MEGHAN MCBRIDE Thank you. There we go. I was waiting for that. Good morning, everybody, and Thank you, Mandilee. Welcome to the second session of our CAEP Innovation showcase series, and Thank you for indulging us with your time on this, the 30th day of September, when you all have reports due in NOVA. I know you're all having a lot of fun with that today.

So thank you for joining us. So today we're going to focus on scaling cross agency collaboration and data informed practice, which are phrases we hear and say a lot in adult education but they feel kind of nebulous and abstract. So our goal today is to make those more concrete and tangible with our featured speakers from agencies across California today.

So we're going to hear directly from Long Beach City College and Grossmont Adult Education specifically their correctional program about problems they're trying to solve. The partners that they brought together to solve those problems. The processes that they developed and how they use information to help them improve their work over time. Next slide Debi.

So if you have not met us before, we, Debi and I are the CAEP team at westEd. I'm Meghan McBride, director of adult education projects, and Debi is my co-lead for this project at westEd Throughout the CAEP professional development project, we help agencies and consortia interpret data by and large,

There's a lot of data available to you in California, and we try to make sense of that through visualizations and by facilitating conversations around that data. In hopes that it will help you strengthen your planning, whether that's annual planning or three year planning, or just regular planning that you may engage in at your agency or consortia.

We also help consortia work through the implementation questions that come up when multiple institutions are trying to serve adult learners together. Which is and-- something we hear from agencies across California with regularity. So we're hoping today offer some examples of how agencies are working together, whether it's within their consortium or with external partners to better serve their adult learners.

Excuse me. I'm going to take a sip of my emotional support beverage, I hope you all have yours and are sipping on one as well, Mine's just water. Go to the next slide, please Debi No Debi, if you want to walk through our PD.

Debi Pezzuto: So as Megan was saying, this session is part of the broader CAEP development work that we do to support the Chancellor's Office and support all of you. It includes things like data tools, the regional training which we just finished last week. If you were there,

Meghan McBride: How millennial am I? I just raised the roof. Good lordy.

[laughter]

Debi Pezzuto: Resources and targeted technical assistance and the targeted technical assistance is ongoing. So at the end of this, this webinar I've got our contact information again, you can reach out to us for a one on one or to bring your team into it if you need some assistance. On that note--

Meghan McBride: I just want to say something real quick. We'll if you missed our regional training, we did a lot of deep diving into your data through the CAEP fact sheets and data vista. If you happen to miss that, we will be doing a more abbreviated walk through that data at vision 2030 Noncredit Summit on October 8.

They have the breakout sessions and then again at the CAEP Summit and the Directors' Event. So if you missed it, you'll have an opportunity to see it at least some of it at those two sessions and you can also reach out for some one on one data. Talks if you'd like. Talks and walks. Sorry, Debi. Go ahead.

Debi Pezzuto: You're good, I am adding the vision 2030 summit on there for you.

[laughter]

Meghan McBride: Yeah. That's coming up next week in beautiful. Is it? That one's in Newport Beach and the CAEP Summit in Santa Clara.

Debi Pezzuto: Yeah Beautiful, It's there, It's going to be beautiful. And on that note, we want to Thank the Chancellor's Office and the California Department of Education for their continued support of CAEP for this professional development work. And we want to thank the CAEP TAP folks over at SCOE and for always being our helpers on everything.

And we really want to thank today's featured presenters for being willing to share and not only what they've developed, but how their work functions and what they've learned from it. So thank you. Our folks from Long Beach community college and Grossmont Adult School. So let's move on to the next slide here.

All right. Before we hear from our speakers, we'd like to get a quick sense of where all of you are at, where are your consortiums are at and where you're at with cross-agency collaboration and shared data use.

So think about your consortium as a whole. We're going to do reactions. So just react with a thumbs up if you're just beginning a heart. If you are-- you review data together for planning and the clapping hands. If you've established workflows and shared measures, or you can do like the exclamation or whatever.

We want to think about it as a whole, think about how you're developing with your team. Oh, I'm getting some hearts, some thumbs up welcome, lots of hearts. So we're right in the middle. we're not experts yet, which is why you're here. But we're all still learning, and we can always continue to grow. So as you listen today, I'm getting a lot of parts everywhere.

