Blaire Toso: Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Some of you are faithful attenders of our CAEP webinar series, and others of you are new. And we welcome you alike. We'd like to thank you for your participation. This is going to be about exploring equity in your programming. And we've got some activities and discussions. And we really hope that you will participate fully and loudly.

We have, as Holly said, this is a two-part session. So this one will focus on AEP dashboard data. And then the second session will also focus on AEP dashboard data as well as labor market data for exploring equity initiatives. And so thank you for joining us. Next slide, please.

As Holly mentioned, it's me, Blaire Willson Toso. I'm the senior program manager. And you'll get to hear also from my colleagues who will-- I'm delighted that they are able to join us. There's Jessica Keach who's a senior research associate, and Ayanna Smith, our new program coordinator too who has just joined our team and is doing a fabulous job of getting up to speed and really supporting and informing our work. Next slide, please.

I'd also like to welcome Mayra Diaz and Lindsay Williams from the chancellor's office. I'm going to turn it over to them to introduce themselves, and welcome.

Mayra Diaz: Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you all for being here today. And on behalf of the chancellor's office, I just want to welcome you and thank you for participating in today's webinar presentation. As mentioned, my name is Myra, and I'm the CAEP program lead. I'm joined by my colleague Lindsay Williams. And we work collaboratively to support the statewide adult education program with the chancellor's office.

We are excited that you can join us to explore equity in CAEP programming using the adult education dashboard data. So we are excited for today. It sounds like we're going to have a very interactive presentation. So looking forward to hearing all of you chime in. And I will turn it over to our presenters.

Blaire Toso: Thanks, Myra. And we really appreciate that you and Lindsay are on the webinar and both listening to, not only what our work, but also to the work of everyone else who's on this. And I can speak from the field from having heard that they appreciate the chancellor's office representation in these webinars, especially as you are so important in the support of the CAEP programming.

Our agenda today, we're going to do just a really quick adult education pipeline and related tools walkthrough. We know that it's more context-setting than informing, as most of you are well acquainted with these tools already. Then we're going to have a discussion about talking about equity. We'll do a data equity walk. And then, after the data equity walk, talk about next steps. How do you apply the information that you get from a data equity walk?

So our objectives are, we want to level-set this. We know that there are a lot of definitions about equity that people draw on. And we want to hear both what your ideas are for equity and then define it for the work that we'll be doing here today. And then, as I said, we will become familiar with some tools and resources. And then we're going to practice using data from those resources to inform and ask questions and identify strategies to further explore and address equity gaps.

Next slide, please. So as I said, to set the stage, going to quickly review the tools and resources that we've provided that look at data that can be used to identify inform and explore equity gaps and initiatives. And I would like to say that, a lot of the work when you're exploring data, is that it's not necessarily going to answer your questions, but it should certainly help to identify, where are those places that you might want to be asking questions or identifying places that you want to identify for exploration?

Next slide, please. So as you know, our primary tool is the Adult Education Pipeline dashboard which offers data on state regional consortium district and institutional levels, so at different views. The dashboard also offers different views within the data, which allow you to dig a bit deeper into the equity issues. So you can view the data by race, ethnicity, gender, and age, or gain a sense of who you're serving and who you are not serving as well as exploring outcomes by different and same categories.

And these are really meant to help you ask-- I wonder what might be going on. I wonder why this population appears more, and yet, we're serving a larger population of another category. So this is really what the adult education pipeline dashboard drilldowns are meant to do for you.

Next slide, please. We also have the CAEP fact sheet, which offers some different perspectives and leads you to think more about who you serve in comparison to your larger consortium community. And you can see on the examples on the slide of questions that this data can prompt. And I was just curious, as you look at those, are there other questions that you ask using this data?

Rick Abare: Hi. I have one if I can jump in.

Blaire Toso: Please.

Rick Abare: Is my region still my region two years of pandemic later? And is there any way to-- it's so hard ACS data normally pretty good. Do a pandemic for two years, and go, aah. So that's what I ask myself first and foremost.

Blaire Toso: Thank you, Rick. And I like your sound effects too. That's kind of what goes through my head. When I ask questions as well, right-- aah. And that's-- I think so many people are looking at data with that lens to say, oh, what may have been an equity issue prior to COVID is now very different or amplified. Does anyone else have another question they'd like to add?

