[music playing]

Speaker: OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Martha Mendez: Good afternoon. We are the Valley girls. We're the two-side, one-project team from Apple Valley Adult School and Victor Valley College, joined together in sacred partnership by AB86. And we want to share with you our endeavors and pilot program.

So I am Martha Mendez. I'm the adult education regional consortia manager. And I'm not sure why this isn't advancing. When something like this happens, Adele has to move away from the technology. And then it sometimes starts working. There we go.

Audience: The theory has been proven.

Martha Mendez: I'm Martha Mendez. I'm the adult education regional consortia manager for our area. And I'm also the grant manager over the WIOA grant for Victor Valley College overseeing the components that have to do with the grant for ESL and GED as well. And our team consists of-- we've lost one team member. She's been promoted.

Lilia Guerra was with us previously. And today we have Rebecca Monjaraz. She joined us in January. And our offsite team consists of Jessica Bernardo. She's our ESL and GED counselor, adult ed counselor, and Cheyenne Laguna who is our CASAS testing coordinator.

And we also have our dean who oversees our division. Her name is Dr. Tarango. She's been promoted to associate VP as well and has been very supportive of our endeavors and comes from adult education. So something we're really proud of having that support.

Adele McClain: And now I'll take over. My name is Adele McClain. And I'm from Apple Valley Adult School. I have a magnetic personality that tends to work on computers in a not-so-great way.

I want to tell you who I have here with me, Claudia Escobar, my office coordinator, and Melina Mezada, who is my admin clerk, too, and also our student success story of the year--

[applause]

--from OTAN. Thank you. The reason that I chose office staff to bring on this endeavor with me is that we want to change systems. We want to change forms. If we really want to make those kinds of changes, you need people who work with those systems and forms. And I know that's a unique way of looking at it. But I think we've done some tremendous work already so far this year.

I also did not want to forget to thank. We have Christina Hiatt, who's an amazing support person. She has made us meet every week. We started with 10 minutes. We've been putting in a half hour, sometimes two hours, because what we're dedicated to is something much bigger than us, that I hope will last for the next decade at least of change.

I also want to thank Dr. Zachary and Dr. Rubidus for encouraging me to apply for this unique situation to OTAN. I just can't thank OTAN enough for their help in this project.

Martha Mendez: All right, guys. So I just wanted to introduce what made us and how I got here, my diploma. We do offer construction and EKG 12 lead. We also do graphics. And those three are actually articulated with Victor Valley College. Those are our CTEs.

We also have this beautiful lab and our graphics, which we're not promoting right now, but we are. And I wanted to show you our beautiful, new, updated campus. We actually got two computer labs. We also have two carts with Chromebooks. And those were COVID-funded, please.

[laughter]

Let's make that straight. But we were able to update a lot of our rooms. And we're really proud of what we're accomplishing right here with our rooms. And we're able to provide to our students for a better education.

Adele McClain: So these are some of the numbers from Apple Valley Adult School and numbers that matter for me. First of all, I want to say that I'm considered a rural adult school. They do a rural classification because I have people that travel a really long distance to get there.

And let's see. I have right now 530 unduplicated students served this year so far. In the past, we have received three promising practice awards, one on a transitional educational plan. Our regional graduation actually made national news with COABE. And then our E&E surveys, last year we actually had 100%. This year we're only at 83.

But we also have done many presentations on how other agencies can improve their E&E surveys using our strategies. Let's see. I have four adult education credentialed teachers. Only one is full time. But several of my staff have applied for it during the pandemic to get an actual adult education credential on top of either their single-subject or multiple-subject credentials.

And my lead teacher that I hired full time, actually, will be graduating with her TESOL master's this Saturday, tomorrow. The ESL teacher for VVC is one of my former high school graduates. And she graduated from VVC as valedictorian. We have the highest graduation rate regionally. And we have the lowest per pupil cost.

This is from the past, basically, year and a half. We have 53 certificates. But each one of those, the student received three college credits and 10 high school credits at the same time. We hopped on two articulated courses, already offered by our high school. This makes it easy for me to find teachers for those positions.

