Portia La Ferla: Well, thank you so much Penny. Welcome to the California EL Civics Basics for CAEP Agencies. I'm Portia La Ferla and I am one of the Program Specialists for CASAS. And this is Lori Howard. Lori?

Lori Howard: I'm Lori Howard. I'm the CASAS Program Specialist Coordinator. Good to see you.

Portia La Ferla: Yes, and thank you so much for joining us today. We're really happy to have the opportunity to present this information to you today. We hope that you'll consider using the California EL Civic System to demonstrate how effective your programs are with meeting the needs of your students and especially of your immigrant population. Next slide, Lori.

These are our goals and objectives for this presentation. And by the end of the session, you should be able to see the relationship between El Civics COAAPs, or civic objectives, and the CAEP I-3, or Immigrant Integration Indicators. We're going to look at some reasons why you might want to use and we recommend that you use EL COAAPs instruction and assessment to measure the successes of your students.

We're going to look at the ways to implement COAAPs and EL Civics-- I'm sorry, EL Civics COAAPs and CAEP Immigrant Integration Indicators successfully. And we're going to look at some resources that you can use to help you with curriculum and assessment.

Before we get started, we have a one question poll so we can get a picture of how familiar you are with California EL Civics. It's just one question. How familiar are you? Please answer in the poll. If you can't see the poll, you could put your answer in chat. So please go ahead and answer.

Lori Howard: And your answer would be in the chat-- very familiar, somewhat familiar, or not at all familiar. Thank you.

Portia La Ferla: OK. Thank you so much. We have-- I think did you share the results of the poll? Melinda? There we go. Yeah, so it looks like most of you are somewhat familiar, but many of you are not familiar at all. And that's fine because we're going to really go through some very basic information. And then we'll also give you other resources to help you if you want to dig in deeper. And we're going to be-- if we've got time, we'll be able to answer any questions that you might have during this presentation. Next one, Lori. And now, Lori is going to give you some background information about EL Civics. Lori?

Lori Howard: So great to see you everyone. Glad you're here with us. And we just want to go over this maybe a review for you but we want to make sure that you understand what is California EL Civics. Civics California English literacy and Civics Education incorporates English language and literacy instruction and civics education, and it promotes participation in civic and community life. And that's why it is such a great fit with the immigrant integration indicators.

And it's funded by the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, acronym we say AEFLA. And the part of the AEFLA Act is the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. We call it we WIOA Title II. So it's good to know where this funding comes from. And in WIOA, EL Civics is defined as services that enable competency in English language and to help learners function effectively as parents, workers, and citizens in the United States. And in the new authorization in 2014, the workforce training element here bolded below was an emphasis. So that's one of our main areas of funding now.

So we want to talk about how it's related to EL Civics, how CAEP is related to EL Civics. And Portia is going to tell you about that.

Portia La Ferla: Thank you, Lori. So just before we get into this slide, California EL Civics has three focus areas, and they are civic participation, citizenship preparation, and integrated EL Civics, which also includes integrated training. We're going to mostly talk today about civic participation with some mentions of IELCE because they mostly have the same requirements.

CAEP was authorized through AB2098, that was the original adult education block grant program. And in that legislation, it suggested that CAEP align with WIOA by encompassing WIOA outcomes. It wasn't limited to WIOA outcomes, but it encompassed WIOA outcomes. And early on within the field, there were some concerns about the limited outcomes that were being tracked for ESL students in particular. Some of the outcomes that were being tracked were level completion and other exit outcomes, like entering post-secondary, or getting a job. And those outcomes weren't tracking all of the essential learning that went on after an ESL student enrolled, but before they exited the program.

So teachers were doing a lot of work with students to help them navigate life in the United States, but there was no credit in CAEP for their successes. So many of these learning milestones that teachers were already achieving with their students were summarized by the term immigrant integration. Adult education agencies and their organizations, their political organizations, professional organizations lobbied to expand CAEP outcomes to recognize these achievements that are successful to integrating immigrants into American society. And this result, this was-- so as a result, we're encouraging you to take advantage of the immigrant integration metrics and framework and to collect outcomes that show your successes for your immigrant students. The next one, Lori.

So if you look closely at the language AB2098, there are items that they are in bold that directly relate to or align with EL Civics. And these would be to improve literacy skills, to increase participation in civic and community life, and for the completion of post-secondary certificates degrees or training programs.

