Mitch Rosin: All right. Welcome, everybody. My name is Mitch Rosin. I'm a consultant working with a variety of things in California. I'm currently the Consortium Director for two rural consortia, the Feather River Consortium up in Plumas and Sierra counties, as well as the Lassen-Modoc consortium up in Lassen and Modoc counties. I also consult for the Inland Consortium. Hello, Emma. And I also do some work with the Barstow consortium and the Sequoia consortium in Visalia. And some of you may know me from my other half either working with Aztec Software or with CASAS. So welcome, and I'm going to let my colleague Alejandro introduce himself.

Alejandro Clark: Hi, everybody, welcome. I hope day two has been great for you. My name is Alejandro Clark. I'm a coordinator for the Adult Education Consortium here at Calvary River consortium, specifically Palo Verde Community College. I don't have an extensive resume like Mitch, but I'm here and I've been here for about three years. I hope to share some good information and get some feedback from you guys. And yeah, let's get started.

Mitch Rosin: So one of the things that we were talking about when we first put this presentation together, and Alejandro and I put this together for COABE this year, for the National Conference. But we thought it was so relevant and it was so well received that we wanted to share it here at the CAEP Summit as well, is how is rural actually defined. Some of you are WIOA funded, some of you or not WIOA funded, but how is it actually defined?

And it confused us because the US Census defines it as any area that's not urban. OK. That's kind of a weird definition. So then we started looking for some actual maps. So you can see on this map that every single thing that is gray is considered rural America, which really repositioned our thinking for the challenges that adult education programs are facing, if most of the country is facing these same issues. So then we drill down into Alejandro's area. And I'll let him talk about that.

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, so out here in Blythe, California, we're pretty far away from the rest of the world, I like to say. But I'd also like to say that we're in the middle of everything. I think that we're about 150 miles from Phoenix, 200 from Vegas, and 250 from Los Angeles. So we're like in this weird triangle between all those major cities. But we do have population around 21,000. We have two prisons that are included within that population. Our poverty level, as you can see some of that information here.

What's unique about us is we are actually an adult education consortium that doesn't have an adult school within our consortium. A lot of our-- majority of our adult basic education services are provided through our community college, and then we also provide pilot programs with our member districts.

So yes, we are far away. We actually have a center in Needles, California, which is 100 miles away from Blythe, California. So our programs are kind of spread apart in a wide range, and it allows us to partner up with several different entities and agencies within both those locales. But it also presents a barrier for that for as far as like traveling transportation, and kind of having staff in both areas to cover majority of those programs. So we are met with a lot of challenges because of our rural location, but it also allows us to partner up with local agencies in a higher capacity.

Mitch Rosin: So as Alejandro and I were talking about the issues facing rural adult ed programs, what we really came up with was a list of barriers. And that list is what we're showing you now. And we're going to walk through these barriers. And it's going to be sort of a conversation that Alejandro and I have on each of the barriers, subsections of these barriers, and then he's going to share out with you what they did in the Palo Verde River Consortium to overcome some of these barriers.

So the first barrier is cultural issues. And within cultural issues, we identified six different areas that are impacting their ability to provide services. So the first one is recognizing from the student perspective that education can actually lead to better paying jobs. So share information with us, Alejandro.

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, definitely, to recognize that education can lead to better jobs. So individuals-- since we're so far away, we were just actually discussing this, I was discussing this with Mitch. Riverside County, the one-- the county that we're in, the city is actually so far away. The 150 miles between Indio, which is the nearest city from us, has a lot of opportunity, has-- business is coming from like Amazon. And some of the other ones-- the bigger companies that hire and have partnerships with adult education programs, we don't actually benefit from that.

So I've been trying to put it out there as far as like with our Chamber of commerce, and some of our local agencies, that way I can get local opportunities for our adult education students. And obviously, marketing is a big player within it. I think that being a part of a small location allows me to connect with the newspaper, the radio, and all the local resources that are able to put that marketing out there.