I also wanted to add in here a thought I had with your presentations today, that if you're looking for credential teachers for health care, and your school has applied for a community schools grant, they're going to be increasing the number of nurses. There's your teachers. Next slide. I believe, it's now Ms. Martha Mendez.

Martha Mendez: So I just want to take a step back because I stood up in front of you guys. And you're such amazing professionals that I forgot to mention that Rebecca Monjaraz is our transition counselor, who's been with us since 2019. She's our transition counselor for our region. She's helped over 400 students, worked on them in one-on-one appointments and in group settings. But she's also CCAE award recipient of the year.

[applause]

So I wanted to mention that because what she does is so important and crucial to what we do, which is why we brought her in. And with that-- I mean, she works primarily with our transition students. But because our goal is to transition students from a level 1 and 2 ESL to the college system, that's why it was so important to have her with us.

So in terms of Victor Valley College, just to give you the context, we are a small-sized college. We received over 10,000 FTSs. Our unduplicated enrollment is 17,000. But I think some of the really significant things that you're not seeing up here is that in 2012 we were on the verge of losing our accreditation.

And I think that's significant because we had a new superintendent who was president when we started AB86. And his number one charge to us was build the relationships, nothing else matters, because at that point our relationship with our community was not where it needed to be. And I say that because we're in a completely different place now. So he retired in 2019 or 2018.

And then we had another superintendent, Dr. Walden, whose charge was excellence, in developing excellence, and doing things with purpose, and very supportive of our consortia work. So where we're at now is we're ranked among the top 10 for our student outcomes, which is amazing. We didn't think we were going to be even close to these outcomes.

We were also just recently, as of yesterday, awarded excellence and equitable course placement in math for our college. So among 56 colleges, we were top. So for us, this is like, really? Like, us?

If you're thinking about 10 years ago and where we're at now. But most importantly is the ability and the place and the space to partner with our community. So we're really proud of that work and the support that we receive from our leadership.

So that gives you the context of why we're doing what we do. Victor Valley ESL, I mean, Victor Valley College serves a region of 1,700. That's square miles. When we say we have a vast region, and this is why partnership is so important. Basically, this is giving you the overview. It's off of the 15 freeway on your way to Vegas. That's where we're at.

And so VVC is the larger red star. And we only offer ESL courses on the star that's that way at one point, just there. And so Apple Valley was this area that needed a service. That's how we identified that we needed to partner to do this.

We have three satellite locations. We offer classes now at Apple Valley as of a year ago, Hesperia and on our main campus as well. And we're expanding to include Victor Elementary School District. We're partnering with other agencies in the area that have requested our courses as well because it's the only way to reach the community.

So in terms of adult ed programs, the pandemic really affected our enrollment, I mean, very severely. We were down to less than 40 students. And honestly, could I really say that we had 40 active students? Probably not. It was very sad because it was difficult. The digital divide was very evident.

And we tried to do things where they would come in and do drive-through training and drive-through help desk. We gave away-- not give away, we assigned the books. We didn't get them all back. But where we're at now, we have 219 for spring, almost 300 for the year that we served.

That's unduplicated enrollment from where we were at in the pandemic. We started a GED class a year ago. We started with, I don't know, 10, 11 students. And now we have 33. We also now have these non-credit programs. And we do dual enrollment, which Rebecca does a wonderful job in assisting those students.

We offer all of these levels of ESL courses. Something new for us that came as a result of our partnership, where we were able to identify the need for synchronous, asynchronous, hybrid courses. So all of our CORs went back to curriculum. And they're being they have been approved for hybrid.

And come the fall, we'll have them CDCP-approved, so that we're able to offer those certificates to our students as well as additional basic computer skills courses. And we're still working on vocational, so we're not there yet. And passing it on.

Rebecca Monjaraz: So my role as the transition counselor, kind of like an umbrella. That's what I had put in my notes. So it's funny that the group before me described it as umbrella. So the student population, I serve several students. I need to know what category they're in.