So this phrase-- to meet the needs of immigrant and refugee adults seeking integration, links CAEP outcomes and EL Civics. So EL Civics objectives and assessment plans correspond to the CAEP I-3 outcomes and the reported in TE. So again, I-3 is what we refer to as Immigrant Integration Indicators.

There are 10 immigrant integration areas. The first seven that are listed in bold-- economic security, credentials and residency, health and well-being, education and career, children and family, civic and community participation, and digital literacy have specific EL civics objectives and assessment plans that are associated with them and they result in specific CAEP outcomes. I'm going to show you how that happens on the next slides. But the other three goal areas-- English proficiency, first language proficiency, self-efficacy and system-- excuse me, system navigation, are widely represented in the COAAPs, but they don't have specific objectives that are associated with them.

This is a chart-- this is-- I'm sorry, this is a chart that shows how the Immigrant Integration goal areas and the California EL Civics objectives align. So in this slide, the Immigrant Integration goal area is economic security. And in this slide, there are-- it shows you that there are six EL Civics COAAPs, or civic objectives, sorry, that align directly with economic security. And some examples of those are to resolve consumer complaints, develop a business plan, obtain housing, and to identify tenants' rights.

Under credentials and residency, there are an additional, there are six other civic objectives that align with credentials and residency. And some examples of those are-- how to get an ID card, how to get-- how to find and access legal services, how to apply for ID cards. As you read through these, think about how important are these kinds of topics to your immigrant students. They might not only be useful, but they might be absolutely essential to their success as they navigate life in the United States. Next one, Lori. This slide shows what the outcomes look like in TOPS Enterprise. So the immigrant integration outcomes are on column-- are listed in column F in this slide, or in this report. So if you look at this one, you can see that the-- ESL students, ABE students, ASE students, and CTE students can all get-- can all earn I-3 outcomes. And in this case, this agency has 1,000-- I'm sorry, 116,217 immigrant integration outcomes. That's a lot of outcomes. That's a really nice way of showing program success. And then next one.

If you look more closely at the data, you can drill down into that TOPS Enterprise report, or you can run a different report and it shows you more specifically how these I-3 outcomes were earned. So for example, this student-- our student here has passed COAAP assessments in three immigrant integration goal areas. What are those three areas? Digital literacy, civic and community participation, education and career.

And if you look at digital literacy, the student passed two different civic objective assessments. Number 47, which is safe-- internet safety, and number 48, which is effective online communication. The student has two under community participation, and one under education and career. So you can see how those goals align with those civic objectives.

We need to go--

Lori Howard: Sorry.

Portia La Ferla: Yeah, it's all right. It's OK. So to summarize, the CAEP students can earn these I-3 outcomes by passing EL Civics COAAPs. And these outcomes are tracked in TOPS Enterprise. There are a lot of rules for implementing EL Civics. In the CAEP agencies, you don't have to follow these rules. You are not required to follow them, but we strongly recommend that you do follow them because they're what makes the COAAPs system of instruction successful. And the next one, Lori.

By following the guidelines, EL Civics requirements, not only will your implementation be more successful, but you'll be setting your students up to support your application for WIOA II funding should you choose to apply in the next grant cycle. Those applications should be out next year, and the funding will be for the years 2023-24.

And then just a little bit of success data about EL Civics. More than half of the ESL students who participate in EL Civics in California, and after multiple instruction and assessment cycles, more than 90% of the students who take these assessments pass one or more of them. And just generally, it seems that students who participate in EL Civics programs achieve a higher percentage of level completions than students who do not.

OK. And we can take a little breather here. Are there any questions that you'd like to ask before we continue? You can put them in the chat or go ahead and unmute yourself and we'll be happy to answer those questions.

Lori Howard: So before we start, I just wanted to say that it came up in the chat about our handouts. And I just want to let you know that we posted both our slides and the chart we showed you with the correlation between EL Civics objectives and Immigrant Integration Indicators on the CAEP website. So hopefully, at the end of our session, Melinda will show you how to access those. And then we are also going to give you a lot of resources at the end of the session and direct you to places on the CASAS website.