And so it's up to me and our program to make sure that a lot of our programs like our solar technician certificate, those opportunities are aligned with the skills that we're providing within our small region. And so we take it upon ourselves to reach out to local newspapers, local radio stations, the Chamber of Commerce. And so I have a little bit of-- a little set of individuals who help market those opportunities to our students. That way, they know that there's better paying jobs not just in San Bernardino, or not just in Riverside, but there's actually opportunities out here that they can get skills and still stay out here, because that retention, once they gain those skills, sometimes we lose them to Riverside, or sometimes we lose them to India. And so it's not a continuous program for them. So we do have resources with like Career Cruising, Indeed, and Xello.

We put an emphasis on that with all of our students, too, for career exploration. And obviously, career pathways aligning them with our educational pathways. And also to just keeping them in tune with their pathway is kind of one of our initiatives moving forward, keeping them along the way to build that portfolio.

So at the end when they do graduate with some skills, they do have kind of a full package to go and apply to some of those opportunities.

Mitch Rosin: That's fantastic. The next thing that you and I talked about was making sure that students actually feel welcomed once they do join a class. Once they overcome that first cultural barrier of getting in, how do you make them feel like they're part of it?

Alejandro Clark: Yeah. So we really incorporate a lot of what we do with our students. I think a lot of the opportunities that we have here, like work study students for our college, we usually try to have our students apply for some of those jobs. So it gets them familiar with not only our adult education services but, really, our transition from our adult education to some of those opportunities as far as within our college, or within our consortium.

So I think that once a student comes in to our consortium, obviously, they're met with a simple orientation, and we have like an entry form that allows us to gather some of that information about that particular student. And then for us, we have such a small student body that allows us to call the student one on one, and so they get a lot more attention from us for that one on one aspect. And so they like that coming into the program. It makes them feel comfortable with our instructors and some of our staff, too.

So we really put an emphasis on making them feel like they are a part of our consortium, and we really try to provide them with the skills necessary. Because more than likely, they're trying to move on to higher education. And we have counselors that we hook up with at the college, and then obviously, we have partners with our local EDD for any type of career opportunities, or job opportunities.

Mitch Rosin: And that sort of leads into overcoming family expectations. Not every family wants their kids going to college, or going back into an education program after they've left the K-12 system. How do you work with overcoming those types of cultural issues?

Alejandro Clark: Yes, definitely. I think that a lot of these problems I'm pretty sure that we all see. But I think in a rural community, it's a little bit different, especially overcoming some of that stuff. I think that families' expectations in a rural area are a little bit different than a bigger area just because of the opportunity that that little area provides.

Maybe like for my instances, going to college, I didn't have a university that I could just go to down the street and apply for. I had to make sure I had a living-- having a living space. I had to go to apply for colleges in my surrounding area.

So not all the opportunity is within our area. So being able to communicate with the community and letting them know that the services that we have will help them get a job, go to college, and stuff like that, I think that that helps overcome some of those expectations for some of the families that want to see their child grow or an adult that wants to grow from that little area.

So I think that within each of our programs, we put an initiative together to cover that and provide information to keep them confident in their program. And once they finish, we definitely do a soft handoff to the college, as well. So overcoming those expectations are a big kind of challenge for us.

I think that once they get-- once a student gets familiar with what we can provide and who we are, that some of those expectations are a little bit lowered, and they kind of get on track with some of those realistic goals.

Mitch Rosin: And that sort of leads into issues of immigrants and their credentials from their home countries. They may not understand that their credential transfers. They may not understand that their diploma can be counted. How do you work with-- culturally with the people in your region on those types of issues?

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, definitely. I think that our ESL instructor, she does a wonderful job because she really, kind of like I said, we have a couple of instructional aides that we've actually hired through the program. And so those were students that were a part of our program, and so they're able to reach out to current students and potential students to gather information about their past educational career, and which ways that they can kind of implement some of that within the current program.