But essentially, sometimes they all will start off in one category and then transition into a different pathway. So students who have graduated with high school diploma, GED, they want to start college. So I'll meet with them help with their transition. Or students who are still working towards high school diploma, GED, but they want to start college courses now, well, let's do dual enrollment. Or students who are ESL, we can get them started. We offer levels 1 through 6.

But then undocumented students as well. Sometimes I'll get students, and they're undocumented, but they want to do something. They want to better their lives for themselves and for their family. And so I say, OK, let's start with ESL. So we start with the ESL non-credit. They work their way. And then now they have their English skills. So OK, let's get into the high school diploma program.

They're working towards high school diploma. And then we do the dual enrollment. And they're getting that college credit. And then that leads into them being able to qualify for AB540. So now their status changes to a California resident, meeting the requirements. And now they can apply to the DREAM Act.

So there's all these little awesome details that, I think, is just super impactful. So I meet with students at each of the five adult schools. And I offer to meet with them there or at our campus at the college. And I will do group meetings or individual appointments.

So the goal is basically matriculation, so the steps to enrollment and then connecting students with the student-support programs that are available at the college. And ultimately, helping and navigating what their goal is. What is their personal academic career goal? Each student is different. So it always varies in what the plan is going to be. But, ultimately, helping them in what their goal is.

Claudia Escobar: So that was a great introduction. Great team. I'm going to talk about the why we're here. And for those in Zoom, that was our first project right here. And if you saw, very artistic. I took an art class for that.

[laughter]

Obviously, it was from kindergarten. That is our why. That's what we thought this group was going to be. Two roads meet in the middle and going on from there. Unfortunately, if you have Siri, Google Maps, you get rerouted every 10 minutes. Right, Christina?

So this is where we're at now. This has been a process. We went from a Y to an H to a left to a right, turn around, make a U-turn. We've been everywhere, trying to figure out how two separate teams can make this work for one community.

And that's why we're here. We had to partner up. Like Martha was saying, we're in a rural area. You saw the little stars, the big star. It's a lot of area to cover. And really, when we say rural, that means people are not driving. Buses that pass every hour. So if you miss it, you're going to wait another hour.

So we need to make sure that our locations, VVC locations, were where they needed to be. So we were partnering because we needed them. And they needed us. I know. But our district was really hit with the pandemic, not only VVC, CSL. Our district pretty much lost our ESL community.

And that was sad because it was COVID. They're not coming. They're not computer savvy. So how do we help them? So this row has also been a little bit about trying to get them back to our community. So we needed to do that. We needed to see what we were not funding or what we were not reaching based on funding needs.

We needed to expand our CTE. We had ideas. We had the passion to do it. But we needed more help. And it's OK to ask for help. And sometimes we forget that. We had that in our CIP plan to be able to track our transition. Miss Rebecca has been doing a great job with that.

We were trying. I think we had like a little Excel and calling students. Hey, did you make it to the college or not? It's not easy like that. So they were able to help us do that, too. But this was going to be where we were going to come together, right here, and really make this partnership work. Not for us, I mean, we were getting the benefit because we were getting the extra help. But really, we were meeting that need in our community.

Martha Mendez: I think go back one. I had a couple of notes to add to that. Thank you, Claudia, for explaining that. I think, also, we just really need, because of the vastness of our region, we needed to meet our students there. And she's absolutely right that we needed the enrollment as well. We needed to reach the students.

And we were able to fund that out of general funds. But the other thing that we really needed to do was introduce our new onboarding ESL faculty to a different environment that was going to be supportive. And because we operate in three different sites, the truth is, community college can be rather impersonal at times for new faculty.

So partnering with Apple Valley, if you don't know you, you become family. And so you're always offered a cup of coffee. We walk in like if they're our family. And we knew that our ESL faculty coming in were going to feel the same type of warm welcome. And our students would as well.

