[music playing]

Speaker: OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Martha Mendez: Good afternoon. We are Victor Valley adult education team and the DLAC team that started originally as the Valley girls. And now we're the Valley girls plus one. So woohoo! So earlier in our presentation last year, we shared that we were brought together by AEBG and our relationship has continued to be strengthened and fortified by our active participation in DLAC.

And a final report seems so final, doesn't it? And so no matter how much we prepare, it's actually difficult to come up here and still present because there's so much content that we want to share for me in particular and for our team. We are a very small but very mighty team. And we wear many hats and have many responsibilities within our office.

So DLAC, thank you, Neda, and thank you DLAC. And thank you, Apple Valley, for bringing us together, dragging us along, like Claudia said, because it was very difficult for me to wrap my head around what exactly two agencies-- DLAC, this is technology. And now it all makes sense to us. And so that's the beauty of the participation process.

And anyhow, with that, I want to say that thank you to our dean, Dr. Sandy Visser, if she's joined. She was going to join. So I want to say thank you for her ongoing and continued support.

I also want to thank Dr. McKenzie Tarango for understanding our vision and our need to participate. We actually had to go through several steps of approval to have our counselor participate and get a contract and understand why it was so significant to partner with Apple Valley Adult School and the services that we offer. So we are very grateful for the support that we have received and for the trust that we have received from our agencies and leading and being able to bring services to our students in a way that we weren't able to do before.

But most of all, thank you to Apple Valley Adult School for entrusting us with their community that is now our community and dragging us along this journey. And now we're just like, what next, what else can we do. So with that, I'd like to present our extended team.

And so the three of us are here, but our extended team at Victor Valley Adult Education includes, besides Pablo Saldana and Rebecca-- and I'll let them introduce themselves. I didn't even say my name. So I'm Martha Mendez. I'm the project manager for the adult education regional consortia. And I also lead the supportive services for our ESL and adult Ed GED students at Victor Valley College and the partnership with Apple Valley Adult School.

But this is our extended team. It includes another counselor and Cheyenne Laguna and another one of our testing proctors that's not listed here. But Cheyenne Laguna is actually someone that went through Apple Valley's adult school system and has been introduced to me by Ms. Adele McLean. And so she's been a part of our team and also graduating Victor Valley College. But if you would step to the mic and just introduce yourself.

Rebecca Monjaraz: My name is Rebecca Monjaraz. I'm the adult ed transition counselor.

Pablo Saldana: Hi, everybody. My name is Pablo Saldana. And I am the program specialist for adult education at Victor Valley College.

Martha Mendez: And just to share a little bit about our college, I am proudly Victor Valley College alum. We are proud to be VVC, including Rebecca Monjaraz. And we are a small size college. We have roughly 10,000 FTES's. Our unduplicated enrollment was 17,000, and we're currently ranked among the 10 top performing community colleges in the state and the fastest growing community college. And we're really proud to say we've made great strides. So thank you for that.

Our enrollment has also doubled for our ESL noncredit programs. We recently won the Dr. John W. Rice award for outcomes as it pertains to disproportionately impacted groups. So really exciting for our college, which means there's a culture of change. So thank you.

And so this is where we're located. We serve a region of roughly 1700mi When we say we are rural and vast, this is what we mean. And this is why it's so important to bring services to the community in the areas that we serve. And our partnership with Apple Valley has been significant for that purpose.

We have our main campus, and we have a satellite campus location at Hesperia High School. We also offer our ESL classes now at Apple Valley Adult School based on their request and need for that service. So the larger star is Victor Valley Community College. And then you can see the other areas where we offer ESL.

But it could take roughly 45 minutes to get from one location to the other. And on the bus it takes over two hours. And all of this in part because we've grown so much that traffic and congestion is a very real problem in our area. And so I think we're one of the most affordable places to live that's still within somewhat driving distance to LA in the Inland Empire. So besides Hemet, we are that population that is growing tremendously and trying to figure out how we're going to meet the demands and partnership becomes that much more important and significant.

So the adult Ed programs that we offer were, again, small, but we are expanding our services. Our unduplicated enrollment is actually now at 389. And before we had WIOA and before the pandemic, we only had 128 students. So for us, it's tremendous growth. It's a lot. It's more than doubled.