And so I think that we get a lot of immigrants coming from south of the border. We're really close to Mexicali, and Algodones, and kind of those border towns that we get a lot of agricultural workers that come through. And some of them, they stay and then they go back home. Some of them stay, and they have their housing here and whatnot, and then they send money back. And so there's a wide range of student that comes to our consortium, and so I've actually had an instance where one of them came, and she had an accountant degree from Mexico.

And so our ESL instructor helped them kind of articulate some of their degree to what comes across. And unfortunately I don't think that was articulated across, so she had to start over, but we are aware of some of those things, and we do help our students.

Mitch Rosin: Very good, and then the other issue that we spoke about is breaking that cycle of role models that students may not have at home. How do you actually let parents enroll in your adult programs? What supports do you offer for them if they are minding their children at home?

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, so we do have a pilot program going on for our parenting education program. It really brings in the local community as well as some of the staff here within our consortium. So we're not only bringing in professionals, but we're bringing in professionals from the local community. So being a part of a rural location allows us to reach into some of the staff at the district, some of the instructors, or even here at the college we've had our financial aid director come and speak to the parents about financial literacy, how to save money. Even from at a younger age, if your kid's in elementary, saving or putting a bank account together for savings or for college, those are all things that go into our program and information that we put out.

So that parent program has been a super great. Obviously since the pandemic we haven't had the ability to have our face to face sessions, so we kind of transitioned with that. But yes, definitely, our parents are super involved. I think that not only here at the college, but within the district, a lot of the parents who come to the college are students at the college, but they're parents of district children, and so that success for K through 12 really kind of brings together both of those entities, and so we're able to work, as members, to put marketing materials out there for the district parents as well as the college students here at the college.

So I think that it's been a tremendous help in creating positive role models within parents to help some of the younger kids go through their K through 12 careers.

Mitch Rosin: All right, good. What about using language to promote short term programs? There's a misconception out there-- I'm showing it on the screen-- that college is not for me. It takes too long to get through the program. You know, what kind of strategies do you guys specifically use to overcome that cultural issue?

Alejandro Clark: Definitely, I think that when you look at a college catalog, or if you go into course description, or even if you go to sign up for a class, sometimes it's a little bit difficult to see the pathway. And so if you're not in tune with your counselor and you don't have the academic plan, I think something that I did was I put a flier together, and I put all the course information on that one particular flyer.

So our-- sorry, off the top of my head-- the solar technician program. I'm sorry. I was able to put all the courses within that flyer, also putting the time. You could finish it within this much. It was free. And so all that information was on one piece of paper, and so that allowed someone to view that and kind of present goals on top of that, so they didn't have to go inside the catalog and look what classes it would take to figure that out.

So I think that consolidating that language for those CTE short-term programs allowed them to see the vision and see the goal in a short-term way, and I think that allowed them to push themselves forward and say, yeah, I could do this in a short amount of time, and I think that that's the way we're going to be moving forward with that.

Mitch Rosin: Fantastic. The next section that you and I dove into is socioeconomic barriers. Rural communities have their own challenges. They're very locally driven in terms of the economies, and we identified three issues that you specifically focus on as a consortium. The first is daycare. So parents do have issues, so how are you guys focusing on daycare as an issue?

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, the Collaborate with College for child development center to provide daycare, that was in terms of we have had students coming through our adult ed program who have benefited from the child development center. They do hire instructional aides, and they do hire support staff. And so any student who's looking into becoming a part of that industry, we do recommend them to the child development center, but we have provided child care within our parent project, and that is our parent education program, that really allows parents to focus in on the topic at hand and the presentation while their child is being taken care of with our staff.

So we split them up. The kids over here are taking care of. They do their homework. They do games. They're really active within that, and then we also have our parents on the other side, and then at the very end of the session, they all come back together and they discuss their experience. And for the most part it's been great, and I know that a lot of them have told us that I wouldn't have came unless there was child care, so it's a big barrier. I'm assuming that everybody goes through this, but I think in a rural area, I think that child care is in high demand because some of our parents, they work for the prison, and so they need that service within our local community.