I'll go ahead and move forward because we'll have lots of opportunities to ask questions and maybe add to those questions as we move through some of the equity walk pieces.

Next slide, please. So on this tab of the CAEP fact sheet is, it provides you overview data that can signal where you might want to dig deeper. For example, why are you serving your white students or 20- to 24-year-olds in comparison to the general population? These are probably-- you can possibly easily answer these. You'll know. You'll have that sense.

But by looking at these and other population characteristics, you may also want to think about, I might be working on a presumption and missing some opportunities. And dig into some of the differences and maybe drill down into some different population characteristics to crosswalk to answer those questions.

Next slide. For transitions-- we have intentionally put out a breakout slide for transitions, as it offers a holistic view of transitions that might help you look at across categories as opposed to just a single-shot view, such as by melding age and ethnicity and race, you can ask, what's the age breakdown within the Black or African population? And how does that relate to the different types of transitions-- CTE or non developmental college courses.

So really drilling down and parsing out that data-- and this won't necessarily do it, but it will offer you a place to go, hm? And then, say, dig in deeper into your institutional or consortium data and look at those-- the way that these interweave across different data points.

Next slide, please. And then, labor market data also provides rich opportunities to identify growing occupations. And then crosswalk those occupations to your adult learners, and maybe even investigate, which are the occupations they're entering? And are there additional opportunities for you to provide programming that supports learners to enter jobs maybe with a higher living wage or be able to scaffold those things.

And we'd like to always point out to be sure to check the cost-of-living adjustment which is in that lower tier of the 10 fastest growing occupations on the right-hand side because that allows us to better understand if the wage is actually a good wage for your county and for your learners and for jobs that you're targeting.

Slide, please. And lastly, I'd like to point to one more resource data tool that we offer, which is the California Regional Education to Workforce Dashboard. It is live right now, but we are also working on an updated version, which will be launched at the beginning of June.

And I'd like to have a shout out to all of you who provided us with updated course data. That really helps to provide you with data that is relevant to the here and now. So many thanks to all of you who were able to provide us that information for the courses in your consortium.

So this Dashboard allows you to crosswalk your educational offerings to job openings in your region. And it helps you to identify jobs. Again, you can also identify those by the living wage potential and by level of education. And we use this to identify opportunities for pathways or to fill in gaps for educational offerings to support a scaffolded pathway to relevant and in-demand occupations.

So this is my quick overview of our data tools. If this is new to some of you, feel free to reach out to us, and we'll do a little bit more of a walkthrough. Or before I hand it over to Jessica, to pause and ask if anyone has questions or comments, examples, of how you either-- that you have about these tools or that you've used these data tools for planning or equity initiatives.

All right, hearing none and seeing none in the chat, I'm going to hand it over to my colleague, Jessica.

Jessica Keach: Thanks, Blaire, for sharing those resources. And I see we don't really have a super chatty group yet. But I'm hoping to engage you all a little bit more as we talk and dive into a discussion around equity. And as we transition to this discussion, please feel free to turn your cameras on. But also know that we encourage participation in whatever format is accessible to you, whether that be through the chat or sharing your voice, regardless of whether or not you're in a space that allows you to share video.

Conversation that we're going to have is going to help situate us for the data equity walk that I'll be going through later in the training. And I'm hoping that we'll find some commonality around why we're here, why we work in adult education, and our hopes for adult learners. I want to acknowledge that, at times, conversations around equity can be unfamiliar or uncomfortable.

But because we've all opted in to being here today, I know that this group is ready to step outside of our comfort zones. And ultimately, the goal is just to be able to learn from one another and walk away with a better understanding of strategies and tools that can be used to facilitate conversations around data and equity outside of this space.

Next slide, please. OK, I want to start off by sharing our mindset as we engage in this discussion, particularly, as it relates to discussing data or observations that you may have in the field. As we reflect, I really encourage us to remind ourselves to frame our thoughts and our inquiry around the systems and programs that exist to serve adult learners.