And enrollment in general, when other colleges were struggling with enrollment, we were growing and we had surpassed our pre-pandemic enrollment numbers even at the peak. But our partnership with Apple Valley, we started with one class in the spring of 2022. And we now offer four classes each term, fall and spring. And they're at capacity every time well before the semester begins.

And we have better attendance, better persistence with the students that participate at Apple Valley. And we've also increased-- this is not reflecting all of the-- actually, it is-- our dual enrollment population has increased as well as our articulation. Our students enrolled in our articulated courses, earning CTE credit. And, yeah.

And then Ms. Rebecca.

Rebecca Monjaraz: So this is just a visual of our buildings. Our student services building is our most newest building that houses our admissions and records, financial aid, general counseling. So it is a very important building that we let our students know.

And right next to it is our building 21 that is very student focused, student engagement centers. My office is located in there.

And so this is kind of what it looks like on the outside, but also the inside. So in the center, it's an open space seating area for students. And then on the sides is where all of the offices are located.

So as the adult ed transition counselor, my role is to serve our students who are enrolled at an adult school and they're wanting to transition to the college or maybe perhaps they want to do participate in dual enrollment as well as our ESL students. And that kind of also will encompass some of our undocumented students. So sometimes, I can assist a student who is in a certain cluster. But other times, it is actually a pathway. And you'll see in a few slides what I mean by that.

But I meet with students at the college, but I also will meet with them at their adult school. I also provide workshops as well as one on one appointments. Part of this project, when we first started, students were given my flyer and that's how they would contact me. And then we would schedule appointments. But that was very time consuming because I would get so many emails from all of the adult schools and ESL, and that was time consuming. So incorporating technology.

So now I use Calendly, which was a game changer because it takes all of that back and forth email. So I was looking back at my emails and my calendar. And I thought, oh, my gosh, when we first started, I was literally back and forth emails, scheduling appointments. And now it's all done through the Calendly. And then I can pull up the report on an Excel and I have all of that information. So it's been pretty cool.

And so every student is different. Everyone has their own goals. But at the college, my goal is to help matriculate them, meaning apply orientation, placement survey, their education plan, registration, and then connect them to the resources, the services that the college has to offer. But not one size fits all. Every student is slightly different, so it is case by case.

Martha Mendez: This was such a beautiful time for us. We met at Apple Valley Adult School when Neda visited us and Christina, our coach, our amazing coach. And from that point, we went to Victor Valley College and got to show them our campus and why it's sort of complicated for our students to find us, for our students to feel comfortable and engaged and the reason that warm handoff is so important.

We just want to share a little bit more about the significance of Ideal 101 and 102. And as someone who-- I'm not saying I'm a new administrator because that's not exactly true or a new manager-- but new to the team and new to growing. And that is something very scary at times. And it's also just that learning how to do things with a new team and in partnership, Ideal 101 provided the framework that allowed us to continue to grow in our sandbox, but with an additional set of resources and tools that we did not have before that.

I'm thinking it could have either made or broken our relationship. But I'm proud to say that it's strengthened our relationship with Apple Valley Adult School, and our outcomes demonstrate that as well because we've grown and been able to better serve our students. But the impact is beyond the project that we present here. I think it's personal growth, personal professional development. For myself and for Pablo and our team, we've incorporated standing meetings, we have increased our outreach, we now have many, many different changes.

But I also think that have taken place-- so we have really instilled some standing practices that we learned from Ideal 101 when we were identifying and breaking down the issue into what are we going to need, what's the challenges, what are the barriers, who are the stakeholders. All of those things are things that we consider now when we're reaching out to our campus colleagues, other resources, and we're trying to provide support services to our students in transition them. And they're going to share a little bit more about how it's helped them, if you want to add anything on that.

Pablo Saldana: Yeah, I think it provided that framework and that accountability piece that we really didn't know we needed, and we desperately did. I think when it came to just learning how to collaborate with each other and having each other on the same page, all of us have in common that we were leaders and we lead from the heart and we're here for the students. So that's a very easy way to find that common ground.