As you listen today, think about the next area of your own work that you'd like to benefit from greater structure. Oh Matt, I think you need mute. Thanks I don't need to hear myself. Nobody needs to hear that. All right, I'll pass it over to Megan.

Meghan McBride: That's why I never watch recordings. I'm like, I don't know who that is talking, but that with that Southern accent can't be me. So we're going to do some framing It's too early for this Debi. We're going to do some framing of cross-agency collaboration and data informed planning to set us up for our guest presenters in just a moment.

So California has a unique structure that I was not prepared for when I started working in California two and half years ago, where adult schools and community colleges and others work together in this consortium model to serve learners. And certainly there's collaboration that happens in smaller states, but it's not in a consortium model usually but you know, there's partnerships that have to happen with work based organization, I'm sorry. Workforce development organizations or community based organizations or between adult schools and community colleges.

But California is unique in this consortium model across adult schools and community colleges. And when learners cross these institutional boundaries, the collaboration becomes even more necessary. And so what we see in California is maybe one agency is providing English language instruction or a high equivalency or diploma program, and another may provide occupational training, and they may partner together to do that as an IET.

Outside agencies are involved, or a workforce partner may help provide funding or placement. And then community based organizations get involved to provide supports that determine whether the learner can even participate at all. Each partner can perform its role well, and the learner may still experience fragmentation.

So the question is really if the learner experiences those services as functional and accessible from their point of view. So we may see one thing, but the learner may experience another. So cross-agency collaboration is effective when the agencies that are participating start with a problem that they all recognize that they can't solve independently.

And from there, they need clarity about who's responsible, how learners move among the services, how they communicate, how decisions will be made. And oftentimes when I talk to agencies that have good relationships, particularly within their consortium, it's because the two leaders like each other, which is great. It makes it a lot easier when they like each other.

But what if they someone moves and no longer they have their friend there? What happens when staff roles or leadership change? That's why the process is important. And we're hoping we can establish some or provide you with some suggested ideas for how to establish that process rather than solely focusing on good relationships between agencies. Next slide Debi.

You know WestEd, we love data. If you don't know that I'm telling you now we love a good dashboard. And as much as we like to create a dashboard for all of your various data, data informed is more than just producing a dashboard or providing your reports In Nova.

It's Important for data to be used so that in such a way that partners are agreeing on what they're trying to answer, using the data. So it's a-- we use data as a place to start. So we look for things in the data to start asking questions. But partners have to agree on what exactly they're trying to answer from the data. And then they all have to review the information and agree on who can respond to what the data are showing.

And different sources can answer different questions. As you know, we provide your enrollment and outcomes data on data vista. This shows where learners enter, where they persist. Whether they complete or transition to post-secondary or employment. We also bring to you via the CAEP Fact sheets, your labor market data, and we overlay that with the pathways that you offer, in hopes that you can see where there may be opportunity to expand your programs in ways that will match what the labor market demands, so that your learners can enter into living wage occupations and improve their economic mobility.

But in addition to data, I should also add the fact sheets provide you with demographic data about the adults in your region. So that you can design for them. Because one of the goals in CAEP is to meet the educational needs of adults in the region. But even with all that quantitative data, it's missing the qualitative the learner experience, the staff experience. This is where you can help explain why patterns are occurring.

It's something we did recently in our CAEP regional training. We look at the data. We don't exactly know the context. So when we come to your regions and show you the data, oftentimes, you all are able to contextualize that from your experience and your expertise in your communities. The point is that no single source can give us the full picture of what's happening. The value is in bringing all of those sources together which is why your annual planning meetings are so important.

Carla from capital told me last week they're starting their three year planning very soon. So this is a time when you can begin to bring those sources together, interpret them collaboratively as a consortium, and decide what should change as a result as you move into the next three year cycle, or even for your next annual plan.