So the intent was to create that environment and start front-loading with, this is how we do things. And so whoever is onboarding is receiving that type of support. And do you need copies? And do you need this? Because it's not always available at other sites, unfortunately. We do the best that we can.

But that's the other truth. I'm just being very sincere with that part here. But we wanted to examine operations. We wanted to provide that environment. And then, of course, the low attendance-- and one remarkable thing about this is that our attendance has just been so much better for that.

And our students also receive bus passes, free bus passes for being VVC ESL students. They receive bus passes. So that's also empowering and allows them another access to another resource and counseling and supportive services that are at our main campus. We're trying to bring those over. But we're not there yet.

Claudia Escobar: So remember the why. We're here with the why. We got here because of a why. But we don't know what to do, how to do it, or where we were going, right? So they had me think about this because, I guess, I was the most passionate one. I guess, I shared it. Every time I went back to office, guys, I have new ideas.

I'm pretty sure they wanted to put me in a room. It's like, hush, already, girl. But how did come here? Ideal 101, how to be like everything help us to make these goals, to make these ideas, dreams that we wanted to do. I heard everybody, team building.

Everybody thinks because we're in the school, oh, you guys are great at team building. Oh, no. No. No, sometimes it's even harder. I thought we were great. And I tell people when they come into our school, we're a family here. I'm usually the crazy aunt. But we're our family.

But it doesn't mean sometimes we work well as a team. All our personalities sometimes clash, or our ideas. Or sometimes we don't have grace with each other, I think. So coming here-- and I'm telling you, that first class I saw Adele, who I love, in a whole new light. I was like, I've been coming at this all wrong.

And that was good. I think all of us had an awakening moment like, basement, balcony, where am I at? And really learning something not only to help the team, but for ourselves. The Gallup training. I just extended mine. I got the whole shebang. So I was very interested in that.

But it was good because we did use it to see, OK, what are our strong points? But also, OK, this is a weakness here. But how can we bring that up? How can that weakness be our strength? Because I learned that, too.

Martha Mendez: I think we use it in assigning the roles, too. So some of those tasks, we absolutely have looked at the strengths. We know, for instance, like Rebecca, Claudia, and Lilia, who's been promoted, have handled some of those tasks that require structure and bringing the technical pieces together because that's their strength.

Adele McClain: We drive structure people crazy.

Martha Mendez: Yes. So we're like, yes, we can do it.

Adele McClain: We're great dreamers.

Martha Mendez: And they're focused. You can't do the 20 things you want to do. It's going to have to be this big. And that really helped us narrow our focus.

Claudia Escobar: They will learn, we say. They will learn. Narrow our focus, really getting a site plan going. When you're a small school, sometimes I felt, at times, hey, we're just going in the road. And we're going to figure it out somehow. There's no real roadmap. We'll just go and see where we end.

But this does help to structure everything and organize what we're trying to do. And we need that. And it helped our school to learn our value, too. Apple Valley Adult School, we had this talk in the office once. We can't treat like-- oh, that's their program. And this is ours because then there was not this welcoming, because we didn't want them to be, oh, no, that's a VVC class. So we don't help them. No, no.

It's to work together. So that was something we had to, actually, figure out in our office staff kind of thing. No, no, no, we're here. This is our community. We're going to all-- all hands on deck.

Martha Mendez: [ INAUDIBLE ] figuring it out and communicating it to us. Because at first, I think there was a little apprehension. Adele was the buffer and said, I feel as though this is-- and I said, well, the reason we can't do that is because I have to go through three people to do this paper process. It's add hoc. And they're like, oh.

So I'm like, you know what? Let's go on a tour. And let me introduce you to our process and what we have to do.

Claudia Escobar: And we will see that in a couple slides what they did to help us feel a little more comfortable. I think we were talking about yesterday. Like, what do we do when we feel like that? You listen to what the other person is trying to tell you. They're not being off on you.

It's just they're either scared. They're either confused. They really don't understand. But if you take the time to listen and see, OK, I hear what you're saying. Let me see how I can help you get here. And they did that. And I appreciate that.

