(SPEECH) LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: City college. (DESCRIPTION) Slides. (SPEECH) This is our third Community of Practice for adult dual enrollment, our June 2026 meeting. We will be taking a break over the summer months and resuming in the fall. Next slide, please. (DESCRIPTION) Community of Practice Adult Dual Enrollment June 2026. (SPEECH) So in the chat, if you could, please introduce yourself by including your name, your consortium and institution, and complete the following statement. This is our ongoing way of tracking what's taking place with adult dual enrollment in between our Community of Practice meetings. So "since our last Adult Dual Enrollment CoP session, one key development or insight for our consortium or our college, our adult school, has been--" and fill that in. We'll give you a couple of minutes to do that. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: Welcome! In the Chat, please: Introduce yourself (name, consortium, institution, etc.) and complete the following statement: Since our last Adult Dual Enrollment CoP session, one key development or insight has been (SPEECH) And if you don't have a key development from the last time, that's OK too. (DESCRIPTION) A woman with short blond hair wears glasses, a headset, and a dark top against a teal background. A label reads Lisa Mednick Takami. (SPEECH) Welcome, Al. We're glad this is your first meeting. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: Agenda. A bullet point list. (SPEECH) So let's go ahead and move to the next slide as people are still introducing themselves and sharing any developments since our last CoP. So we're in the process of doing our welcome. Then I will turn it over and Ute will be covering a recap from our May session with West LA College, which was really interesting and productive. As I mentioned, we have a program spotlight today with State Center Adult Education Consortium from Fresno City College. We're very excited to welcome Eric Morin, and Crystal Lee, and David-- Woods, I think, is his last name-- from their IR department. And we will proceed with the bulk of our time going to question and answer and group discussion, and then closing in feedback that you may have for our subsequent planning. As I mentioned, we'll be taking a break for July and August and resuming in September. Next slide, please. (DESCRIPTION) Slide. (SPEECH) So here are some of our logistics and expectations. We are meeting monthly for 60 minutes. And our expectations are to please come ready to share experiences and questions as we continue to build the infrastructure for SB 554 that, while it passed in 2019, is really starting to gain traction in the system now, engage in discussion and collaborative problem-solving. And participation is certainly encouraged, but not required. So if you are new, as Al identified herself with, and you wish or you prefer just to listen for today, of course, that's great. Next slide, please. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: Housekeeping. (SPEECH) So the meeting is being recorded, will be remediated, and is posted on the CalAdult website. The PowerPoint will be shared following remediation. We ask that you mute when not speaking to reduce background noise. And we consider, by definition, the Community of Practice as a learning space. So we're looking for-- questions, examples, honest discussions are welcome. And that includes good tries that might not have gone well, or challenges with technology, or whatever may have surfaced at your particular institution. And with that, I will hand it off to Ute. Thank you. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: Objectives. (SPEECH) UTE MASCHKE: Again, welcome, everyone, especially for those of you who joined us for the first time. As always, we have ambitious objectives for our session today. In the next 60 minutes, we want to synthesize key takeaways from our whole series over the academic year '25-'26. We will highlight implementation insights from our guest speakers today, Fresno City College. They will include successes, challenges, and practical lessons learned. We will facilitate peer exchange of strategies, models, and approaches through our discussion after our guest speakers' presentation, and identify promising practices and scalable ideas that support all of us and program sustainability, and, with your input, gather ideas for future Community of Practice structures, topics, and support that help us guide planning for the upcoming year and the upcoming sessions Lisa already mentioned. And, as always, we want to strengthen cross-consortia connections and collaboration. Next slide, please. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: Recap from West L.A. College. (SPEECH) First, before going into our guest presentation, we want to recap our last session with our guest speakers from West LA College, who shared with us their successes, challenges, and next steps in adult dual enrollment. They are working currently with about 75 students who are mostly English learners and undocumented learners. So quite a bit of their work is focusing on those ESL students. And for them, they have developed a strong Spanish in-language child development cohort of about 40 to 50 students per cohort. So they are focusing their adult dual enrollment on this child development cohort. They developed a digital dynamic enrollment form that, system-wide, improves access and onboarding. I think quite a few of us were impressed by that digital dynamic form and not PDFs or fillable PDFs. And they are launching a GED task force for weekly meetings to track progress and coordinate outreach, because they noticed that more and more students focus on completing their college work and focus a little less on completing their GED work for understandable reasons. And the team at LA college took those reasons to develop that very task force. The key barriers identified might be familiar to most of us, if not all of