Especially when you're bringing in outside partners, but even within the consortium as well. Shared definitions are especially important. We also love a good acronym in adult education and assume that everyone can speak our letters and our languages, or even just our terms. So partners may say they're all tracking one particular thing like transitions or referrals or completions, but they may be using those terms differently.

Even between an adult school and a community college, an EFL gain is a different thing. So it's important to operationalize those definitions so everyone can speak the same language. And then before comparing results, it's important for agencies to agree on what their measures include and how they're going to document what they'll be doing. I think that's it for that one. Go ahead Debi.

Let's see my final framing slide. This slide shows the connection between collaboration and continuous improvement. As you know, the idea behind your consortium meetings and with your members is to continuously improve what you're offering so that you can better serve your learners and your local labor market. So partners would begin by defining the problem together.

And this step is very important because agencies may describe the same situation differently. Then the partners would need to identify what other partners and information are needed, and from there they establish roles, workflows, measures. This might include things like referral procedures between agencies, case management, data sharing, shared definitions, or even something as simple as an agreed upon meeting schedule to review their results, their progress results.

And then after implementation, this is where the real work for continuous improvement takes place, where you examine what happened. So if you're looking at referrals, you would examine whether learners actually made it to the next step or if they didn't, where the process broke down, where learners maybe lost momentum, maybe they're being referred but not enrolling. Perhaps it's because agencies received incomplete referrals, or maybe there wasn't a very warm handoff.

But this is where you examine what happened and then from there, improve the response. If you simply end the discussion with reporting the numbers, then the continuous improvement cycle will be incomplete. All right Debi.

This is you.

Debi Pezzuto: So before we move on to our presenters, let's keep in mind some questions while they're speaking. What problem required more than one agency or department? Who needed to be involved? What made the collaboration functional rather than informal? What information helped the partners make decisions? And most importantly, what changed for learners because the partners worked together?

The two examples today are different, but that's actually really useful because we're looking for decisions and practices that can be adapted to different local contexts. Today we have a community college. We have an adult school, we have very different types of programs that engage with employers in different ways and engage with students in different ways.

So I'm really excited to hear. Let's go on to we're going to start with Long Beach City College to give us one perspective of working collaboratively with employers to design pathways and opportunities for students. I want to invite Natalie to introduce the consortium and the practices being shared. We'll have about 10 or so minutes, and then I have some slides with questions that we can advance through. But I'll listen as you speak and we'll go from there.

Natali Robles: Hi, everyone. I'm Natalie Robles, interim Director for adult and Continuing Education at Long Beach City College, and I'm here with two colleagues, Kimberly and Stephanie, who will be joining me in also sharing our best practices, hoping this information is valuable to you all. And I also am going to share that we are also learning as we collaborate with our partner.

Our consortium is Long Beach adult Education Consortium and we have two voting members, which is Long Beach City College and Long Beach School for adults. And similar to what Debi and Megan mentioned, we do have a good relationship with our partner, which is why we make our things, move forward smoothly. And this is why we're always communicating, we're always collaborating.

And so one unique thing about our consortium and our partnership is we do share a outreach and recruitment specialist. It is funded through our LBCC. And so that person is at the adult school and so she's a crucial asset to our collaboration. Just because, that's where we get basically all of our transitions and all of our referrals. All of our communication supporting our students.

In addition our adult education at Long Beach City College is under workforce development. So that is also very unique. I don't know in terms of other colleges but because I am under workforce development, I work closely with my two colleagues who are here in this meeting. And we constantly work together to engage employers and we also have job placement services as well as connection with industry.

So this is something I want to share on our behalf, is we don't work by ourselves. We have a whole team and under our division of workforce development, we strive our very best to not only provide those referrals connections, but also out after the student finishes or transitions from the adult school to the college. We want to make sure that we also connect them to a job or that we engage employers during the process.

Debi Pezzuto: That answers our question about what the problem was. What problem were-- have you been trying to solve by collaborating with cross across agencies?

Natali Robles: I can share more of that. So in working with our consortium, we'd had a conversation about bringing in employers. Many times our adult students are just going to class or taking the non-credit-- trying to pursue their GED or their HiSET or their ESL. They don't think about it, right away how to prepare for employment or who to talk to because they're the adult school. On our end we talked about bringing in those resources to them at the adult school.