So one of the questions here is-- do you create an assessment for each level of ESL? So I can answer that question. Thank you, Martha, for asking it. It depends on the COAAP. The COAAP descriptors ask you to-- sometimes it's one assessment for all the levels, and sometimes it is-- one assessment for beginning low and beginning high, and another one for intermediate low and advanced, and sometimes there are adjustments.

So for example, intermediate low to advanced students, let's say they're doing a job interview. So they would be asked five basic questions, all of them. And then if they're intermediate high, perhaps you would add two questions for intermediate high, and perhaps two more difficult questions for advanced. But it's basically the same assessment.

Each-- there are 170 about COAAPs assessment plans, so you'd have to look at each one to see. But in general, they can be developing one assessment with adjustments can make it the way you need it to be. And then is anyone able to share a sample lesson assessment and rubric?

So we can do that at the end. But we're just trying to talk about the general ideas right now. So Martha, let's look at your question at the end and we can show you how you can do that. And actually, we have the EL Civics Exchange that we're going to give you a resource to, I hope. Portia, we did that?

Portia La Ferla: I don't think we did, Lori?

Lori Howard: Oh, did we not? OK.

Portia La Ferla: We can.

Lori Howard: Can you write that down as a note? EL Civics Exchange, we'll take you there and show you an example, exactly that, a sample. We can't share assessments with you because those are high stakes. In other words, WIOA agencies will be earning payment points for those. But you can contact an individual agency who can share an assessment with you if you promise to keep it secure. We're not allowed to put those on a website. And yes, we will show you a rubric too.

Can a student take the same test year after year until passing it? Well, I wouldn't say year after year. We offer instruction related to the assessment. If the student doesn't pass it, we suggest you give further instruction. And then hopefully, the student will pass again.

This is a system, I'm going to tell you in a minute, a performance based assessment. And so you're basically teaching to the test. I'm going to give you an example about that. You're teaching to the test, so your student should eventually pass if you're doing appropriate instruction.

Portia La Ferla: Lori, can I make a comment on the year after year. So a student may do the same COAAP in a different year, but they would probably do it at a different level. So their tasks would be progressively more difficult. So if the student is a beginning student this year and an intermediate student next year, they might have a very different assessment for the same civic objective.

Lori Howard: Thank you. And Shoch asks, "Is there guidance available specifically for non-WIOA consortia planning to implement EL Civics?" And Shoch, that is exactly what we're trying to do with this presentation. And at the end of the presentation, we're asking a question if you need more training, and if you do, we would be happy to offer that training. So please, you know, let us know either in the chat or at the end, when we try to survey you about your needs. We would be happy to assist you.

OK, I think that's all the questions.

Portia La Ferla: I think so.

Lori Howard: So I'm going to talk about California EL Civics, again responding to Portia's suggestion that if you follow the rules, you'll do a better job at working with the COAAPs, and then your students would be more apt to pass and you'll be able to gain your outcomes that you need. And also for those of you who want to apply for WIOA II, as Portia said, you'll be better ready to implement that, and hopefully your requests for application will-- you'll be able to demonstrate you've already done a lot of the things and so you'd be more apt to get accepted.

So again, reviewing California EL Civics, it's based on a system of civic objectives. And you saw some of them in the chart that Portia showed you. And civic objectives are the general competencies that help students access their community. And I know those of you who've been working with the CASAS competencies, they're similar to that. And some of them are very, very similar or the same, but these were written by agencies at the beginning of this program and around the year 2000.

This is a 20-year-old program, at this point, and they were written by agencies and then put into a standardized system on our website. But all of the objectives and the COAAPs you're going to see all come from agencies like yourselves. So one of the civic objectives is CO, we call it, Civic Objective 33. And here, you see the objective-- "Identify and access employment and training resources to obtain and keep a job." I'm sure that kind of objective is very familiar to you, one you probably can find something similar in our CASAS competencies as well.

So once we have a civic objective, we also have a system of civic objectives and additional assessment plans. It's called an additional assessment because it was additional to standardized testing. So a COAAP is a plan for performance-based assessment. In developing this program in the early 2000s, the state of California wanted to do something that would help students perform and access their community, perform in the community and access it by filling out a job application, having an interview, talking to a doctor, all the things. Not just being able to answer questions on a test, but actually doing things or simulating doing them.