But with these Ideal 101 and Ideal 102, it really allowed us to put it into practice and put it into place and create actionable items. And then also with Christina's accountability as well, she was awesome about pushing us to that next great idea and the next right answer of like, OK, that's great, and what else, what else, tell me more. And that really did help us a lot with incorporating all of that.

Some of the team building aspects as well did come along with that. And do you want to share a little bit about that?

Martha Mendez: I think we touched on this. But basically, our communication has increased. And based on our meetings, we understood our strengths. We now know who-- and more than anything, we are mindful of each other's strengths and how to approach problem-solving and assigning tasks. We all do this together. But I think it's really helped us develop our relationship and not take those things personal and just know that this is where people are coming from.

So some of our accomplishments to date-- I know we're looking at the time. I think we are at 17 minutes. So some of the biggest challenges we initially faced were the two different calendars that misaligned. We had a lot of support from our administration and getting an approval to modify the academic calendar so that we can offer courses at Apple Valley Adult School.

The other issue and challenge was faculty to teach because we were all struggling to find a qualified faculty to do that piece for us. And then at the same time securing the contract for DLAC, we actually had to meet several times and present this to our vice president so that they understood why we were spending so much time here. These are some of the things that we've already shared with you and what the outcomes were. And what's not presented here on the challenges are the accomplishments. And so with that--

Pablo Saldana: All right. So some of the accomplishments that we have created as an agency really do come down to the-- so there's a couple issues we had at first, especially working with in a college with our adult Ed population. And really, one of them was the non-credit application amendment that excluded the residency status. So as Rebecca mentioned earlier, a large number of our students are AB 540 or undocumented students. Sometimes when they apply to the community college in the state of California, they get flagged by admissions and records to provide additional documentation that then would trigger a hold that would keep them from registering.

So through our mindful kind of intentionality as we navigate these spaces, we were able to find workarounds around that, to create that access to that population. We provided ESL instructional programs to areas that we didn't have in before. Apple Valley Adult School had one ESL class prior to the collaboration with Victor Valley College. Now we offer levels 1, 2, 3, and 4. And as Martha was saying, yes, that's a huge-- a lot of those students are locals and they walk or they take the bus to Apple Valley School. So that was a really cool experience of getting to bring the college to them in that sense, due to that partnership.

We officially, as of like two weeks ago, became a GED certified testing site. As you can see in the diagram there, this is an equity issue. And it's a way prior to-- I created a GED account. So if I were to want to take the test based on my location, I only had two options-- Apple Valley Adult school or now Victor Valley College. Other than that, students would have to drive down the hill, which we call, which is a couple of miles away, that if you don't have a car or you don't have-- it can take you hours.

So just in the short time we've been open, we've been able to support our community and our students taking that test. Martha has a great work with Grant requests-- sorry, my breath. I'm very breathy-- with the requesting, looking for resources, financial resources. So we're partnering up with the foundation at Victor Valley College. Thank you, Neda. And so now we're working on getting vouchers to our students that are in our GED prep classes so they can offset those costs for those GED test.

Cultural events-- our students bring so much culture and richness into our community. And often, they could or could not be represented as an institution. So we definitely make sure we keep our community and our college partner accountable as well to providing that. If we have [non-english speech] event or some type of [non-english speech] activity, I make sure that I go to every single class and invite them personally. Yes, it's by the college, but we're also part of it and we're invited.

Sometimes we'll meet with them. We will have a meeting spot, and then we'll navigate the space together. Sometimes we're the ones hosting the space or the events. So that kind of makes it very, very comfortable and us taking up that space. So orientations-- DLAC has really supported our intentionality with our orientation practices and making sure we do provide that support that students need. So we've been able to target ESL and GED populations at the college and also at Apple Valley Adult School too.

We come to them. We also host a space on campus to take up that space and say, we're here. There's a GED, ESL orientation for new students. We put it in the Marquis as students pass the main Boulevard that's on campus just to know we're here.

All right. And then there are some visuals, some graphics of our ESL orientations and GED orientations that we've done. We've been a lot more intentional with our outreach practices as well. So we're very active in the community. And, yes.

All right, I'm going to go ahead and phone a friend, Gerald, for this awesome video that I want to show y'all.