So it's all tooken away. So there's not too much out there for parents to go to and say, you know, I'd like to have a babysitter, you know? So providing that child care is that one plus that we have to bring in more enrollment.

Mitch Rosin: And that actually speaks to the next point, which is-- if it'll flip-- actually literally meeting the student where they are. And you guys do some very interesting things to make sure that it's not a one-size-fits-all program. You want to speak a little bit to how you actually meet those individual needs of your learners?

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, definitely. A lot of our programs, we were able to partner with the K through 12 district, and they were allowing us to use some of their facilities. So it's a facility that's familiar to the parents, and so we were able to use that and provide some of our programs. So they're familiar. They're ready to go, and I think that meeting them at a place that's familiar to them kind of drops those preconceived notions of what is this. I'm not familiar. I'm comfortable. No, they're actually going to a place where they're familiar with.

So we try to keep that in mind because when you come to a foreign place, it's kind of an added barrier for yourself to get familiar, get comfortable, and so it eliminates that, and we get to hit the ground running.

Mitch Rosin: And that's actually a perfect segue way into the next topic that we talked about, which was really finding how to provide funding for multi-generational services because we know that in adult ed, it's not just the student in front of you. At home they may be taking care of parents. They may be part of that sandwich generation. They have kids and parents, and aunts and uncles, and nieces and nephews, so how do you guys specifically work as an adult ed program at the college to get those additional services to people?

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, absolutely. I think that that's one of the great caveats that we have as part of our consortium is that although we don't have an adult school, we do provide services through the college. And so our community is very familiar with those services as being a part of the college, but they are not familiar with the adult education side of those services being provided. So we've really been connecting with CalWorks and some of the other programs like EOPS and DSPS with some of the stuff.

We've been able to link with the college administrators and kind of be a champion for adult education within the college, and so it's growing, and I'm happy to see that a lot of the departments within the college are actually familiar with what we're doing now, and a lot of the services that are provided to some of those populations are going to be able to reap the benefit for adult education. So I always tell students to reach out to them, and if they're eligible to receive any of those services, definitely capitalize on that.

So and then even though they may take a non-credit course, and they don't have those credits to reap those benefits because some of those programs are dictated on credit, there are opportunities to learn and to set goals once you do attain your GED that you will be able to reap those benefits.

Mitch Rosin: Very good. So you're really looking at not just the student, but the family as a whole in getting the services to support the entire family through the education initiative.

Alejandro Clark: Absolutely.

Mitch Rosin: Moving on. The next thing that we focused on was immigration barriers, and we know that to overcome issues regarding immigration, you need a lot of community engagement. So one of the things that we talked about and you focus on is fear of accessing legal services. You want to speak a little bit about how you do that and what TODEC is?

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, so particularly myself, I can't take credit for this. I'd like to let everybody know that our ESL instructor, she's very in tune with her students. She's very active within the English learner community, and so based upon her information and her feedback, that was definitely a need within our community. She was able to reach out to an outside agency by TODEC. I'm sure some of you kind of know that, and we were able to team up, and they come out to our far-away community college and provide free legal services to those immigrants.

I was actually discussing this with Mitch. On Friday we're having an outreach event for English learners, and we're bringing in the author of "Coco," and we're also having TODEC there and providing some legal services. So I'm excited to have that go on, and that's actually in teamwork with our EOPS program, and so I'm just piggybacking off of what they're doing, and I'm going to have a boost there for adult education. So it's going to be a great event, and I hope to provide some of those services there.

Mitch Rosin: And I am thoroughly jealous. I love that movie. It makes me cry every time I see it, and I'm always in un picito loco. So again, you know, this is you not just addressing the needs of the adult ed student, but really looking at the needs of the family. And if the family is supported, then they can in turn support the adult ed student that's a candidate in any of your programs.

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, I think-- oh, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Mitch Rosin: So the next thing is the college application process and immigrant status. Do you want to quickly talk about that?