So we simulate a job interview, for example, but we can actually have students fill out a real job application. So a Civic Objective and Additional Assessment Plan, or COAAP, is a plan for performance-based assessment. And in the case of Civic Objective 33, one of the COAAPs usually has two tasks. One of them could be or is "complete a job application" and "demonstrate successful job interview techniques." So that's the performance. Students are eventually accessing their peer communities by learning how to do these tasks, these real life tasks.

So for example, the task I just mentioned, we have a COAAP 33.7. 33 is the civic objective and 7 is the number of the COAAP. So there are at least seven COAAPs for Objective 33. So task one says, "Complete a job application." This is a partial description of something you might see on the website. "Using a level-appropriate agency-created employment history, student will fill out an authentic job application."

And one of the reasons we have students use an agency-created employment history so that we know whether the student is filling it out appropriately. If we let students use their own information, we don't necessarily know that information is true. Also we are sort of getting into the privacy of the student by taking their address and Social Security number and all those things that might be on the form. So we don't want to get into that, so we often ask for a level-appropriate, agency-created scenario or history, something like that.

So that's task one, complete a job application. Tasks two, role-play a job interview. Again, in a simulated job interview, student will play the role of the applicant and the assessor will play the role of the employer. So this is describing what the assessment will look like. And then sample questions are given. Agencies are able to infuse the content that they have taught or they plan to teach into these assessments.

So the assessment itself, the only thing that's coming from the state of California is the plan for it, but each agency can infuse whatever content is important to the students at your agency. So we often give sample questions, but you're free to use them or not. What you need to do is use the number of questions. So we might say, ask five questions. You need to ask five questions in order for the rubric to work.

And we will lead you later to a sample assessment. Here are the California EL Civics WIOA requirements. There are 6 for our basic EL Civics classes. The first one is to develop and administer a community student needs assessment. This was a crucial aspect of this program, when it started in the early 2000s-- not just teach what's in the textbook, but teach what students ask for or demonstrate the need for. So that's a crucial part of the program.

Then agencies based on the needs assessment, select specific objectives and additional assessment plans. After a section of the plan, then they want to develop or borrow from another agency the actual assessment. Then planning an offering instruction to help the students pass the assessment, administering the additional assessment after inspection has happened, and then one of our requirements is also CASAS pre and post testing.

So I basically gave you this overview already. So here, when you have the slides, the overview of each of the items. The only thing we didn't talk about is the number of COAAPs. The CDE requires WIOA agencies to select between 3 and 10 COAAPs per year, but you can ask permission to select more or fewer, depending on the needs of your agencies. And also a WIOA requirement-- but not a requirement for you-- is a minimum of 30 hours of instruction before an assessment is given.

We believe that, for example, that the 33.7 I showed you would probably take about 30 hours of instruction. Some of them take a little bit less, but we have a list of language and literacy objectives that you can augment your instruction or use the instruction that you're already using in your ESL classes. I just want to mention also that-- and maybe this will come up later-- that the instruction isn't necessarily new instruction.

You know, when you talk about job interview or job application, you probably have a unit in your textbook that addresses that. So you can use whatever textbook you're using with that content and then add in anything that would need to be added to that instruction you're already doing.

OK, so as I mentioned, needs assessment is crucially important. We know from research that successful programs continually assess the needs, interests, and language skills of their learners. And so that is an important part of our program. We require it annually, a whole school assessment, and that informs the selection of COAAPs.

I think I mentioned this already, about selecting civic objectives and additional assessment plans and then developing an assessment to give learners after the 30 hours of instruction. As I may have mentioned, so there are multiple assessment plans or COAAPs for each civic objective. Most of them have at least 3. And as I mentioned before, each COAAP is numbered. The first number corresponds to the specific objective and the second is the number of COAAPs. So as I mentioned, 33.7 means there's at least probably seven COAAPs in the system.

And each COAAP has at least two tasks, and the students need to complete all the tasks that are labeled for their level. So there may be more tasks in a COAAP, but you'll notice when you look closely that some are only for Beginning Low, Beginning High students. Some, perhaps, are only Intermediate Low to Advanced. But each student needs to complete at least two tasks.

So when you select COAAPs, you want to select those that match the needs of your students. So you might be asking about the needs in terms of jobs, more general terms, jobs, for example, or banking. But when you go in more depth, you might want to be selecting a COAAPs that more closely meets your students' needs. So you also want to consider the type of assessment. Do you want to do an oral or written, or role-play assessment?