It's important to remind ourselves not to attribute data to the intrinsic qualities of people or groups. And ultimately, we want to stay away from statements and making generalizations about the motivations of students and people.

Is there anything that-- oh, back one, one more slide. Is there anything that anyone wants to add before we jump into our group discussion? Perhaps, are there any tips or tools you found helpful in talking about equity, any ground rules that you'd like to share?

All right, so I'll share a tool that I found helpful. And it's the oops/ouch technique. So part of having conversations around equity is really messing up. So this is inevitable, no matter how experienced you are. So if you say something that didn't come out as you expected or something that perhaps may be hurtful and you recognized it. You can say oops to acknowledge it and then try again.

Alternatively, if someone says something that is hurtful or something that you view is harmful in any way, you're able to say ouch, and then the group knows that there's something that we need to pause and have a discussion around. I really don't expect this to come up based on the structure and content of today's training. But this protocol has been helpful in my experience. And hopefully it'll be a good tool for you to use moving forward as you facilitate conversations on your campuses.

All right, next slide. OK, so has anyone seen this graphic before? Let me open my participants so I can see you all. Give me a thumbs-up. OK, great I see Rick has seen this graphic before or something similar. Has anyone else seen something like this, something similar? Carrie, it looks like you have, Marina, Corlei-- I hope I'm saying that right. Great, great. Awesome.

So several of you have seen something like this, but some of you haven't. Is there anything that anyone wants to share in what they notice around any of these graphics or what they see?

OK, I know it can be difficult to be the first one to share. So I'll just start by sharing a little bit about the intent of these graphics, which I pulled from George Washington University's online public health resources page. So in these visualizations, the tree represents a system. So in our case, that would be the adult education system, but it could also be health care, affordable and healthy foods, higher education, or K-12, a host of other systems as well.

So on the left, you can see two folks that have unequal access to a particular system, which is represented by that tree that provides fruit. You can also see that the tree is kind of curving to the left. And while a tree may naturally curve in nature, it's really important for us to recognize that our systems are human-made.

So you may have heard the quote, which is something that really resonates with me, "Every system is perfectly designed to get the results that it gets." So our systems have often been a certain way for so long that, while outcomes may appear unintentional, they're actually often rooted in deeply discriminatory practices and beliefs. So that's the left.

The second visualization attempts to solve the inequality through equal access to resources. But the person on the left didn't need a ladder to access the fruits of the tree, and the person on the right didn't get a ladder that was tall enough to reach the fruit. So that's equality, equal access to resources, which is represented by the ladder.

Equity is represented in the third visualization where the two folks are provided with specific or specialized ladders or resources that they need to reach the fruits of the apple tree, really to benefit from what the system has to offer. And while equity is a solution for addressing unequal systems, justice-- or I've also seen this last graphic referred to as liberation-- can take equity one step further by fixing systems in a way that leads to long-term sustainable, equitable access.

So this last picture it's the long game. And we can see that the tree has been permanently adjusted so that each individual has equal access with the same size ladder. All right, I'm going to move into the next slide. And this one really requires participation or we're going to have trouble. So we're going to jump into our group discussion.

And we have a few question prompts that are going to help us kind of get to know one another and come up with some different ideas of what equity means in adult education and what hopes we all have for students. So how many of you-- I'm going to ask for a thumbs up or raised hand or one of those little signs that does this. How many of you are familiar with Jamboards?

Yes, OK, also, I see some people-- great, several hands. So for those of you who aren't familiar, Jamboards are like virtual whiteboards. So I'm going to provide a link to a Jamboard in the chat. I'm going to ask you to open the Jamboard. Let's see, if I can get this. Ask you to open the Jamboard. And follow along with Ayanna as she leads us through three questions.

So for each question, you can add sticky notes to the board. You will also already see a few sticky notes in there that I've pre-populated based on my own experiences. So I am going to walk us through three slides that correspond with the three questions in the first three slides of the Jamboard. And add your stickies. Pop your stickies on there. Are there any questions about the process before I turn it over to Ayanna? OK.

Ayanna Smith: Thank you, Jessica. So what I'd like to do is have us go through each question one at a time. So starting with that very first Jamboard that you have open, why do you work in education, and adult education? So I'll give you guys about a minute to populate your stickies into that Jamboard. And then we'll bring it back together and discuss what everyone put and give you an opportunity to share with the group.