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, so the college-- some of the sensitive information, obviously, like Social Security number and some other sensitive information that immigrants come across and they may not want to provide, we've been trying to work around some of that and kind of augmenting and modifying some of our outgoing forms to be sensitive to that information, and are sensitive to that person not wanting to release that information.

And so we do take it upon ourselves that if we see that some of the information is not provided, that we do those one-on-one sessions with them either over the phone or by Zoom, and to see what their feeling is based on not providing that information. And so some of that information doesn't come across, but we think that that's OK as long as they're able to be comfortable with applying and enrolling in our program, we eventually will get that information down the road.

Mitch Rosin: And again, that's supporting the family so that they're not nervous about joining a program and possibly having some immigration issues. The big one, the gorilla in the room, is financial barriers. Everybody always says, oh, I can't afford school. How can I go to college? Da, da, da, da, da, da. So we took a look at what you guys actually do to support this through three different things. One is the FAFSA application workshops, scholarship workshops, and then busting some of those myths. So you want to tell us a little bit about how you're doing FAFSA for your students?

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, so like I just kind of mentioned earlier about our parent project, I really try to reach out to local community members, instructors, staff members, as well as taking some feedback off of those post surveys from our program. And we really try to hone in on some of those needs for the community, and we develop topics on that. And one of the biggest ones that came across was the financial literacy part that had to do with college and moving forward with college.

And so we were really kind of tasked with not just providing a service for parents, specifically with senior children and just going to college, we really tried to have a piece of information for every generation, so elementary school parents, middle school parents, and then also high school parents. So I think it was an opportunity for us to put together some workshops to bring in some of those parents based off of that need, and we had a pretty good turnout, and I think that some of them actually did complete their FAFSA by bringing in some of that information.

I actually was able to bring in our financial aid director and her staff, and build a workshop, and have that hands-on. They were able to look at some of that information for the parents. And then also, too, it's a bilingual program, so a lot of the parents that came in who were Spanish speaking were able to get services, too.

Mitch Rosin: And that's sort of-- you already spoke to this next slide about scholarship information, that you're doing financial aid workshops, and your financial aid department is actually part of those in a bilingual way to make sure you're meeting the needs of the community. What about the difference between the myths and the facts?

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, I think that--

Mitch Rosin: Pell Grants are loans.

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, I think that, obviously, being a part of the college, we definitely collaborate a lot with them. Not just with our students, but with the parents, and with everybody who comes on campus, but our workshops are really kind of focused in on some of those myth busters. Do I have to make this much to get this much money, or do my parents make this much and I can't do this, and do I even qualify for this? And so providing as much information as possible within those workshops is definitely something that we do, and then obviously through our counseling and guidance on the college, I attribute all this to the college because they put a step forward when helping out our students.

So because they always feel that some of those students are going to be their students one day, and some of those students are already their students, and so it's been a big, tremendous help within our counseling system to provide that information to knock down some of those myths and to build fact-based information.

Mitch Rosin: Fantastic. One of the other barriers you and I talk a lot about over time has been self-esteem, and that so many adult students just don't think that they're ready for it. They can't do it. It's too difficult. There's no way I can master the content, and we sort of came up with three different approaches that you guys take. The first is the second chance approach, then reentry support, and then empowering parents. So tell me a little bit about what the second chance approach is.

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, the second chance-- I mean, obviously with our GED program it's an open entry program, so they come and they go as they please. And so it's always an initiative for our staff to not react in a negative way when someone leaves and comes back. Always kind of bring them in and say how's it been going. What can we do for you moving forward? We're happy to see you back. Some of those things work wonders with students who are coming back because they're still afraid. Something may have happened within their life and so they had to exit.

So we try to provide as much services, like within the tutoring, I know that another thing from the college we were able to collaborate is providing-- their tutors were actually able to provide services to our adults in our adult GED preparation courses. So they're not only getting help from us, but they're getting help from that college student, and so that in itself is transitioning them to higher education because they get to see, they get to talk to somebody, and they get that second chance.

