[music playing]

Speaker: OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Bernadine Gonzalez: OK, good afternoon. My name is Bernadine Gonzalez, and I am the principal for AEVA. And it's nice to meet you all in person for once, finally. And on my left here is Mr. Josh Eick, ESL teacher extraordinaire. And on my right is Prishay Wilson, the dynamic CTE computer teacher of all time.

[cheers, applause]

And of course, we do represent LAUSD's division of adult and career education. And I just wanted to take a minute to take you back with me to April of 2022. And the reason why we're going back to April of 2022 is because I was asked to join DLAC.

[laughter]

At the time, I was the principal at Harbor Occupational Center, and I contacted Netta and I said, I don't know why I'm contacting you, but my boss wants me to join DLAC. I don't know why. Well, little did I know, in June of 2022, I was being transferred to open AEVA. Then it made sense.

So I went from a school of about 5,000 students in San Pedro, hustling and bustling, bells ringing, to an office at the headquarters of LAUSD in the Beaudry building, aka the White tower, and sitting on the 11th floor with IT and they looking at me like, what is she doing here. And the 18th floor is where our offices are for adult ed. And I was there alone in an office thinking, what am I supposed to do. And I started planning.

So by August of 2022, I had two teachers. So the three of us put our heads together and we started with flying the plane. We were on the runway, trying to figure out how to get off the ground. And before we knew it, we were flying.

So interesting that the three of us are together, because I looked at our five strengths from the gallop. And what I saw is that we all have in common learner. And what did that mean? That meant that we all have a great desire to learn and continuously improve.

And when I look at the two of them, that's how they do things. As soon as we do one thing, you know, next year, I think I'm going to do it this way. And that is something the three of us have in common for sure. And so it's been a really cool ride. And so I want to share some statistics with you.

ESL growth, 173% in one year. ABE, 47% growth. ASE, 427%. CTE, 180%. Now we're almost at 2,900 students. I'm sorry. Did I say 2,900? I think it's 3,000. Every week, I'm watching the numbers. I can't even keep them straight. We are 80% female, which means 2,400 females accessing online education. So that says something about accessibility and what's happening in the communities.

We are also-- you know what, Prishay, I'm going to leave it. I'm going to leave it. You go ahead and you do your thing.

Prishay Wilson: All right, so everyone--

Bernadine Gonzalez: Prishay, microphone.

Prishay Wilson: Currently, our program areas include ESL, CTE, ABE, ASE, AIS, and Distance Learning and Citizenship. Our accomplishments since our midterm report include 0 to 29-- we have grown 0 to 2,900 students over the last two years. So over the last two years, we have grown up to 2,900 students. We went from 2 to 25 teachers, an attendance coordinator and an assistant principal, which we really needed. Ms. G really needed.

Bernadine Gonzalez: That's why I'm here, because we have an assistant principal.

[laughter]

Prishay Wilson: So as well as our accomplishments as today include--

[cheers]

Bernadine Gonzalez: Yes, the biggie, the mother of all mothers. Initial accreditation. So my first month at AEVA in my office alone, I was told, you're going to become accredited. And so I'm on the 11th floor and anybody who works in the Beaudry building knows, look for the window with the red dot because the red dot is the door that opens.

I mean, it's the window that opens. And so I was walking around the 11th floor saying, where's the red dot. Accreditation is impossible. This is not going to-- I can't do this and all the I can't, all the anxiety. And so we are now officially the first fully accredited adult school in the state of California.

[cheers, applause]

Online, excuse me. Online. Please, let's keep that-- I apologize. Right. So we are the first fully accredited online academy adult school in the state. And in addition to having our accreditation, now there's benefits that come with that. Now we can offer HiSET testing on site. We can also earn additional program certifications as we start to develop our CTE. I already have ideas about where we're going with this and what kinds of certifications we can offer to the students.

We can finally issue high school diplomas. So we've already, I'm going to say, refered out six high school diploma completers because we didn't have our accreditation status. So now we're going to be having our first in-person graduation, and we will have about 11 students graduating with a diploma and 8 students completing the high set this year.

So it is quite an accomplishment for us. And now our students will be able to take the A through G requirements and everything is in line and we are rolling. Our initial accreditation status is a three year status. And it's a little different than doing the full accreditation, but it is still a lot. So we're very proud and there were no suicides committed during the process of accreditation.