OK. I'm seeing a lot of really great responses. Thank you all so much for sharing. Would anyone like to expand or share out vocally what they put in onto the Jamboard? I see a lot of people talking about their family. And that's kind of a motivator for them. I also see people talking about how much education can change lives. So would anyone like to unmute yourself and just kind of share more about why you enjoy working in adult education?

Carrie Casto: I'm happy to go.

Ayanna Smith: Thanks, Carrie.

Carrie Casto: So we talk about this at the beginning of each school year, kind of, what is our why as a school. And we see ourselves as a safety net for populations. And I put on here that we serve a variety of student populations who may not be served elsewhere.

The why is why I work in education or adult education is that, we have older adults, adults with disabilities, low income, immigrants, refugees, students who weren't able, for whatever reason, to get their high school diploma. And I don't think they have many options out there of other places to go. And that's why I think adult education is here for those student populations.

Ayanna Smith: Yeah, thanks Carrie. One that stood out to me that kind of aligns with that is the one in the middle that says, "Such a cool space to work with people who want to be in your class." So it seems like it's a population who are really looking and searching for education. And so they're happy to participate in whatever learning opportunities they can get.

Does anyone else want to share more about their sticky note and what they put or something they noticed that someone else added?

Mayra Diaz: I can share something.

Ayanna Smith: Thanks, Mayra.

Mayra Diaz: So this is probably one of my-- my favorite topics to discuss. I used to work in student equity and helping the student population. And so one of the things that I learned while working at a community college with disproportionately impacted students, I got to see who those students were in the non-credit ESL classes. And one of the biggest areas of exploration and something that stood out was just the fact that these students, it's their perseverance. It's their motivation.

They're not necessarily getting paid to be there. They don't qualify for resources, like for financial aid. And it really is just that willpower, that desire to be able to attain that education, that degree, to be able to reach that pathway for them. And so I just think that it's really fascinating to see how the work that we do has an impact on the opportunities that open up for them. So it's definitely important work to continue to do and explore.

Ayanna Smith: Thanks for sharing, Mayra. OK, we're going to go ahead to the next Jamboard slide. So if you don't have the Jamboard open, open it back up again. The next discussion question we want to answer is, what does equity in adult education mean to you?

OK, thank you all for adding in your responses to that discussion prompt. Would anyone like to share more about what they added or something they see on the screen from our peers in the webinar?

Rick Abare: I'll go if nobody else wants to jump in.

Ayanna Smith: Thanks, Rick.

Rick Abare: This is like the white hot center of what I love about adult education is, there's a consistent theme here of the individual's needs and not the system is the system, and it works for some people; it doesn't work for other people. We're always at battle with that because you can't-- we don't have the bandwidth to do every single thing for every single person.

But the fact that we're trying to start from what the student needs and not assuming that everybody's going to have the same needs means that we're going to stay pointed in the right direction. And I feel like I see that on a lot of these comments. So I just want to shout that out.

Ayanna Smith: Thank you, Rick. Yeah, a lot of the Post-its I'm seeing are about access, support. I see support a lot on everyone's responses, so there's definitely a common theme. Anyone else like to share?

Ilse Pollet: I can share as well. And kind of looking at common themes, I see access referenced multiple times on the Jamboard. And I think, when we're thinking about access, sometimes we fall into this trap of speaking to and listening to students who are already in our systems, the ones that already walk through our doors in our classrooms. So we talk about student engagements and surveys and input and our planning processes and whatnot.

And we try to do a good job of that. But I think sometimes we forget to listen to those in our community who are not yet walking through our doors and just understanding why that is and why there-- if there are barriers to even walking through our doors to understanding those as well. So it's something that's been on my mind when we're thinking about access.

Ayanna Smith: That's a really great point. Thanks for sharing that. And I think that as well as a lot of the other responses really tie in to the graphic that was shown a bit earlier, and how do we create that balance for equal access for all the different individuals that need the support?

And moving on to our final discussion question, what are equitable outcomes that you want to see in adult education? So about a minute to go ahead and add your responses here, please.