Things we learned, like I said, team building. Handling the conflicts here because there were, like I said, it's two separate schools, two separate rules, contracts. Sometimes we forget that, yeah, Martha has to go through three people to get to the person she wants. I go to Adele. And she finds whoever she needs to go to. And that was it. And we needed to remember that.

Communication skills, something so small could create such a big problem sometimes. But it was very important. We needed to work like, hey, you guys got to send an email, or let us know who's coming. And we're seeing the difference that small, little skill has made to actually help the students.

And, of course, using and encouraging our strength. We forget to do that. Honestly, I think even as adults, we just forget to, hey, you're doing a great job. Hey, that was a great idea. It doesn't take much. But it does help get the team going and getting that push because sometimes we become tired.

We become discouraged. We look at our students like, the numbers that we're seeing like, well, that's a sad number. You do get there. But you know what? If we encourage each other, we get back up and keep on going. So we're going to talk about those accomplishments.

Martha Mendez: So just in summary, we have served at Apple Valley Adult School over 200 ESL students since spring of 2022. We started with one class that filled up in 10 days, I think, roughly, maybe less. And it was one of those things where we went to Dr. Torango. And I said, we would like to do this.

And it broke the mold because we had to follow a different model for creating a schedule outside of what the normal scheduling system is for a community college. And then it filled up right away. So initially, we were like, we're going to offer level two and three. Apple's going to do level 1.

But the truth is that Apple said, we just really need a level one right now. And then we will gladly work with you to do the level one, eventually. But right now, let's start. And so we said, OK, let's do that. And then we realized we had filled up.

So next semester we offered two in fall. We're doing three now. And for fall, we're offering four sections. And these classes exceed capacity at the teacher's discretion in many cases and/or they're at capacity. And those are usually 25 students in a class. So really exciting.

These are some pictures from our celebration at Apple Valley. So we had our administration attend, as well as Apple Valley. And then some of our wins, just as a direct result of our partnership. We went on this tour. And it allowed other staff at the college to learn about the work that we're doing.

So it's highlighting our consortia work and also our partnership work. And they have an understanding of adult education and the different things that we do, not just in the realm of the ESL program. We have a brand new facility. So they went in. We introduced them to everyone, all of the key staff, everyone who processes our paper applications and whatnot.

In terms of our ESL classes, our ESL attendance and persistence rate are drastically different from those at other sites. So for us that's a huge win. We have 25 students attending consistently at Apple Valley versus what we have in other locations. And we know that it has to do with the team and supportive approach.

We've also, because of the work that we're doing together, our dean invited us to participate in a promotional video that they're putting together for other programs, like CTE, nursing, fire. And she said, I think that you guys should do something because you're doing great work with what you're doing in Apple Valley.

And would you like to? And I said, yes. I was already working with the same vendor without even knowing. So it just worked out. We went on site, recorded a video at Apple Valley Adult School, interviewed our students in various languages. And so we wanted to have that to show to you today. But we will have it for the next round.

Our non-credit application has been revised as a result of our partnership. It's one of those things that surfaced, while we were enrolling students. It's a barrier. It asks for residency status. And it's not something that is-- it's not helping. It's a barrier to enrollment. So we removed that.

But I really had to go to our entire leadership team. I had to take it to cabinet. There was a process. It wasn't just, hey, could you just remove this? And so as a result of that, we're launching a non-credit application come July and something that they call superglue, because I stated to our team that we need to do what we call a one-and-done registration system.

Because if our students leave, then we lose that opportunity to engage them and onboard them. So timing is really crucial. So what our college is doing now is offering that. And at that point, we will go back and crosstrain and say, this is how we're going to onboard our students who walk through this door and how we as a team are going to provide support.

We've improved faculty engagement. As we had mentioned, we have this stellar ESL teacher that I was able to work with our dean to hire and bring on. And she was an Apple Valley Adult School student, VVC valedictorian, amazing student at the university, and is now teaching which is, I mean, just awesome for us.