And then we also have the Summer Bridge Program. I hope to build off of this. I don't think we had one last summer, and I know the college does this, but I think in the future I think this would be a great caveat for us is building that bridge program from adult education to the college because I think we already do that within a lot of our programs.

Mitch Rosin: And one of the things you said at the beginning when we first started is that one of the economic drivers in the community where you are is the correctional settings, and you know, they're an employer, but they're also a place for people coming out who are looking to get back into the education pipeline. So how do you provide re-entry support?

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, so I think that a lot of our community-- we have, like Mitch had said, we have two major prisons out here, and some of those employees actually transfer from different locations. And so we have families here that are not displaced, but they actually move away, and their dad or their mother works for the prison now, and then they're in a new location. But on the other side of that, we may get some of those individuals who are getting released from those prisons, and so as they become on probation, then we're able to reach out to the probation department, and we've built kind of a communication and a referral system through that program.

And so I'm super excited to make that connection a little bit stronger, and fight, and be a champion for them because I know a lot of them are discouraged about getting a job based off of what they were charged with, if it was a felony and then they can't get a job. And so a lot of them have to work through barriers that others don't, and so that re-entry to some of our programs is definitely something we focus in, and we definitely identify employers who are willing to interview or hire somebody that's coming from someone who has a felony.

Mitch Rosin: And then empowering parents, how do you do that? How do you break the myth that men are the providers?

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, so our outreach events, we try to have them-- obviously since the pandemic we haven't had a bunch, but being a part of a small group and the local community, we are able to team with a lot of local agencies and provide outreach, as well as the college. The college is very active within the community, and so like I just mentioned, our "Coco" event that's coming up, that's really kind of, in our eyes, empowering not just to the parents, but the community.

It allows them to see that someone who's as famous as the person who wrote the book of "Coco" would like to come to our small community and provide-- at that event they're going to be able to get resources to that, too. So our outreach events really empower the community and also to not just the outreach, but once they're within our program, we really like to expose them to any of the local opportunities. That way they know that there's an end goal to what they're doing.

Mitch Rosin: Sure. So the next topic that you and I talked about was seasonal enrollment fluctuations, and this is sort of different depending on where you are in California. I know that up North, where I am a consortium director, they have issues because in fire season they're doing massive trainings for Cal Fire EMT paramedics. In your area it's more driven by migrant workers, so talk to us briefly about how you address the migrant worker education issue.

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, so in our eyes it was puzzling to see that we had this community of individuals who are coming from Mexico, but they weren't taking advantage of some of our programs and services. So we really kind of put a discussion group together and really teamed together to see what we can do, and we piloted a short-term career-focused language course, and so we were able to work with some of our English language instructors and put together a small program that allowed them to not learn the entire English language, but really learn what their career is focused on.

So whether it be safety language, whether it be process language, or whatever the case may be, we were able to put some of that together and focus it on agriculture. And then the way we outreach was we actually went to the date fields. We went to the broccoli fields. We went to some of those the local fields around us. We were able to team up with some ranchers, or rancheros, and we were able to mark some of our stuff right on the field.

So we had field workers kind of grouped together, and then we would talk to them about our courses and programs. So it was an elevated level of a strategy to market our programs. We knew that this program was really focused on agriculture, so we hit those fields, and we had, actually, a pretty good turnout. And I think that pilot program had, really, a good turnout and success, so something that we may look into moving forward, for sure.

Mitch Rosin: Very good. Just doing a quick time check. We've got 20 minutes left and 30 slides, so I'm going to start moving a little quicker. So the other thing is WIOA, and WIOA is a challenge for small districts, for small consortia, and I know that you are currently not WIOA funded, but do you want to speak a little bit to that? I think in some cases it's the gorilla in the room, and I know that it can be a pain point.