Martha Mendez: So while he's coming up, this is one of the videos and concessions that our institution granted us. They were making videos for our community college and they said, you guys have such an amazing partnership with Apple Valley. And one of the former students at Apple Valley became a VVC graduate and teaches ESL and came full circle, and she's featured in our video.

So it's awesome. Gives me the chills. So we have now translated our flyers into different languages with their help-- Spanish, Arabic. And this has all been a result of our partnership with Apple Valley and with OTAN's leadership. So we have orientation videos that-- I don't even think Rebecca spoke to them, but we have a YouTube channel now with how to on those most frequently asked questions for our ESL students and GED students. So really trying to use and leverage the technology.

Our next orientation, we have front loaded it and all of our students will know how to log into Canvas. All of them will log into their my VVC portal. But that's all as a result of what we've done here because we weren't previously doing that. So we're really excited about those things. It's a lot to share in 20 minutes. But the video, here you are.

And so what we learned here in developing Ideal 101, we were developing an orientation for ESL students at Apple Valley. But we've since then expanded the activity to include our GED students on campus. And during our GED orientation process, we learned that there are better candidates for high school diploma programs. And so at that point, we refer them to Rebecca or Ms. Jessica, and then they connect them to the adult school. So that's another practice that we're very intentional and deliberate about.

[video playback]

- My name is Rebecca Monjaraz. I am the Victor Valley College transition counselor. We're here to talk about our ESL program. And today, we are at Apple Valley Adult School.

- These classes are designed for our students 18 and over who are interested in learning English. The program is roughly 16 weeks. We have three locations available in Hesperia, Victorville and Apple Valley.

- All the program is really good. You can learn, you can speak, and the teacher explain to you so well. It's an amazing program.

- I like this school and my teacher. She is a very good teacher. So my English getting better.

- Well, I would say nothing is more important than learning English in this country. I can't emphasize this enough. I realize the best thing I've ever done for myself is to start learning English, is to go to school. It has improved my life in every way.

- I came to this country in 1985. I didn't speak English. And I know I need to learn English to live in this country. I speak with my kids, my grandkids, and also when I work, I speak in my job. So I think it's growing.

- Our classes are free to the community, free of charge. We do provide instructional supplies and materials and just a warm, welcoming environment in Apple Valley.

- It's very easy to get started. You just come to VVC. You will find many helpful people who will lead you where to start, where to go. They're very helpful. It's free. They provide the books. They even provide child care here in Apple Valley.

- Here at Apple Valley Adult School, we also provide child supervision while you take classes or get counseling through our programs.

- [speaking spanish]

- Whatever your language is, join us. [non-english speech]

- If you're interested in taking ESL classes, stop by VVC today. Visit the one stop building 23.

- VVC is the place to be.

- [non-english speech]

- VVC is the place to be.

[end playback]

Martha Mendez: So our next video will be a consortia video featuring all of our adult schools. But we wanted to share this. And it does say VVC, but there was a lot of confusion about if students were or not Victor Valley College Students. And that was really important for us that they learn and share with the community that they are, in fact, college students. It's something that they aspire to do. And they're both Apple Valley and Victor Valley students because they're co-enrolled in different programs.

We're short on time, but just remarkable experience working with Claudia, with Melina, with Ms. Adele, because we've learned so much about each other and been able to join forces to provide a service. And so we will leave it, wrap it up with the next quick slide, which just been a win for all of us. We hosted our partners at our school.

We toured all of the supportive services so that they are able to meet the person, greet them, and know where to refer students to. What's next for us? Really quick. Most importantly, you've already heard this--

Rebecca Monjaraz: Just extremely proud. Melina Bezada from adult Ed graduating, walking with VVC, getting her associate degree. So super proud of her. Excited.

[cheers, applause]

And just another student walking that pathway. She thought the doors were closed. She could not continue. But she went to VVC, or she went to the adult school, she's getting her diploma, and she's getting her associate degree within two weeks. And she's entrepreneur, business owner. So super proud of her as well.

[applause]

Martha Mendez: Thank you again. And in closing, these are our next steps. And just, again, thank you for allowing us to participate in this team as a dual agency team. Thank you, Ms. Christina, for understanding are we one, are we two. We're both one and two. So again, this has been a great experience.

[applause]