So we've done for example, panels about an industry for like health care today we actually have one for space speech, which is about advanced manufacturing. And so we try to bring the resources to the students. So we often see that there we don't want them to have a disconnect between, after or during the time they're at the adult school to not be connected to the college.

So that's where I bring in my colleagues like Stephanie and Kimberly, where they're able to connect through the referrals that we send over or through the services that we have at the college to be able to provide that to the adult school. it's not perfect yet or it's not. We're not there at that level, but we're trying to at least bring the services to the adult students and make ourselves available at the campus as much as possible.

Debi Pezzuto: You mentioned that it's not perfect, but I feel like nothing we'll never achieve perfection We're always growing and learning and especially in adult education, we're always adapting. Our industry changes, our students change, our students' needs change, the economy changes, and then we're overwhelmed with students. So we're not shooting for perfection here.

But what you did just mention makes me wonder. How did you set up the collaboration and who was at the table? A lot of us have experienced and in my as Megan says, in my past life before westEd I was a student services coordinator for an adult education program, and I was this person. I was the student services coordinator and so I was bringing all of the people to the table, the employers and the folks at the community college, the adult education team. And it is not always straightforward and there is sometimes pushback. So I wonder, how did you set up that collaboration? What was the magic sauce for you guys?

Natali Robles: I think a lot of our partners and a lot of our staff live in Long Beach. I think that's a win for us. They're very well connected, and it's easy to make that connection or collaboration to bring in partners to the table. Our colleague also-- that is at, you know, my staff member that's also at the adult school. It's also from Long Beach, as well as the school principal that is overseeing the adult school is also from Long Beach.

We're all very well connected and I think because we have established relationships and partnerships, it's easier for that collaboration to come. So I don't think I struggled on my end to bring in partners. I think because I've already established relationships and good reputation, those partners come forward to the table in terms of aligning resources for the students themselves.

We have our outreach and recruitment specialists that it is at the adult school. Tuesday through Thursday and serves basically as a resource for all the students that are there. So in terms of student support services, she's basically our middle person between the adult school and the college.

So if there is a need for support in getting the student information or enrollment into adult dual enrollment, or we need them to get support with enrolling into a four credit after they transition and graduate, or if there is a need for employment or job placement or anything else we're there to support. And I think that's what makes our collaboration strong, that we have that one individual. That is the middle person for both the adult school and the college.

But in terms of the consortium, in terms of our partners, I think because many of us live-- A lot of our staff and partners live in Long Beach, we know each other and then we've also done a lot of other projects at the college that, it's technically a referral or a connection to want to work with us.

Debi Pezzuto: That's great. Are there systems in place so that even if those people leave that your students can seamlessly move from one organization or one agency to the next?

Natali Robles: We are working towards that and that's one of the questions we've been talking about and creating a website for the consortium. So have our own identity. We're trying to establish something together. So it stays in place like you mentioned other than just right now. But we're not there yet. We are also in the I want to say, between the thumbs up and the heart, where we are trying to get that solid.

But there is that enthusiasm from both partners, both voting members, at least from the consortium, to get to that level. And just to add in, moving forward with that, we've added data sharing to our agenda for our consortium meeting. So that's going to help us also keep everyone accountable, at least in terms of voting members, and be able to share it back with the consortium to so everybody knows where we're at in terms of updates.

Debi Pezzuto: That's great.

Meghan McBride: sorry. Debi I have a question. Natalie, Thank you for your candor. I really appreciate seeing the messy middle of things because it makes it realistic. And not so intimidating for someone who might not be quite there yet. So you mentioned your staff, community, relationships make it easier to bring partners into the work. Can you make this, like really concrete for us? Which is something that I promised at the beginning, so I'm trying to deliver on that. What exactly are you talking about here? Are these referrals for students to get basic needs, workforce services, education and training or what exactly? What can you walk us through a common referral from beginning to end between partners? Give us an example.