Josh Eick: Thank you. I just wanted to add, I've been doing some research. And I have not been able to find any information to falsify the next statement I'm going to make, which is that we actually may be the first fully accredited online adult academy in the West and possibly the United States as well. So until I can find some more information to find out that's not true, I'm just going to keep saying it.

The journey to our success in the last two years hasn't been all green lights. There's been some traffic jams along the way. I'm from Southern California. Of course, I'm going to use that analogy. I think it's the law. You actually have to use traffic analogies in your presentations if you're from LA.

So we have seen some challenges. The first challenge, of course, is actually a positive challenge. A lot of people want to take classes at AEVA, which is a great thing. But unfortunately, it's led to some very large waiting lists because the demand can't quite-- well, we can't quite keep the pace with our staffing as far as the demand is concerned.

In addition, the other day schools are closing their online classes that they still have. And so of, course, they're sending their students to us as well. And so what we're hoping for is that we can continue to grow at the speed necessary to accommodate everybody who wants access to a class as that is our mission. Our mission is to provide access to any student, any adult student who wants to take an online class. So we're hoping that we're able to do that as we move forward.

The application process in LAUSD is quite complex and the number of people who are able to successfully go through the entire process is a small group of teachers. And so there's a lot of competition between the schools to try and get any teachers who actually get through the process. And we're also competing with the other schools in the Los Angeles area as well. So it's been hard to fill some of our openings, the rare openings that we have because of that competition. And I'm sure everybody sitting in this room has gone through the same experience. Teacher shortage has been a big problem in the last couple of years.

We are still waiting to develop a structural testing system for AEVA's online needs. However, in the last two weeks, we just started to pilot our online courses testing, and it's going pretty well so far. So we're very hopeful about that. The district has done a very good job of providing PD's and community of practice for online teachers. However, up until now it's really been focused on the ESL program.

They are planning to expand that into the other programs, CTE, ASE, and ABE. But we're still waiting for that to happen. And I'm sure they'll do it. In addition, We? Are hoping to get permission to start creating our own internal PD's just for our school as teachers who teach exclusively online need a set of tech skills that are much more sophisticated than somebody who's just teaching in person.

And we're expecting a lot of new teachers to come to our schools. We grow. And we also have some teachers who work there now who could really kind of use the opportunity to hone those skills. So, again, we're hoping that that happens also in the near future. And finally, device distribution has been a little bit of a challenge for our school.

LAUSD has a really good device distribution system set up. But of course, it's focused on K through 12 students, which it should be because they should absolutely have priority. And then the adult division, they kind of have to fight with each other to grab whatever devices are left. Well, we're sort of a unique situation because students cannot take a class at our school if they do not have a working device. So we're hoping that we can get a little bit of a priority into the distribution of devices to our students.

And in addition, the district is giving Chromebooks out to the K through 12 kids, and they're sort of filled with the apps that the K through 12 kids use. Well, our needs are a little bit different. Many of our programs, especially CTE, require apps that are not compatible with Chromebooks, like the Microsoft Office Suite, Apex, Burlington. So we're hoping that maybe if it's possible in the near future that they can start distributing laptops to at least some of the students in our programs who really need them to succeed.

Prishay Wilson: All right. So we just want to tell Susan, our coach-- we want to tell Susan, our coach, that we love you and we thank you for all your time, your energy that you put with us. Even when you're on the train, you meet with us.

[laughter]

Bernadine Gonzalez: Road trip.

Prishay Wilson: Road trip, just so that we're OK. So thank you. So first of all, I want to say my computer essentials students did the slides for us, just so you know. I have to give them credit.

[applause]

All I had to do was ask them. We did go back and do a few things, but they actually started the process. So I'm very proud of them that they learned. They love Powerpoint, by the way. So I want to say thank you to OTAN, to all the coaches, to all the DLAC members.

When I first started back in 2022, I was a brand new teacher. I didn't think I was going to fit. I didn't think I was going to stay because I had too much going on. However, I'm glad I stayed.

I've learned a lot. I enjoy every session that I come to. I look forward to it. I'm all tearing up and everything. I appreciate the tools and resources that you provided and how it has been instrumental in my classroom practices. I use the tools that I've learned with my class and my students, and I've seen the effects that have had in their learning, experience.

And I just want to tell you that I'm glad that I stayed, and I've grown as a teacher. I've noticed that my confidence level is better and that I can stand up in front of everyone, even though I'm nervous and speak. So thank you.