With remote instruction, we've had to make some changes in terms of whether it's easier to do oral assessments or written assessments remotely, and that, you can make a decision about. And you'll also want to look at the content. So for example, here, in Civic Objective 9, which is "locate and analyze preschool and child care services," there are two opportunities, 9.3 and 9.4. 9.3, "list characteristics of good quality child care," 9.4, "evaluate a child care facility." Or, in 9.4, "compare child care facilities and present an oral report." So the teachers, knowing the needs of their students and having the needs assessment, would select which COAAP to use with their students.

OK, and once the COAAP is selected, then the agencies develop or borrow a performance-based assessment, again, based on the selected COAAP. And then agencies develop 30 hours of topic-related ESL instruction to prepare learners for the assessment. We're going to go over Step 3 and Step 4 in the following slides.

So performance-based assessment measure students' ability to apply skills. So again, this is not just paper and pencil testing. It's application of the task or the skill. And we try to make it challenging, and students should be able to use their higher order thinking skills to create a product or complete a process. So these are challenging assessments, and we want to challenge our students more as the level increases.

So our additional assessments assess how well a learner can interact or access the community, and they directly relate to the Civic Objective and Additional Assessment Plan. And again, includes learners in tasks that they can perform in real life. And then we also want to choose whether it's, again, oral, written, or works on listening or reading. We suggest that, as in all ESL instruction, that all the language skills are utilized, but of course, there will be a focus depending on the skill.

One thing that we're not allowed to use is these kinds of questions, true/false, things that would be associated with more paper and pencil testing. We do not ask true/false questions or multiple choice questions, or fill in, or matching, or have text boxes which offer students a list of options. We want students to be able to go out in the world and utilize what they've learned to communicate. And so when students go out into the world, they don't have a little box of words from which to choose, so students are tasked to learn these things that they need in the outside world.

So again, agencies can develop their own assessments or they can borrow it from other agencies. One agency that has been very willing to share his Torrance Adult School. I think this link will take you to a lot of their instructional materials, and you can see, in their instruction materials, if you like them, you could contact them and ask to borrow their assessment.

Remember, though, that when you borrow either instructional materials or an assessment from another agency, be sure to look them over. Just because another agency is using it doesn't mean it meets the needs of your students or even meets the requirements. So be sure that you look at them and make sure they're applicable to your students before you utilize them. And then in the cases of things that you find online, et cetera, you can adjust them to meet the needs of your students.

So the instruction is for Beginning Low to Advanced ESL learners. And again, to prepare them to participate in real or simulated communication or interactions. So after the COAAP is written, again, we're sort of teaching to the test. So once we know what the test is going to be, we're developing our instruction to teach the skills students need to pass the test.

As I mentioned, it includes all four language skills and it's not limited to the objectives in the COAAP. So if you don't feel that what's in the assessment is robust enough for your instruction, you can add to it with-- and we have a whole list of language and literacy objectives for each civic objective. WIOA agencies are required to give 30 hours of topic specific instruction. You, again, are not required to do that.

So if you were a WIOA agency, you'd develop a 30 hour instructional plan or borrow those materials. And then some different agencies do it differently. Some agencies rely on their instructors to plan the instruction, that 30 hours of instruction, and some agencies have a EL Civics coordinator who develops an instructional plan and instructional materials and hands them over to the teachers. So you can do it either way.

And I did list here-- we did put the EL Civics Exchange. We are just developing now the EL Civics Exchange in cooperation with-- or collaboration with OTAN. And it's on the OTAN site, and we can go there afterwards, if you'd like. And we are putting up model EL Civics instructional materials on this site, www.elcivics.otan.us.

OK. So once the instruction happens, then you will give the assessment. And the assessment can be done by the teacher, the students' own teacher, or by an outside assessor. For oral assessments, we recommend that an outside assessor-- for example, the teacher next door or the principal-- come in and do the assessment, because the whole point is that students would be unable to perform in the outside world, and so they're more apt to be able to demonstrate that successfully if they're talking to someone that they don't talk to all the time.

We all know that our students understand us as their teachers but may not understand other people. So we want to give them that experience of talking to someone new, if at all possible. And again, after appropriate instruction, the assessment can be given again. We mentioned that earlier.