Natali Robles: For sure and I guess, I apologize-- I guess we've been working together. It's kind of like an acronym, you should know but you don't know. It's true. So let's say we have an adult, student at the adult school. They need resources or they're asking for a connection for food or they need help with maybe job placement or they need help enrolling into Long Beach City College through the adult dual enrollment.

So there is a person at the site who helps them with that. And technically that person walks them through the entire process. And in addition to that I forgot to mention, throughout the semester we also host tours of the campus and also events at the adult school. So if there is a referral it's simply that person that's at the adult school will send an email or we'll do a connection or oftentimes also meets with them at the campus.

So we do have that one on one with the students. If she identifies that, say there's more than one student with the same, let's say question or the need to maybe walk them to enrollment services or to basic need services. She'll organize a tour and meet with them at the campus.

We also invite them to our resource fairs. Anything that's happening on campus, we try to do our best to take them to the campus and invite them, but we understand that their schedules are different. Which is why oftentimes we come to them to the adult school and we bring the resources to them.

So our partner is really good about that too, in creating opportunities. So that's one of the things that we do. We bring in those referrals and those resources to them because we know oftentimes the commute or the transportation might be a challenge for them.

Meghan McBride: It almost sounds like social work?

Natali Robles: Yeah very much, case management.

Meghan McBride: Yeah That's one thing that-- What's Kimberly, Kimberly recently spoke at our Elle health pathways convening and she mentioned that she does case management. And I just wanted to say I also love the adult ED is in workforce development. I feel like it gives-- because that's essentially what adult education is. Sometimes it's not maybe in that unit at a college or whatever, but I think it helps because you all are really able to connect learners to jobs, and Kimberly does a great job of that at LBCC. Is there some way that a student has made it to through a referral? That part can be kind of difficult to follow up on.

Natali Robles: So all the tasks in terms of referrals is to outreach and recruitment specialists. So that individual is technically managing a cohort. Everyone at the adult school, that person is responsible for and it's not a, it's not a-- I did the referral and I'm not following up. There's follow UPS as well, because we want to make sure that they did make it to the other side of the campus. Right or the other side where we're located.

So we do, and we're trying our best to track the data and integrate it into our systems, which is one of the things that we're talking about is we're they're collecting data. Our team-- our staff is collecting data there, but we want to merge that information.

So we're able to see that and that's one of the things we talked about with our team here for data. Tracking is how do we identify the students that are coming from the adult school that went through that referral system? Or let's say they went through adult education-- adult dual enrollment? Or let's say they transferred successfully, can we track them? And then after that are we able to also follow them after they finish, let's say an associate degree here? Are we able to track them throughout their education path so we know that they were supported throughout their career here?

So we're not there yet we're trying to do our best to get that going in terms of metrics. We are sharing with each other, like what we're doing. But similar to what you mentioned, we have different acronyms and different data, but that is going to be shared during our consortium meetings. So we better understand how the adult school and the college track, but also what it means for each other in terms of implementation, in terms of success. So that's what we're trying to do in terms of collaboration and implementing and continuing our improvement between us both.

Debi Pezzuto: This is reminding me of the work I used to do and thinking about formally tracking student outcome data, and the second quarter after exit and fourth quarter after exit and tracking it in our data system, but that most of the work was actually done informally. I knew that Juanita finished the class and then she moved into the CNA. And then now she's got a job because I saw her in the emergency room and I told a coworker,

I feel like so much of what our students do is informal and then we end up doing the same thing too. We know that we have student outcomes, and now it's just working together collaboratively to create the systems. You guys find the same? Am I the only one in that? Nope Megan's nodding. All right. Let me just look at one of the last questions, because you did talk about implementation and continuous improvement. It sounds like you've got a lot at the next meeting a lot of big things that you hope to do. I do want to see where collaboration or any data sharing maybe got complicated and how you worked through it.

Natali Robles: I'm going to think about that.

Debi Pezzuto: Say you want to think about it. Go ahead.

Natali Robles: Let me think about it.

Debi Pezzuto: OK we're going to have a Q&A at the end. So I'll come back to you. All right Thank you so much Natalie. Does anybody else from Long Beach want to share any perspectives or experiences?

