where you are sitting that you have to address to take on some of these collaborative, innovative, accelerating approaches? I'm just curious. When you're staring at what looks like a big hill, as Tony said, what is that? Maybe we could just put it out there in this discussion.

I think it would be really interesting to hear. What are some of the next steps, whether it's how do I connect with employers, where do I find unions to work with for pre-apprenticeship programs? How do we pay for them all? You know, there's no bad question here. Please.

This would be quite a bit easier if we could all talk to each other. But just put your thoughts in either chat or Q&A. I see the follow up to the comment about I-BEST, it was complicated by the switch to temporary remote instruction. I'm sure that added an extra challenge. But I'm wondering, is there something about the I-BEST model itself that made remote instruction challenging?

I mean, in one sense, you have two instructors in the room. So if it's working, there's a little more ability to of work with smaller groups, or provide that little bit of extra support among the participants. I'd be curious to hear what people have faced moving to remote instruction, other than just sheer lack of time and ability to take on something new.

We're seeing a few comments about just the challenges students are facing in accessing the internet or managing their own schedules around work. Certainly. Determining which sectors to prioritize. I think there's no doubt, and we hear this again and again, that the work around the asset mapping, the labor market research, trying to find the fit within a local community between what employers are needing and what educators can offer, it can take a huge amount of effort and time and energy that isn't always easy to come by. But I like Ilse's comment here, start somewhere.