I just want to mention that assessment is individual. So even if students have practiced a role-play, they can't do it with another student. It's never student to student. All the assessment is done student to assessor because we're evaluating the student as an individual. So written tests, of course, everybody is writing on a different paper, and that's an individual assessment. But for oral interviews, et cetera, it's always done with an assessor and evaluated as such.

And as we said CASAS testing is one of the requirements of WIOA II. So if you're going to be part of the WIOA grant, then you would need to follow that requirement as well. So what questions do you have? We tried to give you an overview of the requirements for WIOA. Again, you don't need to follow those, but we would hope you would consider them as you implement COAAPs in the CAEP programs. Any questions?

It's a lot of information, I know. So feel free to ask questions. And also, you may want to review this again if you're hoping to follow these requirements.

Portia La Ferla: Lori, I have a leading question.

Lori Howard: OK.

Portia La Ferla: Did you write all of these COAAPs?

Lori Howard: Oh, no. Again, everything has come from agencies. So in the first year, the grant was put out to agencies and the CDE received-- I think 150 agencies applied for the grant and sent in their COAAPs as proof of what they had done that year.

A state committee with representatives of many different districts got together and culled through them. And we found that, for example, health was a very popular topic. So rather than having 50 agencies be doing health in their own way and having to submit that every year, the state decided to cull the best of it and put it on the CASAS website as a possible selection, what we call pre-approved.

One thing that's really great about our system is that although we do have pre-approved COAAPs and agencies can just select those COAAPs, as you are doing, agencies are also allowed to revise the COAAPs, with permission, and/or write new COAAPs as needs change. So this is a very flexible system. As Portia led me to say, it all came originally from agencies themselves and the needs of students. And now what you see on our CASAS website is just what has been used over the years by many agencies and implemented by many agencies, or even written by agencies.

So questions-- "Do you have COAAPs specific to a particular job or career?" So when the 243 grant, the IELCE grant, came out we identified COAAPs that were already in place that relate to a career. Some of those are pharmacy for pharm tech, some of the health-related ones. So we already have some that relate specifically. There's some on soft skills, for example. But also, in the last few years, different agencies have written our new ones. They're numbered 70 to 75.

Medical occupations is one of them, child care occupations, I think there's one on accounting, one on manufacturing, and technology. So those are the five specific workplace areas that we have so far, and we would welcome you to consider if you have other courses that you want to write a COAAP to, we can work with you to do that on other ones, if those 70 to 75 don't meet your needs.

Construction, the one in construction is based on safety. But if you have specific things you want to work on, we could work with you on that because we want to be adding all the time new COAAPs that relate to training, especially. OK. And so-- yeah, we'll give you information. There is another webinar I'll point you to called Understanding COAAPs-- "EL Civics Basics, Understanding COAAPs." And that tells you information about how to write a new COAAP.

And basically, what you'd be doing would be to write a brief description of the tasks that you think should be part of it, and then send that to me at lbhoward@casas.org, or you can send it to ELCivics@casas.org. We would ask you, though, first, that you look through what's already on the website and see if you can adjust any of what's already there to meet your needs. And Portia, can you put the EL Civics one also? I should be giving that one. Any other questions?

OK, let's move along here, and we'll have plenty of time for other questions. OK. So let's talk about the COAAPs selection process. So we have a website where you would select the COAAPs. And again, it's linked here, when you get the slides, and we'll take you to the website at the end.

And then in order for-- and this is true for all of you now, whether you're using the WIOA system or not-- you need to select in the system, right, in order for it to count for you, and you need to download it into TE. And there are instructions on the CASAS website about how to download your COAAPs into TE so that then when you record your pass or fail, it will be recorded and then linked to your immigrant integration outcome. So that's very important that you do that. And you would be selecting in what we call Option One, the pre-approved COAAPs. Or if you think you need a revision, you could be contacting me or contacting ELCivics@casas.org to help you with revising or writing something new.

So currently, there are 59 civic objectives and we have-- the numbers are a little bit funny. 1 to 54 are the basic, and then we left some space just in case we needed to add some general ones before we started the workplace ones, 70 to 75. And again, this doesn't matter for you now, but if you do decide to apply for the WIOA grant, all 59 of the civic objectives can be used for 231 funding, and 29 of them are for the 243 funding. Again, you don't need to know that right now if you're not WIOA agencies.