Kimberly: Actually for the data sharing I can share, I guess employer experience when it comes to placement outcomes. Because typically when I place a student, sometimes it varies depending on the relationship I have with the student or if they were part of a certain program. But sometimes the follow up is very easy because they were part of our cohorts. I give them a call and they know who I am and they easily share like, Oh Yeah. I'm working at so-and-so company making this much.

But sometimes a student won't always disclose their pay, and I will have to outreach to the employer to find out. But recently I've come across some issues where not every employer wants to share that information because they consider it a confidential. So it's a very gray area to navigate because there's some employers that will easily share like, hey, Yes, here are the students we hired. This is how much they're making.

Other employers are very much like, sorry, we're not allowed to disclose that information. So when I've come across issues like that. I've had this meeting-- I have it's a work in progress, but I've had a meeting with an employer where we're essentially coming up with a disclosure agreement that the student will sign, letting them know, like if they attend our in-person events, whether it's a job fair hiring event. That they know their data is going to be shared in terms of contact information and just how much they're getting paid.

And when-- because we've come up with that sort of agreement. The employers It's comfortable sharing that data information with us. So that's more so like my experience with data sharing. Like Natalie mentioned, this is still a work in progress and we're still trying things. And so that's my experience.

Meghan McBride: Every time I talk to you. Kimberly I am so impressed by your tenacity to get things done and your creativity. And so I love the idea of a data sharing agreement ahead of time to try and preempt them saying they can't give you the information that not only is it important Just to help students improve their economic mobility and enter into living wage jobs, But in order to continue receiving this funding, it's very important to capture these outcomes because funders want success.

So thank you for your tenacity in ensuring that we are getting good data or any data at all. That is certainly the hardest data that we have at the outcomes data to capture. And so you are to be commended for doing whatever you can to get that information.

Kimberly: Thank you, Thank you. It's still a work in progress, but I'm trying.

Natali Robles: You're doing great, Kimberly. And I know we wanted to add a little bit about our collaboration, even though we have a lot of people that live in Long Beach that connect us. I know my colleague here, Stephanie. She works also very hard in engaging employers. And her colleague also works very hard with that. So I will let her share anything about collaboration and how she builds those partnerships, because I think we're very unique on our end. I don't know if everybody else is under workforce development.

I think because we get that support from that big umbrella, I think we're also in that space where we're able to engage employers because we have Stephanie and her colleague that are able to support. So I don't know if you want to share anything, Stephanie, in terms of collaboration or partnerships and in terms of what you've done. I think it's also a really great example to share.

Stephanie: Thank you. Natalie I can share briefly. So like Natalie mentioned, we are under the Workforce and Economic Development Division at Long Beach City College, and I oversee workforce training programs. And so I collaborate with industry and employers to inform the training programs that we want to offer at Long Beach City College.

And that has included employer advisory councils to either inform new training or enhance existing training. So one example of that is we've been offering not for credit, logistics training. And then based on input we've received from employers who are part of the employer advisory council, we recently decided to enhance those training by embedding AI modules into those training. And like Natalie mentioned, since we're both under the same division, she and I work closely.

And although some of the training that I oversee are on the not for credit side, there are opportunities that have opened up or that we have been exploring to develop additional training on the non-credit side. Which is what Natalie supports with adult learners. And so that has consisted of sharing learnings from employers or also looking at some of the not for credit training that I have overseen as a test case to see if there is need and success, to then offer that as a non-credit offering.

So definitely a lot of cross-collaboration based on what we've learned with from industry and then identifying opportunities to you continuing to enhance the offerings for adult learners, whether it's through training or job placement services?

Debi Pezzuto: It's fantastic. You guys are doing some incredible work. I want to make sure that we move over to Matt. I don't want to leave him hanging. He joined us so I'm Thank you. Long beach, so much for sharing your examples. Next up we have the always lovely Matt Russo from Grossmont. Adult Ed reentry education program. And Megan and I first met Matt like last spring I think, and he took us on a tour of some of the programs that he's running through the jail, the reentry system up there. And so, Matt, I would love for you to share the work that you're doing and how that collaboration works, because that's very complicated.