OK, great. I see a lot of responses. I like the ones where you guys are with the arrow and agreeing with other comments. That's awesome. Would anyone like to share out what they wrote or why they agreed with something someone else wrote on the Jamboard?

Jessica Keach: So I wrote the comment around student goal data. I'm a researcher, so I'm really interested in ways we can access reliable student goal data, really aligned with what's in students' hearts and then measure how they are progressing and meeting their self-defined goals. So something that I'm really interested in. And I was excited to see the stickies pointing that other folks are interested in that as well.

Ayanna Smith: Thanks, Jessica. Yeah, I think that was a really good summation of what equitable outcomes really are. So thanks for adding that one. Would anyone else like to share?

[inaudible]

Hi.

CORLEI N. PRIETO: Hi. Thank you, all, for this really great opportunity. It's really good to see all these wonderful comments and the input here. One thing that is really interesting, when-- I think our grant does a really great job at targeting these educational initiatives.

One thing that is a little bit, something that I find difficult for even the grant to address are certain wrap-around services, i.e., like child care, like transportation, things that we know can sometimes be out of the scope of this grant. And yet, I'd like to see, at least when I see this, what are some equitable outcomes, maybe even touching upon how certain partnerships can come into play with certain things.

Now, these are national problems. These are really-- these are a global problem. But for these equitable outcomes, I think we're doing a great job at least trying to identify these. But how we can incorporate to allow more mothers or fathers to attend our courses for these really cool resources that we build. So thank you.

Ayanna Smith: Yes, thank you for sharing that. Awesome. We really appreciate you all engaging with us on the Jamboard. Are there any final thoughts that anyone would like to share before we jump back into our presentation?

OK, and in that case, I believe I'm going to hand it over and stop sharing my screen, for Jessica to get us started with the data equity walk. Thank you.

Jessica Keach: All right, so I am sharing my screen. Ayanna is usually our expert at this. So give me a thumbs up if you can see my screen. All right, perfect. So thank you all so much. I feel like I could stay in that Jamboard for many more minutes to really dig through some of those comments. I appreciate folks' willingness to share and express their motivations for being in the field. It seems like we have a lot of really great connection points as we talked about that.

Next I'm going to walk us through a process that you can use at your individual campuses and institutions to facilitate conversations around data and equity. And it's called a data equity walk. On this screen, you see three guiding questions that can help you implement data-informed planning practices. So we're moving from observing and identifying a problem on the left to understanding the why behind the data and then, finally, identifying strategies to bring about change.

And for this training, like I mentioned, we're going to focus on phase one, which is the first circle. And we're going to do a modified version of a facilitation technique called the data equity walk. And this process is going to help us answer those questions, like what is the problem, what barriers exist, and for whom? So what is the data equity walk?

The data equity walk is a process, along with a customizable toolkit that was developed by Education Trust West. A full data equity walk is actually of 45- to 90-minute activity for any size audience where folks can engage with education data and discuss equity issues. So participants in a data equity walk are able to dive into the data that shows them education outcomes and exposes gaps between groups of students.

You can see the image on the right that this can be facilitating, using those large poster boards that you kind of stick on the wall. And folks actually physically walk from data point to the data point. And they add their own sticky notes, hand-- tangible sticky notes, to those slides. And they're able to reflect and record their reactions to the data and see other folks' reactions to the data as well.

So participants are able to explore the data individually before collectively discussing implications and identifying solutions. And what I love most about this process is that participation in a data equity walk does not require prior experience with data. It's actually geared towards all audiences.

So as I mentioned, we're not going to spend 45 to 90 minutes doing this. We simply don't have the time. And we're going to-- so we're going to go through an abbreviated version. And we're going to do it using our Jamboard.

So we're going to walk through four slides of data from the adult education pipeline. And as we look at data to determine inequities, I'm going to ask you to reflect in record, using the same process that you just went through, using those sticky notes. And they'll be on page four and five of the Jamboard.

So Ayanna, will you put that link back in the chat so that folks have access to it if they've closed out of it? All right, perfect. And as a reminder, and as we reflect on the data, we'll need to remember to frame our thoughts and our inquiry around systems and programs that exist to serve our adult learners.