us, student confidence in their ability to succeed at both college courses and GED or high school diploma completion. Especially at the beginning, students are often overwhelmed and are not sure how to navigate college systems. And some of them have GED readiness gaps that need to be addressed either before or right at the beginning of students engaging in this dual enrollment program. Strategies and best practices West LA College developed include that they identified an intern outreach, prepared Spanish GED materials, especially for the child development cohort, and introduced support tools and support classes that are tailored to students in the adult dual enrollment program. Crucial for the success of their program is the partnership with Culver City Adult School-- as we all know, the spirit of SB 554 is a stronger partnership between adult schools and colleges within consortia-- and the increased awareness for fresh success GED. They developed some tools and vouchers. If you scan the QR code, you can learn about more details of their work. (DESCRIPTION) Slide. (SPEECH) And with that swift recap, we are ready to dive into our presentation by our guests today from Fresno City College. Eric, Crystal, and David, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your effective practices with us. If you have any questions while the three present, please feel free to add them to the chat. We are monitoring the chat. And then we'll take plenty of time for our Q&A and discussion afterward. Take it away, Crystal, Eric, David. ERIC MORIN: All right. Well, good afternoon, everybody. My name is Eric Morin. I am one of the adult education counselors from Fresno City College. As Ute said, we have Crystal Lee and David Woods here. Crystal Lee is one of our other counselors, but she's fighting off a cold and on the verge of losing her voice. So she's here in support and to jump in, in case I need some saving today. And then David Woods is here. He promised to take all the hard questions. But they are here just in support. So they may jump in at a certain point if I miss something. But you'll be primarily hearing from me this morning. All right. So again, thank you all for the opportunity to be here. And yeah, we're really excited to share about the work we've been doing. I think something that becomes very clear when all of us are at conferences and things is we get so buried into the work that we're doing that you don't stop to think, oh, maybe if I do this little tweak, that will change so much the way that we do things. So I'm appreciative of the opportunity to be here. And it was actually-- Ute, I met you at a conference recently. So as soon as we opened, I was like, oh, I remember who you are. So thank you again for the invitation to be here. Yeah. So we can just go on to the next slide, please. (DESCRIPTION) Slide. (SPEECH) So we're going to be sharing a little bit about just the different ways that we promote the program. One of them is we have these flyers that we have available. We've left these flyers in our partnering adult schools in our area. We leave them out with some community partners who maybe work with students to get social services or that are connecting them to higher education or other educational opportunities. So we do try to let individuals know partnering organizations, letting them know students don't have to have their diplomas-- they don't have to have their equivalencies to attend college, and that, in fact, if they are going to, if they are interested in enrolling in the college, there's this opportunity available for them to help with the financial burden of college and to be able to take advantage of these opportunities. What is a challenge with that, and you all probably encounter it, is sometimes some of these community organizations are offering their own GED programs or their own prep type of programs. And because they're not eligible, because they're not an adult school or a college, sometimes they have to miss out or they're sending students outside of their program. But letting them know that this is a fit, that-- sorry, that this is a resource that's available to some of their students-- the awareness is just the biggest part. People don't know that this is possible. People don't know that this is an avenue that they can take advantage of. So just having it available to let the community know that this even exists has been helpful for us. And like I said, we take these flyers to different parts of the community and to different partners that are working with that population. OK. Next slide, please. (DESCRIPTION) Slide. (SPEECH) So we have this flyer. Usually, these are front and back to one another. So this one right here just outlines the quick overview of what these steps to enrollment look like, but letting them know that they do need to complete their college application, where we talk with them about what courses they'll need. And oftentimes, with what's been with our relationships with the adult schools is the adult school has already started talking to this student about, well, hey, for you to complete your diploma, you need this course. You could satisfy that by taking this class from Fresno City College. So with the relationships that we have, they already have a list of classes that they're eyeing or have highlighted that these are some of the classes they're going to be referring students to. So they already know what they're looking for. So by the time a student is working with us, in most cases, their adult school counselor has already informed them of what class they'll be needing. So it's a little more targeted and not so much of, all right, we have the whole catalog of classes available to us. It's more, well, let's help you find that English C1000 or a communications class that you're needing. It can be much more targeted, so that they know we're using this class to help you finish your diploma. Or maybe it's a thing of they want to start exploring a potential