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, definitely. So I've been within the consortium for three years now. Before I came, they were WIOA funded. I think that we're looking into increasing our capacity as a consortium and recommitting to WIOA, but when we work a part of WIOA, I think that everything that has to go involved with reporting, data reporting, and the expectations, it just was too much for our staff. I think that I can elaborate a lot on that, but like Mitch said, we are kind of short on time.

Mitch Rosin: No, that's fine. Neal's in the room. He heard it. Hi, Neal. Language barriers are another issue, and when we started talking about language barriers, it's not just the ability to speak. It's the ability to think. It's about the ability to process cultural information. So one of the things that you have done is brought in bilingual counselors.

Alejandro Clark: Yes, yes. You know, I'm super excited about this, too. We're actually going to be getting a academic advisor, as well, because over this last past couple of months, we were able to assess some of the new needs based off of the pandemic. And so it was apparent to us that a lot of our English learners, they didn't have laptops, computers. All they were using is their small cell phone, and so even at that, they weren't going online on that cell phone.

And so based off that information, we know that calling those individuals on a one-on-one basis was the best practice, and so having a counselor that's bilingual and also having an incoming academic advisor that's bilingual, we're going to be able to provide more workshops, provide a stronger transition team, and also to break down some of those barriers for bilingual individuals.

So I think that we are putting together a stronger team within our accounting system, and I hope that that will grow our program, and obviously our capacity will grow, too.

Mitch Rosin: And when you say bilingual, it's not just Spanish. I think a lot of assumptions are made that we're dealing with Spanish speaking ESL students. I mean, the county where you are actually has 145 spoken languages in it, so your solution was to modify your website.

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, so we're working on that. We have several languages for our website now, and so for me coming into the program being not too familiar with our ESL, I always thought ESL was Spanish-driven, and it was all about Spanish, Spanish, Spanish. But just most recently, we had a group of Filipino individuals come to us and want ESL opportunities, and so we're looking into that, and hopefully we may build upon that. We're not quite sure how big that group is or if we can sustain something like that, but I think, definitely, providing information within multiple languages helps break down that barrier for a lot of the other languages besides Spanish.

Mitch Rosin: Absolutely, and then you have a translator available.

Alejandro Clark: Correct, so within our parent project, obviously a lot of the guest speakers that we have come in, they're from the local community. And some of them, they may not know Spanish, and so we were able to have a live translator on-site for our program. We were able to put little transmitters inside the ears of the English learner community, and they were able to translate from the guest speaker to the group, and they were also there to provide answers to any questions that they had.

So that translation aspect kind of brought in more individuals from the Spanish speaking community. I think that our next step is to provide more topics that are targeted for our English language learners, but yes, definitely, that was a great caveat for our program.

Mitch Rosin: And that ties in to, you actually have instructional aides who are bilingual in different languages to support your learners.

Alejandro Clark: Yes, I actually have a really great story. I get excited. So I'll just name drop her, Maria Sabrero. She was actually someone who came from Mexico, went into our ESL program, transitioned to higher education, got her associate's degree, then she became an instructional aide for us, and now she's a full-time employee at our K through 12 district. So she went through the full pathway. She's a wonderful student.

So she was one example that we used for our future instructional aides, and so we are very excited to build upon that. So we definitely encourage our ESL students to apply for the instructional aide positions, and that way they know the student, and then they know the community, and then they know the system.

Mitch Rosin: And then they're joining the employment pipeline, so you've got school to work covered by hiring your former students, actually, who've been through the system, and then they know how to help other students come through it. That's amazing. The next thing that we talked about is academic barriers. We know that remedial education is needed in a lot of the community colleges in reading, English, and math, and that first-time college students are more often placed into a remedial program than those who have had some sort of exposure before.

So in terms of the expectations of adult ed, how do you address that in terms of self-paced courses, open enrollment, et cetera?