So those are the wins for our team. Our communication has improved tremendously. And we've been able to overcome challenges and heal from them a little bit. And we're better for it, definitely. And here we go.

Rebecca Monjaraz: So part of our site plan is providing orientation. And this was going to be at the Adult School. And eventually, we also want to incorporate it as Zoom, where students can log in to the orientation virtually.

Martha Mendez: So that was one of our accomplishments in the sense that that's the focus of our program or a project for DLAC. We thought we would start off with a bunch of different things. But it led into resolving the non-credit application. We now have a digital registration form that we didn't have before.

But we really needed an orientation specific for our population. What we have now is one orientation for the college community, which includes everything, from financial aid and things that don't necessarily apply to our population. And so that's how we got into this plan of, we need an orientation because students don't know that they're both Apple Valley and Victor Valley College students.

How do they get their student ID? What other CTE courses are available to them? And that's why we did the orientation that Rebecca is going to speak to. Another awesome thing is, I was able to go to ASB and said, we need cultural events because our students don't ever see themselves on campus.

So for the first event that I was able to host in partnership with our ASB was Dia de Los Muertos Dia. And it was the first time we had an event that featured mariachi in that sense. We did have one graduation. But it was really neat to bring that. And our ESL students were able to come and participate.

And then Cinco de Mayo, like a week before, our president said, what are we doing for Cinco de Mayo? And I'm like, we can do something. So ASB, again, comes to the rescue. And this picture in the middle is with our ESL students from Apple Valley. So just to demonstrate the engagement and how welcome they feel, it was their first time stepping on our campus.

So really awesome to be able to invite them to come to a celebration and a party. They danced for three hours straight. And we were all in the middle. And so it was really a wonderful celebration and way to make them feel welcome. So now they know, oh, that's the building where you go get your student ID.

And we had information about the courses that we offer. But it was different. It was a celebration. We also have-- it's actually today, Asian-American and Pacific Islander Cultural Festival. We shared that information with Apple Valley as well and all of our sites ESL school programs outside of the college campus.

So celebrations, we're also hosting in the upcoming year an ESL celebration for our community. We're bringing them out on campus, inviting their families. And we're going to issue their certificates for the level one, level two, and level three. Our superintendent will come. And we'll probably have a guest speaker.

In the past, we've had a business owner that owns the Edible Arrangements. And he was an ESL student. So we're just excited to do things like that for our community.

Rebecca Monjaraz: I just think one of the main things for orientation-- our goal, our mission is to serve our students and to make sure that they feel welcomed. And so with that orientation, I think that it really does speak to that. And making it simple, so apply, orientation, and assessment, registration. That's your matriculation.

And then during the orientation showing how-to videos, but also pictures to give a visual on the building and what it looks like and what to expect when they do go visit. This is our main building. So I always say, this is an important building because this is where admissions and records is at, financial aid. All of the special support programs are located in this one building.

And then during the orientation-- starting college can be very daunting and scary and especially for students who are ESL. And so providing the computer, OK, let's log into your my VVC portal. This is how you access your student email account. This is how you request your student parking permit because if you go to campus, you don't want to get a ticket.

Or how do you get your student ID card? And you want that because you can use that as a discount throughout the community or use it as a free city bus pass. A lot of our students ride the bus for free. So have that student ID card on you. So all of these little details, making sure that they know we are here to support you and walk you through this process.

Adele McClain: So some of the things that Apple Valley had to do or what I had to go through in order to make these processes happen or behind the scenes. And I need administrators to know that. I had to go to facilities, the assistant superintendent of facilities and find out how to get the facilities-use agreement in place, get a couple directors on board, go to the cabinet, get them to lobby for me.

They, also, provide child supervision for me from the parenting center. They provide funding for this out of LCAP because they think it's worthwhile. And we provide child supervision based on a model used during the pandemic for all of the ESL classes, whether they're mine or theirs.

Apple Valley also provides a conversational ESL class right now. And we are going to be providing citizenship classes and ESL level one next year. We hope to provide a model that we can duplicate throughout the consortia.