career path. This opportunity allows them to do that. And then we work with them to complete the forms that we have. We have a-- I'm not going to say it's necessarily a unique situation, but our college is part of a four-college district. So the practice and the process that we have for processing these students has to be in alignment across all four of our institutions. So for the people that were involved with that process, I'm sure they had a lot of fun laying out all those steps, but it has been something that we've been able to standardize so that all of our colleges are doing this process in the same manner. And then the orientation registration, that's where us, the counselors, are working with the student to get their forms signed, get the proper signatures from the adult school or the proper signing parties, and make sure that it goes to our admissions and records, so that the students can be sure that they are enrolled, but also are having their fees waived as well. Next slide, please. (DESCRIPTION) Slide. (SPEECH) So one avenue we were talking about, awareness is just-- right away, one of the big challenges is, how do we get people to find out about it? So about six years ago-- Crystal, was it six years ago that we started the open house, about? CRYSTAL LEE: Yeah, around there. ERIC MORIN: Yeah. So we started doing an open house on our campus, but specifically for our adult schools. So this was not open to-- yes, it's still open to the public, but it's not intended for the 17, 18-year-old that's about to graduate from high school. These are for specifically all of our adult schools. We do the outreach to that population. So when they come to our campus, for one, they're getting a tour of the facilities. They're getting to hear from our president. Most of the times, our president is able to be there. If not, it's one of our vice presidents. We have our mascot. We have resource tables from all of our different pathways represented on campus. We have those who are representing our health programs, our social sciences, our math division. All of those different departments are there so that these students can talk to a counselor. And they can ask a little bit more specific questions if they're interested about certain pathways, but then they're also making that connection. So if they see that I talk to counselor Michael, who works with the business division, they already feel that little degree of connection with them. But while they're there now that they've gotten to see and I mean, just to brag, but our campus is really beautiful. And for a lot of times, our students who live in Fresno have never been inside the campus, have never explored the campus. So it really brings it to life. And during that presentation, we get to talk to them again about SB 554 and being able to take classes on our campus. And I think it just makes it come to life that much more, that it's like, oh, so that building that I was in, that's where I could take one of my English classes? That's where I could take this class? It just really brings it to life for them. And when we show them that the process is not a severely complicated process, it's a few forms that we fill out, it does excite students to want to come and to want to participate in there. We usually get a handful of students just right after. They're like, can we make an appointment with you? We want to sign up. We want to take classes next semester. And we really do feel like a part of that is because, now, college, they've seen the facility. It's no longer this beautiful building that you drive by, but I've gotten to see inside. I talked to some of the counselors. I got to see what it feels like on the campus. And it's been a really great event. We usually average-- we keep it-- it's not a monstrous event. We usually have anywhere between 70 to 90 participants that show up for this open house. And we've always been very fortunate to have great weather as well. So that always helps out. And finally, the last item that's on there, it's a new student guide. We can send out a link for this, so you all can share it, with the resources that we send out. But our campus, we developed a new student guide, and it has-- when you think about if you were to walk into your admissions and records office, or all your offices on campus, there's tons of different handouts. So this one compiles some of the highlights that would be a little more relevant to our adult learners. So it does have major sheets in there. It has lists of certificates, the list of the degree programs that are available to them. But it also has instructions on logging into your portal, checking your email, different things like that, that it's like you got this one booklet that these students can carry. And it's really cool that when we have some of these advising appointments with students, they bring that with them. It's almost like this notebook that it's become for them, that now they're highlighting stuff inside, and they really are using it as a resource. This adult school open house that we do, it does target-- when we do the recruitment for it. We are going to the ESL classes at the adult school. We're going to the GED classes on the adult school campus, because we want it to be for those who are maybe possibly eyeing coming to our campus and some of the programs that can be a better fit for them. All right. Next slide, please. (DESCRIPTION) Slide. (SPEECH) So this is the form that we have for our district. Again, we are a four-college district. So this form is something that our entire district does use. Now, this form can be initiated from the adult school side. But usually, the form, we are facilitating it through us, the counselors. So I'm just going to name drop one of our counselors. Oh, I'm sorry. Lisa, you had your hand up? LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Yes. Thank you, Eric. I'm just responding to a couple questions in the chat. So one is, "Are you partnered with multiple adult schools?" ERIC MORIN: Yeah. Oh, go ahead. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: And then the other is, "Do your ESL students--" and I have this question-- "also need to be enrolled in an HSD/HSE program?" ERIC MORIN: OK. So for the first one-- LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Thank you. ERIC MORIN: Yeah. Yeah, thank you. So our consortium, the State Center Adult Ed Consortium, Crystal, it's 14 adult schools in our region? CRYSTAL LEE: Yes, I believe it's 14. I try to remember all the names, so please forgive me. I'm sure some of the adult schools may be here. But the ones that we mainly go out to right now are Fresno Adult. There's Central. And also, we do have some students that come through from Clovis Adult School as well. But we do, right now, mainly promote at Central and Fresno. But we do have others from Caruthers. There's Washington Union as well. ERIC MORIN: Yeah. But our entire region serves about 14 adult schools and two other entities. One of them is our Juvenile Justice Campus and things like that. But we all work together. And sometimes, it's one of those things where maybe a student isn't quite a fit for what Reedley College is offering, but Fresno City offers something. Reedley is one of our sister campuses. So we do work together, just to figure out what is best for the student and how can we make sure that we're getting the student the class that they need to achieve their goals that they're working on. And then you asked about if our ESL students, if they have to be in those programs. I mean, on our campus-- and somebody can call me out if I don't fully answer the question, but our classes for English on our campus, we have them all available as noncredit classes. So even for these students, whether it's a matter of not meeting state residency requirements or not meeting financial aid eligibility, all those classes are available for them to take it as noncredit. So it's no tuition for the course. So we haven't really had to explore figuring out, can we get ESL students to take SB 554?, to go through that process. Often, there are times where those students are also in a degree or GED program. But for a lot of them, they're mostly wanting to focus on one or the other and get done. So we haven't really encountered a lot of ESL students trying to do dual enrollment until they're getting to the latter stages of those ESL sequences that we have on our campus. I don't know. Crystal, David, anything you'd want to add to that? All right. Oh, I don't know. David. DAVID WOODS: I was just going to say, I linked in the chat as well our SCAEC web page, and near the bottom is the list of colleges and adult schools. ERIC MORIN: So as I was mentioning, this form can be initiated by the counselors from the adult school. It can be initiated from us, the counselors. And then we also have transition specialists that are part of the consortium team. They are co-located at the various adult schools that are in our region. So sometimes, it's them that will initiate this form. And they'll email me and say, hey, Eric, we have Jesus Reese right here that wants to take this class. He's already done his application. So then they help us with that handoff of getting this form initiated. And then this form is all done-- we used to do it like hard copy, but now we do it all through Adobe Sign. So I'm so thankful for Adobe Sign, not having to drive back and forth to these campuses. But we're able to do that. So students are able to sign it from their phones. And then the different administrators, we don't have to worry about whether they're going to be back in office. We can just get all these done. And then once the form is signed by all the parties, we send it along to admissions and records to make sure that the form gets processed. So the student gets enrolled in the class. And then they also send a registration statement that shows that their fees have been waived. So the student knows that, OK, the process that Eric or that Crystal sold me on actually went all the way through. So there's that follow through that students see. Oh, my fees really did get waived in this process. And throughout the time that we've been implementing this, we've developed a stronger relationship with our admissions and records team on campus, because we always have a bunch of questions. So we have a Teams chat, all of us adult education counselors, our coordinator. We have a chat with a few identified staff from admissions and records. So whenever we do have a question, we compose it in that chat so that it's not, later on, buried in emails of, I asked a question. I had a back and forth several times, and we updated. We can just all be in on the conversation, so that we can all be informed of different practices. One thing that's been really great, because of that relationship with admissions and records, is that, oftentimes, getting signatures isn't always like-- you always wish, man, it's Adobe Sign. In 30 minutes, I should be able to have everybody signatures. But then you have somebody on vacation. Then you have somebody who's out in meetings and can't get to it right away. So in those situations, we will just enroll the student into the desired communications class that they want, and then our admissions and records will still process these forms after the fact, and they can waive them and recode them. That way, the student doesn't risk losing their spots in these classes. And that's just been-- at first, they weren't doing that. But as we started explaining to them, they got to get familiar with the process as well. They've been willing to make the proper workarounds so that we can best serve the students and the students don't miss out on potential classes because they're waiting on other people's signatures. Let's see. What was that question? Do students complete the classes they want to request on the form? So their registration dates fall just like anybody else's on campus, whatever tiers