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, so being a part of the community college, it was a big it was a big thing when they took away the assessment test and placement tests, so a lot of those remedial courses were taken away from the college. And so they were placing-- students were getting into college algebra who may not necessarily needed to be there, and so we took it upon ourselves, and we continue to take it upon ourselves, to reach out to some of those individuals. And even though they may have a high school diploma, we try to reach out to the tutors and try to provide that supplemental educational piece to that, and provide those services to supplement those remedial courses and help them gain enough skills to get into those college algebra classes.

Mitch Rosin: A lot of this is really leaning back into that wraparound services, the counseling, the supporting, the whole student, and one of the ways you do that is leaning into the DSPS offerings.

Alejandro Clark: Correct, yeah, definitely. They're super great. They actually have a lot of note taking services. They have bigger laptop screens for individuals who have vision issues, and then they also have someone there to read for individuals who have sight problems. So they have a lot of resources for our students that we try to reach out to them. A lot of them obviously have a criteria that they have to fit in order to get some of those resources, but I do refer a lot of our students to the DSPS office.

Some may get services. Some may not, but we're kind of teaming up, and in the future we're going to build a better pathway for some of those students as far as getting them knowing the qualifications and knowing what they're able to get.

Mitch Rosin: And part of that pathway is literally putting them on the campus to walk the pathways, so, and making them understand that college is not for 18-year-old kids. College is for adult learners, as well. So how do you deal with that?

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, so right before the pandemic, we actually were in collaboration with the K through 12 district. They put an emphasis on wanting parents to know that there is college opportunities out there, and they want them to know what our local community college can offer them. And so we built a program where we were going to bus parents from the local high school to the college, and then we were going to have a couple of transition counselors kind of get a couple cohort groups, or just a couple of groups together, and then take them around some of our CTE facilities, some of the sports facilities, and some of the other kind of computer rooms.

And it was just us getting the parents on board with what's out here because a lot of them, they have never even visited our community college, and so we took it upon ourselves to do that. Unfortunately since the pandemic hit, we weren't able to do that, but I think in the future, maybe even a virtual one would be great, or hopefully these regulations will soften up, and so we can get some parents out here.

Mitch Rosin: And just to remind people that for the more rural areas, the community colleges tend not to be in the downtown area. Most of the colleges are outside of town, so unless you make an effort to go out and see them, it's not a place that you would naturally wander past on your own. Moving on to job versus college. A lot of people will say, oh, I got to work. I don't have time to go to school. So you've developed a couple of things at your college, including distance learning, flexible scheduling, and then an HSC program. So why don't you tell me a little bit about how you approach distance learning?

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, so we made this for COABE a while back. I think it was before the pandemic. So distance learning really wasn't a big thing as it is now, but you know, everybody had a transition. And I think that for us, definitely, providing online learning capabilities or opportunities enhanced the experience for our consortium. And so having a hybrid model allowed us to reach into a population where-- like Mitch said, our community college is around 6 to 7 miles away from, actually, downtown area-- and so that barrier just didn't allow some of our students to come on campus.

So having that hybrid learning model allowed us to provide some of those services at a distance learning aspect.

Mitch Rosin: And then you also do flexible scheduling?

Alejandro Clark: Correct, we had our night classes, our morning classes face-to-face, online. So we've really tried to provide it in any and every different way. Obviously a lot of the work that's done out here is agriculture, so there's really early mornings where individuals will go out into the field, and pick lettuce, and pick broccoli, and then come in to the night school and get their GED. So we really tried to make it a goal of ours to provide as many modalities as possible.

Mitch Rosin: And you're scheduling around the shift work that a lot of people are doing, whether it's the correctional facility, or in the farms or the ranches of the area. And you had an initiative to sort of focus on people who needed to get their high school equivalency in order to either find a job, but more importantly, keep a job that may have had some shifting requirements for eligibility.

Alejandro Clark: Yeah, definitely. Providing those courses in partnership with local social service offices, so I reached out to the DPSS office as well as the EDD office, and we actually had a GED preparation course housed within the social service office and so that was, for whatever reason, before me, and they're actually open to re-establishing that connection, so I'm looking forward to putting a GED preparation course at the facility for social services.