CAROLYN ZACHRY: Welcome to The Continuous Improvement Plan webinar for the 2025, 2026 school year. I'm Dr. Carolyn Zachary, the State Director and Education Administrator for Adult Education at the California Department of Education. Today, we're going to talk about this important deliverable. We're going to go through an overview of the process. We're going to talk about smart goal setting. We're going to give some samples. We'll have some opportunity to see a walk-through and demonstration of the online CIP portal in the OAR site. And then we'll talk more about when our Q&A session will be happening later this year. 

The Continuous Improvement Plan is an annual deliverable. This is now our second RFA cycle or grant cycle that we have been using this deliverable, and it actually has combined multiple deliverables from past years into a single deliverable, related to continuous improvement, because we are always striving to continuously improve our work for our students. The Continuous Improvement Plan is a forward thinking document. We are really looking for you to plan for your next academic year, and looking for ways to use data to improve efficiencies, effectiveness and quality of your programs, and to help your learners find better outcomes. 

The CIP plan really should look at your program quality, and it should enhance your program quality and be driven by data. Also, it impacts your school and your learners by looking at ways for you to tailor your programs to your students' needs, improve their outcomes, and also have access to support services that they might need to reduce barriers. 

Other facts for you to keep in mind when you're working on your Continuous Improvement Plan is this. Very similarly to your annual plans and your three year plans for CAEP, is a forward thinking document. You are always thinking about the next academic year. Now is a great opportunity, as our CAEP consortia are working on their three year plans, to be looking at the goals your consortia is planning to implement for the next three years, and see how those might fit nicely into your agency's CIP. 

Also, you can align this with your WASC and your Council on Occupational Education accreditation documents. Again, we've been working with both WASC and COE, so they are well aware of the CIP, as well as well aware of the CAEP consortia planning documents so that we are all working together for our students. Just want to also remind you on our current focus at CDE is minding the gaps, really looking at our students who have about one hour of enrollment, or they just enroll and never come to your school, and how do you get them to enroll and get over that 12 hour mark, and then those students that persist from pre-test and post-test. 

So those are areas that you might want to look at, as well as this continued focus on collaboration with our partners, especially Title I, and the Local Workforce Development Board. So your first step in all of this is going to be to gather and review data. It can include the items on this slide, which include your data integrity report from TE, your RNS data, especially tables four and five, your employment and earnings follow up surveys, your teacher self-assessments, your student technology intake survey, as well as many of the other pieces that are on this page. 

So you want to gather all of those documents, and you also want to have a team. This, similar to your WASC accreditation, COE accreditation, and your CAEP annual planning, and three year planning should not be done in isolation by just the administrator. This really needs to be done in collaboration with other members of your school's team. 

So what's required? You are required to have three goals in your Continuous Improvement Plan. These goals, remember, are designed for the next academic year. And one of those goals is required to be in the area of technology. I would recommend that you use your student intake survey and your teacher assessment results to help you inform what that technology goal might look like. A couple of ideas here might relate to expanding online classes, or offering some new hybrid models, or implementing the learning management system of Canvas, bringing onto your sites something like NorthStar Digital Assessment for looking at digital literacy, and any other efforts related to digital literacy. 

So just remember, three goals. One has to be related to technology. Now, a SMART goal. We've been talking about SMART goals since the inception of the Continuous Improvement Plan. And a SMART goal has these five parts to it. It's specific, it's measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. And so let's break that down a little bit here. So specific means you want to answer these questions as you're writing your goal. Does the objective state the outcomes that you aim to accomplish? Is it measurable? How do you track your progress? 

The other piece that's really important is, is it attainable within the time based, or the timeline that you have established. Is it relevant to adult education? And we owe it Title II. And in this case, we're adding two more items that you don't have to include, but an I for, is it inclusive. So is it inclusive to all of your student population? And also, is it equitable? Again, doing a SMARTIE goal is not required. A SMART goal is a requirement, but we would encourage you to consider these last two letters. 

So let's look at an example. As you know, if you looked at TE at all, Rolling Hills Adult School is our fictitious adult school. And these are the first steps that the administrator at the Rolling Hills Adult School has done. One, they gathered a team. Remember what I said? This is not a solo job. So the administrator gathered teachers, support staff, students. Your adult ed students can certainly be part of your team and other partners. And they work together to brainstorm and identify gaps in their programming. 

And what are the needs, or what's their focus areas? What is their enrollment look like? So they started brainstorming first, and then they looked at the data that relates to those areas that they want to focus on. So for example, they want to look at minding the gap, and where can they improve, and their surveys. And so now they're going to pull their new CASAS assessment data and look at the data they have. Look at where their students, who are low level and high level, how they're doing, and what training staff might need. 