they fall into. They haven't been deemed like a priority group, at least not to my understanding. So the form that's on here, it is specific to the section. So it's not like a blank check of, oh, you can register for any communications class. It is to the specific section. So if it happens to be that by the time that they sign this form, they end up deciding to switch because their work schedule changed, we have to go back and do the form all over again, so it's reflecting the new section number of the class that they're wanting. So it is specific to those specific sections that we are identifying for them as we're working on it. And that was part of why we had to have the conversation with them of, well, can you process these forms after the fact? So that if we can get a student into the class, we weren't having to deal with two or three versions of this form due to the classes getting filled and then losing out on their spots for these classes. So that's been a really great partnership that we've been able to develop with our admissions and records team. And you're right, Carlos. Yeah, it's so important to have that. These people were strangers or just the name behind an email address, and now it feels like we bug them constantly throughout the week. But it also feels like they have a much better understanding of what we're doing now and the challenges that we come across with students, just based on some of the different random situations that we throw their way with some of the questions. Let's see. If I can get the next slide, please. (DESCRIPTION) Slide. (SPEECH) So this goes in to what I was referencing right now. So identifying the key players at the different institutions, so building that relationship with our adult school counselors and the principal, our form-- it shows on there, there's a spot for a counselor signature and a principal signature. So our campus requires that both of those are filled, not just, oh, well, if you can't get the principal, it's OK. No, the principal still needs to sign it-- so making sure that they're well aware of what the process is, so that they understand the importance of when they see these forms come through. Some campuses don't have a counselor or don't have a consistent counselor that's there. So identifying-- and for us to know who is the person to contact. And sometimes, that just also means having a number that we can text and say, hey, Clarissa, I just sent you a form. I know you're in meetings all day today, but if you can get to it when you can-- because it can get buried. You leave a meeting, you come back, and you're 40 emails deep from where you were before the meeting. Having a way to just communicate and give those slight nudges to move along those forms has been just really helpful as we try to make sure that this process always moves as smooth as possible for the student side. Yes, Lisa. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Thank you. Eric, we have a couple more questions. So from Alejandro, "What would the adult dual enrollment form look like when both programs are within the same college, with the student enrolled in noncredit GED prep and a credit course at the same time?" ERIC MORIN: So this form-- we actually did start doing that. It was at one of the past conferences. I think I actually kind of took that idea-- hopefully I'm not attributing it to the wrong college. I think it was LA City College mentioned that they were using on-campus GED prep for this process. And we have a HiSET prep class on our campus. So when we do that for this form, we do list that HiSET prep class on here, and then we just list all the other classes. In our case, it's been our faculty coordinator that has served as the principal's signature on it. And that was just something that we've been able to explain to our admissions and records to let them know, this is why this form looks different, because it is using on-campus class to facilitate that process. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: OK. And there's another question from Anacani, which reminds me of something that we've seen with mirrored course registration. So she asks, "We are currently experiencing the challenge of the low-priority registration date issued per the SB 554 policy. This creates barriers to access for our students who are motivated to take specific courses for a degree and certificate, and face full courses by their reg date, which is one week before the semester begins." (DESCRIPTION) A man with short dark hair and a goatee wears a light blue collared shirt against a backdrop of a tan brick courtyard. A label reads Eric Morin. (SPEECH) ERIC MORIN: Yeah. I mean, I think the challenge with this, and that's why it's become so much of us trying to do outreach throughout the semester, is that it's not a student finding out about it at the end of the semester. Because I think we all-- we were all students at one point, and you experience that. Man, come Thanksgiving, it's slim pickings for what's left for the spring semester. By the time you encroach into the hot time of May and June, it's also, again, slim pickings already for fall. So it's about doing that outreach early on with us. I know it's not a fix-it pill, but it's been trying to shift that culture with the students of waiting and waiting. I think, sometimes, because these folks are still adapting and getting used to the school-going environment-- before that, it was like, oh yeah, this sounds interesting. I'll go to that workshop next week. Very short-term thinking. And this one, once they see that first experience of, that child development class sounds really interesting, and then they find that frustrating part of it was all full, that's where we can take it on, OK, well, next semester, we need to talk earlier so that we can get you into the class earlier. And it is frustrating. I mean, I think we all probably experienced that at least once in our college experience of you missing out on a class that was