And let's just continue to remind ourselves not to attribute data to the intrinsic qualities of people or groups. But from all of the comments that were shared so far, I don't think that we're going to have any issues. I'm really excited to walk through these slides with this group.

Are there any questions? Actually, let's go-- let me do a walk through of what you'll see in the Jamboard. So this should be the fourth page of the Jamboard, if you have it open, should look like this. And there's a quadrant for each slide. So I said I'm going to go through four slides, that's four reflections. And as I walk through the data, please add your stickies for what you notice. And it can be anything at all that you see, even if you think it's obvious. You can also add more than one sticky note per quadrant.

The next page should look like this. So this is a space for recording what else do you want to know. So what additional information do you need as you would move forward in the planning process? So as we're walking through the data, make sure to add your slides to reflect on what you see, but also what else you wish you could see more of. OK, are there any questions about the process before we begin?

OK, seeing none, I'm going to go ahead and start us off with our first slide. OK, this is reflection slide one. So this slide is showing you the overall trend in participants between 2016, '17, 2020, '21 statewide. And as a reminder, participants or students that have attained 12 or more hours of instruction in CAEP programming.

And as you all are likely aware, due to reporting challenges during COVID-impacted terms for non-credit community colleges, a coding exception has been applied. And an enrollment record is used as a proxy for that hour threshold for non-credit community college students in that 12-hour threshold. That's what I mean by that.

So the impacts of this coding exception are actually fairly muted when you look at statewide data. But I do want to point out that this data does represent a best-case scenario of CAEP participant enrollments. So on the left, you see those overall trends. On the right, what you're seeing is the change in participants by race ethnicity between 2018-'19, and 2020-'21. So that's pre-COVID and then-- well, COVID's not over yet.

So then we're calling it the COVID-impacted year. So I'm going to go ahead and just pause for a few seconds, allow you to add those sticky notes to the Jamboard, and look at the data, reflect on it, and record some things you notice. And for this activity, I'm going to walk through the slides. And then, at the end, we'll do a reflection on what we see.

OK, I see some of you have put some sticky notes in there. There's another one, keep adding. I'll give you a few more seconds, and then I'll move on to our next slide.

OK, so this is reflection slide two. This slide is showing you the overall trend in CAEP participants by program area. It's on the left. Each line represents a CAEP program area. And on the right, you can see the percentage change in participants by program area between 2018-'19 and 2020-'21 compared to the statewide change during that same time period. The statewide change is represented by that yellow line.

So for example, for the chart on the right, you would interpret it by saying, between 2018-'19 and 2020-'21, the total number of CAEP participants declined by 32%. Whereas, the number of CAEP ESL participants declined by 47%. So again, I'm going to pause, allow for time for you all to look at this data, reflect on it, and record some things you've noticed in the Jamboard.

I could just read your reflections all day long. They're so great. I think I'm going to move on to reflection slide three. And if anyone wants me to go back or there's something else you want to look at, please just feel free to jump off mute or pop it in the chat. And Blaire, Ayanna, can let me know.

All right, this is a slide three. So these four charts are showing you the decline in CAEP participants between 2018-'19 and 2020-'21 statewide by program area and race ethnicity. So for example, between 2018-'19 and 2020-'21, the number of ESL students who are Asian declined by 51%. Statewide there was a decline in ESL participants of 47%. So the yellow line represents statewide for that specific program area.

I'm going to go ahead and pause again and just allow you to look at this data, reflect on it, and record some things you notice in quadrant three of the Jamboard.

All right, it seems like every time I think about moving on, another sticky note pops up. So I want to make sure everyone has had time to digest this. I know this slide has a lot of data on it. I'll give you just a few more seconds, then we'll move to our last reflection slide.

OK, since our last reflection slide, this is an outcome slide. So previously, we were looking at participant enrollment. Now we're looking at the number of students that earned a high school diploma, GED, or high school equivalency. In 2018-'19 compared to 2020-'21 by race and ethnicity.

So for example, between 2018-'19 2020-'21, the number of Asian students attaining this particular outcome declined by more than half. And again, the yellow line is the comparison to the state. I'll pause again, allow you to look at the data, reflect on it, and record some things you notice in the Jamboard.