[applause]

Bernadine Gonzalez: OK. One of the things that I wanted to also say is that for me, at this point in my career, 34 or 35 years in with LAUSD as an adult Ed teacher and person my entire career is that for me, I'm at the point where leadership is so important. And what I do as a principal, it rolls out throughout the staff and faculty. And so it's important for me to do the self reflection and how can I build myself so that I can lead and take people on the trip with me.

So I am really grateful for having learned more about how to lead and be strong while flying a plane and building it at the same time. And overall, really it's been a great experience for us. We've been able to crystallize our vision. We want to empower adults to learn and work in a virtual setting. That's our vision. That's what we do.

We've networked with all of you. Even though I've been online, I've been listening. We're going to come to Torrance and we want to check out Northstar. There's so much that we've learned. And we've started to implement about how to do onboarding better for our students and help them to be successful, even if it means we need to send them to an in-person school because it's going to be better for them.

And so we share our goals and we share our dreams and our progress with our other day schools. And it's been awesome sharing it with you, even though we're sure you're sick of us. And the AEVA story is so drawn out over two years, but we are really hoping to be a role model in our state and hopefully in the nation. So thank you.

[applause]

Josh Eick: So as this is our last DLAC meeting and we are the last presentation, I was handed the task to come up with a profound statement to say at the end, which is kind of like giving a monkey the job to create a Shakespeare play. But--

Audience: What is the meaning of life?

Josh Eick: Yeah. Well, I'm only one monkey, right? There's not even 100 monkeys in the room to help me. So I kind of thought, OK, maybe I can come up with some kind of analogy that would represent our experience with DLAC and OTAN.

And so first, I kind of thought, well, how about Oppenheimer? It was this impossible task and very, very short window of opportunity. But the ending is not really a happy ending. So that doesn't work.

And then I thought, OK, maybe Barbie. People like Barbie. It's very popular. She's going on this journey of growth and self-actualization. But I'm kind of more of a Ken guy myself. So that didn't really work.

So then I fell upon the story of Noah. And I'm like, OK, wait a minute now, this checks a lot of boxes, right? So there was a global disaster, check. Noah's boss called him one day and he said, I need you to create this technologically advanced thing that's never existed on the planet before, and I need you to get it done in six days because I'm going to flood the planet. OK, check.

And then God had all these very specific wants. It has to be an Ark. By the way, did you know that an Ark, it was not a boat? It's a giant box with legs. So that's kind of weird. So Noah was like, OK, what is that. I don't know what that is.

And he says, it has to be huge. It has to be like 400 cubits by 36 by whatever. And Noah was like, what's a cubit, I don't know what you're talking about. And to it has to be big enough to house two of every species on the planet. Oh, and it has to float for a very long time.

[laughter]

Check? I don't know. So Noah's reaction to all this is like, hey, no problem. You got it. And here's where I get confused, because in the book, the next paragraph basically just says, so Noah did everything that God wanted and God was very happy with it. The end.

And I'm like, well, wait, hold on a second here. I mean, how did he actually get it done? I mean, how did he actually build this thing? I mean, think about this. The guy's 500 years old at this point. And let's just admit it, kind of a lush.

And he's got a crew of three, his sons. So that's three boxes. We can check one of them. I'll let you figure out which one to check. So I'm thinking like, how did he do this because it doesn't say. And I did a little research, and actually, I did find out the answer. And you'll be very surprised to hear this.

It turns out that Noah was the first participant in DLAC, and OTAN helped him to realize his vision. So on behalf of our little team here from AEVA and all the staff at our school, we would like to give a very, very big hearty thank you to everybody in this room, the staff at OTAN, Destiny, Dr. Porter-- and I guess if I'm using the analogy correctly, the archangels would be our coach, Susan, who we love, who just helped us so much. And Netta, who really was our biggest supporter and really went to bat for us when things just looked darkest.

Bernadine Gonzalez: She is. She's the one.

Josh Eick: Yeah. So thank you so much for helping us build our big box with legs. And it may not be perfect, but it floats. So--

[cheers, applause]

Prishay Wilson: Before we finish, this is for you.

(SINGING) Rolling through Sacramento

Feeling so fly

Got my squad on deck

We on cloud nine

Networking with schools and districts

What a sight

Sharing our visions, shining bright

Collaboration flowing like beads in the air

Ideas sparking minds coming from everywhere

Different places, but we all stand the same

Building bridges, breaking walls in the name of tech literacy

On this adult education journey, we unite

One vision, one goal

Getting work done right

The power of connection brings us all close

Supporting each other

All: We're stronger than most.

[cheers, applause]