Matthew Russo: So Thanks for having me. So I'm not going to compete with the college because she did an incredible job explaining everything. So I and-- I don't use education is that in depth. So I'll keep it in basic terms and we'll go from there. So I didn't come from education so I came from the private sector, I came from the hospitality industry. I became a director with the hospitality industry.

I did that for about 24 years ended up with some knee replacements, shoulder replacements, back surgeries. And so I said, I have to start using my mind and sit more than I do anything else. That's how I got into education. So that'll give you a little bit different of why the programs are the way they are. And what we do is because of my background not because of what I've done in education.

First of all, I work with the well, we've. Grossmont has had a relationship with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, and we've had that for about 20 something years or maybe longer, 30 years. And then about 10 years ago, they decided County contracts, wanted to go ahead and make a contract for us and every vendor that was working with the government agency.

And so that's where we started getting into a contract point. Building the relationships with them was not-- it wasn't too difficult because of again, my background dealing with contracts and also people. And so we started from there. Now when I took over from the other principal, I started noticing some of the programs that we had and how they compare with all the different, especially in San Diego all the different businesses that we have here.

So I started tailoring our program to hospitality and hospital. And that's because a reentry facility is a hospitality and hospital. If you look at it in all the different things we had. So I started-- At that point, we started talking and got a lot of pushback when I wanted to open up a restaurant inside the facility and a barista cart.

And so when that happened of course, deputies and everybody else turned around and says, Oh, that will never happen. I go, well, Thanks for the challenge, because that's where we're going to go now. And we opened a restaurant. So we have a restaurant over there at Las Colinas Detention reentry facility, and we serve about 200 covers per day.

I know now I'm talking a different language than you guys. That means 200 people per day. And if you average out the dollar amount with that, well, we'll skip that part. We also have a barista cart that's there. And we combine that with the culinary program. And it's not just culinary arts, hospitality management and culinary.

And we also did national certification to that particular program. And so all the certifications are nationally recognized and they're done by the National Restaurant Association. When we started bringing out this curriculum, I was told that it's going to be too hard for the students, but we'll call them inmates. So you know what I'm talking about. But I'm going to refer-- to refer them as students. It's going to be too hard for these students. And I said, well, let's take a look at it.

And I started looking at it whatever I said, I said no. I don't think it is. I think you're just underestimating them because most of them are brilliant and they know how to boost a car and change the electronics and do all sorts of crazy stuff that I probably would never know. They know kilos and metrics like I will never know and they just think differently. We just have to translate it to that type of how they're thinking. And that's what we did.

So they started actually passing like crazy. So we had an incredible pass rate. And all the tests that come from the Restaurant Association are just like your high school equivalency test, HiSET or GED. It comes sealed. Proctor has to break it open. They have to take 100 question test. There's six banks to that test. That's 600 questions overall, they do one bank a month for the whole program, and that's just our culinary.

In addition to that, these are most of all my programs. Then I went ahead, and I'm huge in apprenticeships. I think the apprenticeships are the biggest thing since sliced bread. And I was into apprenticeships when I first took over the principal, he was training me and he says, hey, I need you to do this invoice. I go, what's this? He goes, it's an apprenticeship. I go, what's that? He goes, well, you're going to start sitting on the board as a consultant. I said, really?

So immediately I just went, Oh my God, I never knew this thing existed. This has to be the best thing ever. And it's going to put the colleges under, sorry colleges. So anyway and I thought, Oh my gosh, how incredible is that? And so anyway we started, I started sitting about, we started working apprenticeships. So then I started getting involved with the apprenticeship programs and start networking.

Now unfortunately, networking is huge and I don't know if your districts or your colleges allow you to actually use the term network and go out into the community and literally drum up business. It's something different, but my-- I can't use that term. I can't use the word networking. I do it anyway because that's what I know, and I know it works.

So with that being said, if I go I want to go over here to do some networking. I get shut down immediately. So it's been a real challenge. So with that being said, I do what I do anyway and started networking. We started a signing apprenticeship programs that was another challenge.