And as you reflect, remember there's that slide five where you can record what else you would like to know. So you can record what you're noticing. You can really put it here too. But there's a specific dedicated space for you to just ask more questions of the data and let us know what you would want to know or further investigate after seeing this information.

OK, so just a few more seconds, and then we'll move into reviewing what you all thought and having a group discussion around it.

OK, so let's take a look at the Jamboard. I'm going to-- can't decide what's better. I'm going to keep our slides up in case we want to go back to any of the data and take a look at it. And we'll actually do that as we look at each quadrant.

So starting with reflection one, I have information up on my second screen that you can't quite see. But I'd love to know what you all think. I see some comments in here around noticing the decline in enrollment prior to the pandemic. That was something that was really interesting and stuck out to me as well. Anyone else like to share what they put or something else they saw that resonated with them for this particular slide for reflection one?

Right, I see folks resonating with the fact that the number of Asian and Hispanic participants was dropped below the average decline. So while we saw that 32% decline statewide, percentage of Asian and Hispanic participants dropped even more than that. Someone else said, Hispanic and Black or African American participants are fairly equal in their decline. So these second and third bars seem pretty close.

Let's go to reflection slide two. And I'd love to know what you all thought about this data, looking at declines and enrollment trends by program area, some great sticky notes here. Does anyone want to share what they saw or anything that resonated with them?

Blaire Toso: So if I can pop in, I just think it's a really great slide that evidence is why you dig into data. So the first thing you see when you look at this is ESL. And then, when you look at the bar graph, you can also see where the-- really, where your child's school success is really impacted through this period.

And it just makes the point that, depending on what you're looking at or what you're looking for, that may be want to dig in and look at things in a couple of different ways to amplify your perception of what might be important to explore.

Ilse Pollet: I'd be interested in digging deeper into ESL and into the different ESL levels. Like is it equally-- is the drop equally distributed across ESL levels, or were the lower-level students more impacted than the higher-level ESL students?

Jessica Keach: Yeah, that's a great point. We see these huge declines, but disaggregating even further within a program area, were some spaces harder hit? Saw Ivan come off mute. If I'm pronouncing that correctly.

Ivan: Yeah, I was also trying to get on camera, but it's not working. So sorry about that. But I was also curious with ESL because there is a certain line of logic that might say, OK, so during the pandemic, you might have expected more people into ESL because ESL is a pathway to jobs or because people were losing jobs and perhaps English might help them to get other jobs. So I was a little surprised, not only that it went down, but it went down so much more compared to the others.

Jessica Keach: Yeah, that's a great point. So looking at this data really challenged your assumptions around what you thought would happen or what you might have expected to happen. And then the data is showing something different. I was surprised to see such a high decline in ESL, but not in ASE. There's still a 17% decline, but that was something that I found interesting.

Mayra Diaz: One of the things that I wanted to add to that was also, surprised but not surprised with the ESL population because I think, when everything got shut down, depending on the demographics or who these individuals were, as like the schools got shut down, and so a lot of these individuals, if they were parents, if they had children at home, that just kind of ties into something that was brought up earlier about the services that we also offer, tying that in.

And so who is this ESL population? Were the parents that had to stay home and educate their kids? Or I don't know. It would be interesting to see further, dive deep into who these this population was. Was it those adults that had children that had to give that up to be able to help educate their kids at home? So that would be interesting data to see.

Jessica Keach: Yeah.

Blaire Toso: I'm going to-- because just these questions are coming up, and there is a little bit of national data on this-- and so the parental aspect of that impacted populations across the board. What they're finding for the ESL population-- and again, it's very contextual. So digging into your own institutional data is really important.

But the national trend evidence is that it-- I think it also, was it you who was asking about the levels of ESL, that the lower levels of ESL were much more greatly impacted because of being able to access the virtual environment and then as well learn on a virtual environment, that it was very difficult for people to negotiate. And so that's what they are finding from the survey work that's being done on the national level. That appears to be what's at issue there as well as some of those other services that you're talking about, Mayra.