Rolling Hills has a goal to increase student persistence from enrollment to 12 plus hours. And they're going to do this by the end of, again, the next academic year, '25-'26. They're going to increase that percentage of students by 10%, and they're going to achieve this through the implementation of support strategies, such as orientation, counseling, and progress monitoring. So let's break this goal down. Number one. It's specific. They're being specific by saying they want to increase the percentage of students who persist and complete at least 12 hours of instruction. 

It is measurable because they're going to track the number of students achieving 12 plus hours of instruction, using TopsPro Enterprise. Is it attainable or achievable? And Rolling Hills staff think that it is attainable and achievable because they're going to implement support strategies, such as orientation, counseling and progress monitoring. Is it relevant? And this is meaningful, as it is a goal that the state has established. And it's going to help enhance student retention and success by aligning their school's mission and funding requirements. 

And is it time bound? It is. The goal is to achieve this by June, 2026. So you're going to repeat this process three times for all three of your goals. Now, let's talk about our state goal. And the reason I want to talk about our state goal is because we have said that agencies can take our state SMART goal and adapt it for their agency, which means you really only have to then come up with two SMART goals. So this is our state's SMART goal. 

With a focus on equitable access and support for underserved populations, by June 30th, 2026, California Adult Education WIOA Title II agencies will work to increase the percentage from 64% to 70% of students who qualify for all programs as measured by CASAS TE NRS Table 4. So what that means is we're going to move students from enrollment to participants, so they will have 12 plus hours. 

So let's break this goal down. Is it specific? Yes, it's specific. What we've said is, we're going to, as a state, we're going to work to increase a percentage of our students who qualify for NRS Table 4. And we're going to do that by looking at TE and going from 64% to 70%, which is why it's also measurable. We're looking to have an increase of 6%. And that will be measured by NRS Table 4. Is it attainable? Well, it might be ambitious, but I do think with all of us working together, we can achieve this 6% increase. 

Is it relevant? Of course, it's relevant to our WIOA Title II, because we owe a Title II. We're working to assist adults to become literate and obtain knowledge and skills necessary for employment and self-sufficiency. So for improving learner persistence rates, that's going to directly contribute to this purpose. And then is it time bound? Yes, we have our time frame of June 30th, 2026. Now, the next part of your CIP, once you have your SMART goal set out, is to do an action plan. Because remember, a goal without a plan is just a wish. 

And these are the areas that you're going to be looking at. Supporting strategies, how you're going to measure success, your staff that are accountable, your due dates along your timeline for the year, and any support you might need from our state leadership projects of CASAS, CALPRO and OTAN, or any support you might need from my office. So here is an example of an action plan. This is for our state goal. So the first thing we're going to be doing is, we're going to continuously monitor quarterly data. So every quarter, we're going to look at Table 4 data. And we're going to review each of the quarterly data to show that it's going to show incremental increases. 

The staff that are accountable will be assigned to a data review team in my office, and we're going to get support from CASAS. The next thing we're going to do is we're going to investigate learner barriers who enroll but do not progress to 12 hours. We're going to develop a list of those barriers. We're going to get that from all of you by reaching out to your staff, perhaps your front office staff, to get that information. We're going to do that each semester. And then we're going to review our-- there's many other items in between this, but I've reduced the action plan to just this one table for now. But you can have an action plan that is very detailed, which your staff can then follow. 

And then in May of 2026, we're going to go ahead and review our final data and see if we have accomplished our 6% increase. And then most importantly, what we're going to do, if we hit our goal, is to celebrate. We want to evaluate our success and our struggles. Maybe we didn't meet 6%. Maybe we only meet 5% But let's celebrate that we got to 5% And what was our barrier for getting to that final 6%? And so that is the process. Now, I'm going to turn this over to Jong, who's going to lead you through the OAR site and the online CIP reporting. Jong? 

Thank you, Carolyn. My name is Jong Choi, and I'm the Lead Application Developer with OTAN, and I'm going to walk you through the continuous improvement plan on the California Adult Education reporting site. From here on out, I'll refer to the Continuous Improvement Plan as the CIP and the California Adult Education reporting site as the reporting site. After you've logged in, you should see the landing page for the reporting site, and you'll notice there's an orange banner that indicates that this is a development site, and the url is slightly different. 

But when you'll be filling out the CIP, it will be on the actual reporting site without the banner. So once you've come to this landing page, you're going to click WIOA at the top of the menu. This will take you to the WIOA dashboard. And here, under the WIOA navigation, you should see the Continuous Improvement Plan. Here we are on the Continuous Improvement Plan landing page. You'll see some information about the plan, as well as these helpful links. To start your plan, click this button here, Start Plan. 