But we do have a list of 231 and 243 funded items, if you're interested in that. And right now, this new document-- hopefully, this link still works-- we added the immigrant integration indicators to this document so that everything's all in one place.

So as I mentioned, there are multiple COAAPs for each objective. There are 164 of them, and you can see them all on the pre-approved additional assessment plan list, which is sort of the first item on the CASAS website under EL Civics, and you can access them all there, and they are open to everyone. And again, if you want to select an Option Two or Three, revised or new COAAP, then you would contact me and I can help you do that.

You have to be a designated person to select COAAPs. So again, whether you're-- CAEP agencies also need to designate someone. So just write to ELCivics@casas.org and say-- or write to your program specialist and ask them to be designated so that you can actually select the COAAPs for your agency.

So here's the CASAS website. And as I mentioned, this first item is the pre-approved civic objectives list, and that's where you can see all of the COAAPs, the assessment plans. And the second button, where the red arrow is pointing, that's where you select your COAAPs. So if you're the designated person and you want to select, you can go into the Select button. It would probably behoove you to look at the first button first to see all of them or see whichever ones you want to do, and then when you go into the Select button, you can actually make the selections for your agency.

And if you are the person who's going to download, that happens in the third bullet. So that would give you instructions to download your COAAPs so that you can record your pass and fail. OK, if you press on the Select Pre-approved COAAPs, you get to this area. And then again, you would just click on this first button, select Pre-approved COAAPs, and that would put you into the system to make your agency selections.

And the last day to make selections is April 30, so if you want-- any time you want to add, edit, or delete COAAPs, it just needs to be done before April 30 of the program year. So CAEP agencies and WIOA agencies need to follow all these selection processes. Any questions about selecting? OK.

Portia, do you want to--

Portia La Ferla: Yes, we can look at the resources.

Lori Howard: OK.

Portia La Ferla: Wrong slide, though.

Lori Howard: Did we-- this is 51 now. Do we want to ask--

Portia La Ferla: Oh, OK. Yes, we did. So we're just curious as to whether anybody who's present right now has implemented EL Civics in a CAEP program, and if so, if you'd be willing to talk a little bit about your successes and your challenges. And again, you can unmute yourself, you can type in the chat, but we'd love to hear your experiences. I think they'd been informative for the other people that are participating in this workshop.

Lori Howard: So Jacque, do you have any agencies in your consortium that is doing COAAPs? I'm looking at the participant list to see if there are anyone.

Michael Scott: Hi, this is Mike. This is Michael Scott. I am director of Adult Education at Coastline, and one thing that stood out to me-- we are doing the COAAPs, and you mentioned how some of the assessments could be done, for example, from the principal or someone else other than the instructor.

And I think that's been a challenge at our organization because it's just the availability of someone else to test the students. But you making that point kind of backed up with the faculty members concern was, so I appreciate that point of the presentation because I'm going to follow up with the faculty member and try to get her more support so that she can have someone else test those students. Because she made the same exact point you made here, but kind of got some resistance from other faculty members.

So I did appreciate that. I just wanted to point that out.

Lori Howard: Thanks, Mike. I appreciate that. And you know, it can happen, just two teachers that are testing on the same day, they just switch classes.

Michael Scott: Yeah.

Lori Howard: It can make it easy that way. Or sometimes, we do have a staff member who's trained, someone from the office could do it if they're trained to do it, or the principal, or someone else. Again, it's not a requirement, but it does really help see whether the student can access the community because they're listening to someone they don't often talk to. So thank you for considering doing that in your COAAP assessments. That's really a great idea.

Michael Scott: Thank you. Thank you for the presentation because I've been around this information for a while, but this really laid it out very cleanly. So thank you.

Lori Howard: You're so welcome. Does anybody else have anything to share about how you're implementing COAAPs or implementing EL Civics in your agencies? OK, we just wanted to give you that opportunity. We realize-- again, we call this "basics," So we expect that many of you are just at the beginning, and that's totally terrific. But we just thought-- sometimes we get some old hands doing these things again, so we just thought we'd ask this question.

But so now let's go on to the resources, and then we'll have plenty of time to answer your questions and go through the website and that kind of thing. So Portia's is going to tell you a little bit about the EL Civics resources that are available to you.