And then, in addition to that, if you think about the immigrant environment, that it compounded the way people felt about going out and seeing their communities impacted by the immigrant climate as well as seeing-- being aware of the heavy impact that COVID was having on their own community as far as coming in contact with it and suffering from losses from that community.

Jessica Keach: That's really great information, Blaire. And it's a great example of how data, the high-level data, can really prompt you to ask deeper questions and then follow up with other methods of data collection, like surveys and interviews with folks that are in these programs.

All right, so reflection slide three-- let's take a look at the Jamboard. And is there anyone who'd like to share what they noticed here or source a sticky note that they resonated with? There's one that says, I want to know more. Me too. As I was pulling this data, I could just do this forever. I could keep going.

Someone said it seems that communities of color were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic across all service areas. So someone noticed that in the data. More comments around ESL. What I noticed that was particular that just kind of popped out to me when I first saw this data was that the declines were Black or African American adult learners for ABE as well as for ASE were much higher than the state declines.

I saw a bigger difference between the blue bar and the yellow line for those two particular charts. And then, again, I think there's some comments on here really seeing the decline in students who identify as Asian in several of these program areas, rising to the top.

Let's just briefly talk about our last slide. This was our outcome slide. So we looked a lot at declines on the number of participants. This is looking at the declines in outcomes. So did anyone see anything here that really stood out to them, or what was surprising as well? We're almost through it. We only have a couple more slides.

I knew if I had been silent long enough.

CORLEI N. PRIETO: I have to tell you, these slides are-- all of these data, the way the presentation of each one and how they're visual-- the visuals are very different. The feelings and just looking at this slide, particular, I can't get over the drop, the radical-- I mean, close to 50% statewide, but also, I was looking at Hispanic, that drop, the radical drop there, or just across the board actually. It's pretty astonishing.

And one thing, for all of these slides, I still can't get over how low the numbers are for Native American and the Pacific Islander, across the board. And that's even before pandemic. Now, before the 2018-'19. So knowing that this is still in-- these populations are still incorporated in and included in the options or these that are specified here. It's much appreciated. It's pretty shocking, actually. Yeah.

Jessica Keach: It is. Sometimes we can get caught up in looking at-- our largest groups are seeing our biggest declines. And sometimes when you just take a step back and look at representation in outcomes, some of those smaller numbers really just kind of hit you like a truck. Right, wow. It's really small number of students that we're serving in that particular group overall, even before the pandemic.

CORLEI N. PRIETO: And not as much drops, though, which is interesting versus those that with the higher numbers.

Jessica Keach: Yeah.

Blaire Toso: Which I think is honestly an interesting conversation because-- sorry, I'm like Jessica. This is really fascinating to me. And I want to know more is actually my sticker because I just want to know what's going on there. And I just think that it's a really interesting conversation because you can also look at that combination of stats as saying, this population really deserves some attention because their success levels-- there's potential for really strong success within these.

So when you're looking at successes and data that looks like it's successful, it's not just the place to stop, but to really dig into that because that might offer you a great deal of potential of your local population and being able to serve them better.

Jessica Keach: Thanks, Blaire, yeah. What stood out to me-- oh was someone else going to say something? No? OK. What stood out to me was thinking back to the decline in the number of participants in ASE compared to this particular slide. So ASE was on the right, decline of about 17% during this time period. But our outcomes-- so for those who were obtaining diploma, GED, or high school equivalency dropped by a little more than 40% statewide.

So is there something going on where maybe we're not losing as many participants, but, what's going on with the number of hours they're engaging, the total number of hours they're engaging and looking at progress along the way and advancing towards their goals?

So it's not just about the number of students that get that 12 or more hours in ASE. But did they get enough hours or engage enough to meet this outcome? So it would be really interesting. And I know you all have access to those reports through your institutional data or your TOPSPro enterprise information to look at hours of engagement as well. So that's something that stood out to me.

I'm going to just briefly look at our, what else do you want to know, slide. So let me take a look. And I'm happy for anyone to come off mute and share anything that they really thought, this is exactly what I want to know next. Let's see. Someone said they'd love to see data based on age as well. And I agree. I think, looking at this data by age as well as gender-- were there particular genders more impacted?