Now that you are in the second year of the grant cycle, you should have submitted a previous CIP. Your previous year's smart goals will display first. And with this indication that this is the review of your previous CIP smart goals, you're going to answer whether this goal has been completed or not. If you answer yes, the goal is complete. No further action is required. If you select no, you'll be presented with some questions. Your response to these questions do not need to be submitted to CDE with your CIP. 

Let me repeat that. Answers to these questions do not need to be submitted to CDE with your CIP. These questions are just for you to reflect on and help guide you in creating your smart goals for your current plan. If you select no, that your goal has not been completed, the application will automatically carry that forward into your current plan. I'm going to say that this first module is complete, and the other two are not complete. And then I'm going to click the Save button. 

After saving, you should arrive at the plan summary. This is just an overview of the plan. Under the plan summary, it's going to list the items that need to be completed before you're eligible to submit your plan. As you can see, you've carried over goals from last year with no changes. Please update these goals and action steps to be relevant for the current year. You must enter three SMART goals. Currently, you have two, since you've carried two over from your previous plan. And at least one of these three SMART goals must be technology related. And finally, you'll need to enter some contact information that we can contact in case there are issues with your plan. 

Now, I'm going to move over to the surveys option in the menu. And this is just going to give you access to the teacher self-assessment and student technology intake survey data and URLs. You can see right here that you can provide your staff the URL to the teacher self-assessment where they can begin the survey. The second URL is for the student technology intake survey and can be provided to students to take the survey. Below here, you can view a summary of the of the survey results through these two links. Now I'm going to move over to SMART goals. 

OK, you'll see here at the top that the SMART goal one was carried over from your previous CIP, but no changes have been made. You're going to update this goal or action steps for your current plan. You'll also notice this little eye icon, which indicates that this goal was not complete from your previous Continuous Improvement Plan, and was carried forward. So you're going to have to edit this SMART goal to be relevant for the current plan. I'm going to click the Edit button. 

Now I'm going to update the narrative to be relevant, and I'm also going to select that this goal is technology related and hit the Save button. The goal was successfully updated. Now I'm going to return back to the plan summary. And you'll see here through the validation items that the technology goal requirement has been met. And now you just have these three other items that need to be resolved before you can submit your plan. So I'm going to return back to the SMART goals, and I'm going to update this other SMART goal to be relevant for the current year. 

Now you just need to enter one more SMART goal before you can submit your plan. So I'm going to do that by now clicking the New SMART Goal button. I'm just going to indicate that this is a test and click the Save button. You'll see a section to start adding your action steps to this new goal. Start by clicking the Add Step to Action Plan. Write your narratives for your supporting strategies. Write your narrative for your measure of success, the staff that is accountable, the due dates, and your state leadership project and CDE support. 

Now, if you have more action steps to add, you can click this button, "I have more action steps to add", and it will save this item and bring you back to this page where you can continue with your next action step. For now, I'll say this is the only action step that I need, and it will appear in the table below. Now I'm going to return back to the plan summary, and you'll notice that all the items that you needed to fix your previous goals, as well as have your technology goal and have three goals, have all been met. And now you just need to enter a primary contact information. So I'm going to go to the contact information and enter, and click Save. 

Now you'll notice that all the validation items are no longer there, and you can continue to your plan submittal. You can always click the Review and Submit button and go to submit your plan if all your requirements have been met. But also, in the review and submit, you have this option to print a draft copy of your PDF prior to submitting your Continuous Improvement Plan. Now, the last step you need to do is just enter your title here, and click "I certify and would like to submit to CDE". 

Now that your plan has been submitted, you should receive a confirmation email that your plan was submitted, which should include a PDF copy of your plan. You can also click this link here to download a copy of your submitted plan. Your submitted plan can also be found under the deliverable summary in the WIOA dashboard. And you'll see the link here to download your plan, as well as that your plan has been submitted. Now at this time, your plan is being reviewed, and you will be notified when your plan has been approved. 

Now you can return back to the Continuous Improvement Plan home page, and you'll notice that there is no longer an Edit and or a Start button. This is because your plan is is submitted and is being reviewed. And that's all I have on how to complete your CIP. I'd like to turn this back over to Carolyn. 

Thanks so much, Jong, for walking us through that site. Now, I just want to say that developing your Continuous Improvement Plan is not rocket science. It's really all about what you, as an agency, want to do to help your students to be more successful year after year. If you need additional help and resources while you're going through this process, we encourage you to reach out to OTAN and CALPRO for specific professional development opportunities. There will be webinars, as well as our live Q&A session at the beginning of February. 

Please also consider reaching out to CASAS for any of your data questions that you might have. We thank you for watching this webinar, and look forward to working with you on your successful implementation of your Continuous Improvement Plan. Have a great day.