Portia La Ferla: Thank you. On the CASAS website, there's a page called "California Civic Participation, IELCE." And on that page, you can find so many resources to help you implement. I think just about every question is answered. There are the webinars that Lori mentioned with EL Civics basics, and that one is just some of what we presented today, but even more in depth about implementing an EL Civics program. And then the second EL Civics basics is about understanding, implementing, and revising COAAPs.

So if you find a COAAP that doesn't quite meet your needs and you want to make some changes to it, there are instructions on how to do that. Or if you have a brand new COAAP that you need and there isn't one in existence, there are instructions about how to write a COAAP. And then there's one about planning and implementing an IET program and a remote testing webinar. There are documents, including the FAQs for Civic Participation and IELCE. There's the chart that shows the EL Civics and I3 immigrant integration metric goal area correlations.

It's a really good place to get everything that you need. And then on top of that, Lori holds monthly EL Civics network meetings. They are highly attended. The participants are very active in these meetings. She usually gets somebody to present a best practice. We've had OTAN presenting. Penny's been presenting on how to make documents accessible. Any new information that comes up is covered at those meetings.

And if you'd like to join those meetings, you can send an email to ELCivics@casas.org and Lori will add you to her mailing list. And you can go to CAAdultEdTraining.org to register for those civics network meetings.

Lori Howard: Can I just mention, the next one is next Wednesday, November 4, from 1:00 to 2:30. So we would love to have you join us at that time, if you'd like more information.

Portia La Ferla: Do you have a special guest, Lori?

Lori Howard: Penny may be presenting a more on accessibility sheet. The original conflicted with the CAEP conference. I just have to confirm with her that November 4 works.

Portia La Ferla: And if you want more information on the value of incorporating EL Civics COAAP Instruction and Assessment into your CAEP programs, you should read Lori's article. She wrote a beautiful article for the COABE Journal, the issue that was on race and equity. And you can find that at the link that's in the slide.

And your CASAS program specialists are always available to answer any questions about instruction or assessment or data collection. And if you have questions about EL Civics, you can go to the page, or you can email ELCivics@casas.org. And to review our goals and objectives, we have identified the relationship between CAEP I3 indicators and EL Civics COAAPs. We've identified reasons to utilize EL Civics COAAPs and instruction to achieve your CAEP outcomes. We've identified the steps for successful implementation, and we've shown you EL Civics resources and where you can find them.

Lori Howard: So any questions about the resources? And we have some extra time, so we will be taking to the website. But we just wanted to-- before we do that, is to go to our last polls. I think-- is that a good thing to do right now, Portia?

Portia La Ferla: Yeah, I think we should run the poll. So if you can see the poll, please answer. If not, you could answer in chat. So the first question is, "How valuable do you think your civics instruction would be to your students?" And you can just answer very valuable, somewhat, or not.

And the second one is, "How ready do you feel to begin using EL Civics instruction and assessment in your CAEP program?" And you could answer ready, somewhat ready, not ready. We'll give you just a couple more-- a few more seconds to respond. Just about halfway there. Just a few more. And we'll close the poll in about 5 seconds.

OK. Thank you, Penny. I'm sorry--

Lori Howard: Melinda.

Portia La Ferla: I keep thinking Penny's here. I'm sorry, Melinda.

Melinda Holt: It's quite all right. I've been called worse. I'm going to share the results now.

Portia La Ferla: Thank you. So as you can see from the results, those of you who responded, most of you recognize the value of implementing the COAAPs for I3 outcomes. And we've got ready and somewhat ready. We do understand that this is a little bit complex and we don't expect you to be experts at the end of this, but we are here to answer your questions, both now and in the future. And again, I think as Lori shares the website, that will also help to orient you a little bit as you move forward in implementing. We can stop sharing the poll.

Lori Howard: So also-- we're going to go to the website, but if you would like further training about CAEP and EL Civics, please put your email in the chat and we'll contact you about that. So we'd very much like to follow up if you need further training. And so put your email in the chat and we will contact you about that.

And we just want to make sure that you share this information with your other staff members. We'd like you to just think about who might need this information and who might you share it with-- your other administrators, teachers, TOPSpro staff, or others. We'd like this not to just stop with you here, but to be shared at your agency.

And let me go now to-- and thank you, Portia, for helping us with the resources. I think I've got the CASAS website here now. I think I shared it. So hopefully, you're seeing the CASAS website.