So we became the local education agency and because of my experience, I could look at the curriculum and go, Oh, this is perfect, let's move on. Let's go ahead and sign them up. Let's get them going. We start them with zero hours. Now we're, you know, they're at 35, 40, 50,000 hours a year, that they're using, and then they get supplemental RSI hours from the community college district or from the Chancellor's Office.

So with that being said, every one of my programs are just now are linked to an apprenticeship program, national certifications, and also, we just started this one recently. Well, not recently. We also articulate with all the different colleges here in San Diego, I am articulated with all of them except for Palomar right now. And we're going to be doing a computer-- We're going to be doing a Ms office professional as soon as we get the internet, which will be in January. When that happens, we're going to be articulating with them also.

But that's still not where we're done. We've still got more here. With that also being said, I went to a conference and I met a girl named Crystal who works for the community college district. Crystal Ignacio. And so Crystal was there and she was-- I went to the one program that talked about apprenticeships, getting degrees after completing the apprenticeship program.

So they would actually get their degree from whatever they learned, except for maybe they'd have to take like two classes and I go, Oh my gosh, is this really happening right now? I thought this was the best thing ever. I go, I am-- I got a whole new excitement. This happened about three months ago. I got a whole new excitement that I haven't had in years. And then I went to Crystal's credit for prior learning. And so then Crystal opened up and I'm listening to all this. And what do you think I'm thinking in my mind? I hate to say it, community college. They're going to say a bunch of good stuff and crickets. It's not going to happen. So what then?

What ended up happening was Crystal opened up differently. She said, you know, I want to let you guys know it doesn't matter. I know you guys have different community colleges that you try and work with, which is great. But I want to tell you, it really matters to who you're actually working within that college. You got to find the right person.

And when she said that, that was exactly what we were going through, because I've taken an apprenticeship program all the way over to the community college. We sat there for about four hours or three hours trying to figure out credit for prior learning, whatever else. And crickets. Nothing else ever happened. And I told her that story in front of everybody. She asked me to work directly with her. We've already started and we've already got 38 credits for our apprenticeship program.

This happened within a three month period. We're moving very quickly. I'm not getting-- I'm not letting her off the hook because again, I come from the business background, not from education, so I keep pushing her. I want to get this up to 47 credits or more, so that they only have to take two or three classes and they'll actually, after they graduate from their apprenticeship and then get their associate's degree.

And then I got on the council. I spoke with the Council for the state apprenticeship council, and I got on the microphone there, and Gary was there and I started saying, this is the-- I'm so excited because I saw apprenticeships taking away from the colleges. And then what I'm seeing now with this thing that's happening with credit for prior learning, not I see a huge enrollment boom that's going to happen with the community colleges in addition to a completion rate.

Because if they only have to take a few more classes, that's going to increase the completion rate. Now let's go back how I bring that into adult ED I try everything first before I go into my programs. So Crystal actually was going to come and tour the program, and we were going to do private credit for prior learning for those students that already have their articulations that have credits, in addition, for their prior learning that they have done in the past.

And so we combine all those credits together. And plus just recently we now have our transition specialists from our consortium East Region Adult. Now are coming into the jails, they got them clearance. We started discussing how we're going to do it. We're getting our first quarterly reports that I'm working with them, and she's been going on a weekly basis to two out of the seven facilities, because we're still on this mode here, and every teacher has to schedule a time with our transition. So she comes in during class and gets everybody enrolled, gets everybody going all in one shot.

And you're right. I remember it's like a socialist program where a socialist program, I'm sorry. A social work program where, we're trying to get them bus passes. We're trying when they get out, we have a food bank available for them. We're trying to get them enrolled in the college we have-- We try and get them jobs. So prior to the transition specialist, my office, there's only three of us in here took care of reentry, education, apprenticeships. And we also, we also get them into the jobs.

For example, my proctor, one of my proctors here, her son was incarcerated at one point and she was talking about how he needed a job whatever else he was working over at Belmont Park. And I'm cracking up, you know? OK, it's at least he's working. I'm very thankful. I said, let's get him into a career. So I made a couple phone calls, called him whatever else got him into the ironworkers. He's fifth period apprentice. He made $90,000 last year.