And here we are, the Valley girls, the team barrier. Our barriers and challenges and how to break those barriers. It's two sites, one team, one project to become one. From Y to H, helping students transition to VVC. Onboarding rules and duties for the Valley girls.

Apple Valley, we're providing facilities, furniture, child care, information technology support, onboarding ESL walk-ins, and lab-scheduled time for CASAS testing because we have to share those facilities, so that we all get the points we need for our WIOA.

Also, I had to make a lot of friendships with maintenance and operations because I didn't have any money for furniture, for the nice picnic tables we have, but also provide a construction course. And I'm like, hey, don't you need your guys trained in blah, blah, blah? Aren't they adults? Send them over. I need some free stuff. When you get something good, bring it by.

I mean, they have been very generous with us, providing us with lots of things. The whole district is happy to see what's happening because it supports the families. We're supporting the moms and the dads of the students.

Martha Mendez: Oh, just some of the things that we had to do. The concessions our district had to make. We had to adjust our academic calendar. So that it starts at aligns with Apple Valley's, which is something that you think you could do easily, but you can't because each of our courses is 108 hours. And we had to figure that out with the holidays.

We also had to find a faculty member to teach outside of our traditional semester. Our semester begins in February or September. So they have to come in a whole month or two earlier. But because of the environment and where they're at, I have to say, we haven't really had that much of a problem with finding faculty.

We had to really share with our administration, at least on my end and I believe Adele's as well, why we are having a faculty member in our team participate in DLAC at OTAN. So they know what DLAC and OTAN is. I really had to print the modules. I typed a memo and provided the justification and also the resources that were going to be needing and the outcomes that we expect by the end of this term, which is why the YouTube channel, the resources, the how-to videos and the orientation video specifically tailored to our ESL population.

So those are things that we've had to demonstrate. And we take them for granted. But it's really advocating for OTAN and DLAC. So our being here means a lot. And we know that they know that there's value in what we're doing here as well.

One other plug for DLAC and OTAN is, I'm part of a leading from the middle team developing a leadership academy for our college. And the components of this leadership academy are amazing. And so I've shared with that team what we're doing. And they're impressed. And they're like, we could use that. We could use that.

Instructional supplies at Apple Valley, we've had classroom sets of books put in over there because we needed those resources there, additional headsets, adapters for the computer lab because ours didn't work. So things like that we didn't know right away, and we had to figure out. And then, of course, testing has always been-- we had to coordinate that, the use of the lab.

Rebecca Monjaraz: And then for our next steps, definitely, we want to create an ESL YouTube channel. And this would be for students who-- they can go to something, a QR code and, how do I access my student email? Click on it. And so I was able to create captions and then able to figure out how to use captions but in different languages.

And so I actually learned that from OTAN, which is super awesome. But I want to learn more. So I'm hungry for that because I got it. But I feel like it's not perfect. So that's one of the next steps, but also the support we would like.

Claudia Escobar: And I think we're getting not to the end. But other steps that we're going to be taking at our school to support-- because the good thing is that they listen to what the students are saying. It's not our ideas. We hear what the student say, especially front office support. We hear what they're saying.

And we say, you know what? The students are saying they need this. We set up three computers in our main office to make sure that when the students are coming in, they have access to that right there and then. We were talking about a Google form or something else, where they could get an appointment because sometimes they need something in hand. They need to know like, did you hear what I'm saying? Did you take it? So we're working on that.

Rebecca Monjaraz: So this is our shared calendar and involving our students.

Claudia Escobar: So those are all the stuff we're going to be providing on our campus and, hopefully, we'll help to get the students to enroll. Ease everything they're going through because we want to ease the process because sometimes that's all that's stopping them. They're afraid of the process. So we're hoping that we'll be able to buffer that a little bit for them.

And what do we get from DLAC? Go ahead, Adele.

Adele McClain: The resources, such as the curated curriculum, free curriculum, digital curriculum. The teamwork guidance is invaluable, technology support. Just ideas to work around barriers we have. Thank you.

[applause]