at the perfect time slot with the perfect teacher that you wanted. But then we all learned our lesson from there. So using it as a, yes, I know that's frustrating, I know you're disappointed, but this is how we avoid that issue next semester. Again, it's not the perfect solution, but it is also that teaching moment for those students as well. So let's see. The other team players that we work with-- like I mentioned, our consortium has transition specialists that are co-located at all the adult schools that we serve. So they also build relationships with the students out there. Oftentimes, they're out there more than we are, so the students feel comfortable asking them questions. But then when they're ready to take on starting the process to the college, they're able to hand them off to us with a warm email or they're right there. One of the transition specialists we work with, Oscar, he'll call me with the student right there. And he's like, hey, just so you know, I have Brittany Smith right here on speaker with me. We're sending you an email right now, just so you know that, she's ready to do this. So I get to say hi to them really quick. And then we reach out, and then we make our appointment to do the rest of what we need to. But that process for those students to see that we are really all connecting and working together, I think, helps them feel just a little bit more supported in that process. There's us, the adult ed counselors from the college. Our college has four total adult ed counselors. One of them is full-time. The other three of us are part-time, working 21 hours a week. And one of those part-timers is also assigned to another project. So really, it's like we have two and a half adjunct counselors for adult ed and then the one full time. So we're a small team. But as we're continuing to work to grow the work that we're doing, our campus has also been really great about providing us more support as well. And then I mentioned earlier that admissions and records, just having the communication, constantly having questions and following up with them, letting them know about things that are coming up and things we're encountering, has been a really great process for us. I think probably it's been about the last year and a half where we really dug in and really communicated with them a lot more versus the random email. I think that, as simple as it is, having that group chat with them has made such a difference of just feeling like, I know who I can call when I have a question. And it's not wondering, well, I'll call the main office and I'll see who to talk to. It's already knowing these three people are always answering our questions. So I can go to one of these three people all the time for my questions. So in our region, our consortium leadership has been really great about setting up meetings for us to talk with our sister campuses to identify maybe what are the things that they're doing and what are things that they're trying out, so that we can try to help problem-solve together, or how can we support that work that you guys are doing. So we're not just working in isolation on our campus, but we're trying to figure out, well, if that's a good practice with us, how can we implement that with you guys? Or how can we tweak something that you guys are trying and make it bigger for our campus? So we all work together. And I feel very fortunate that all of our adult education teams across our four campuses are very collaborative. I feel like we're in this cool little bubble of adult ed where we all really just try to support each other. Like, if a student's trying to get into an ESL class on our campus-- our campus calls it EMLS. So if I let that slip, I'm not trying to confuse anybody. But we work with those students to figure out, all right, well, let's get you in a class at Reedley or at Madera if that schedule works better for you. We're trying to make sure that, overall, the student is supported first and foremost, because that's where they build that trust with us. And then, sure enough, the next semester, they come back to us. Well, all right. Well, it didn't work last semester. How can we make the schedule work this semester? So that's just a lot of that relationship-building that we're doing. And I think all four of us campuses do a really good job of sharing and supporting the students, whether it's for our specific campuses or not. Next slide, please. (DESCRIPTION) Slide. (SPEECH) I've already kind of hit on that, the Teams chats. We have our adult ed staff meetings. So with there being four of us counselors, some of us are a little bit more tied into certain projects than others. So we do just work to make time during our staff meetings to talk about what are we doing with certain SB 554 efforts. One of those that we've been doing is, the last three semesters, I believe it's been now, we actually have been offering the intro-to-college type of class, but at the adult school. And we promoted it for those GED high school diploma students. And it's meeting one of their graduation requirements as well. But it's actually been being taught by our transition specialist that's assigned there. So a lot of the students are already familiar with him. So when we promoted it, it was actually something very attractive to the students, that it was somebody that they were already familiar with popping into their classes and seeing him on the campus. And those students have been taking that class. And so they get to learn about Canvas, all the campus technology, and portals, and all of that. They get to learn about what's an SEP, learning about goals, all these type of things they're getting while they're still on their campus. So even for the slight thing of they're getting their classes, there's class fees waived, but they're not having to deal with parking passes. They're not having to drive all the way to our campus. But then they are also learning about the different resources that are available to them, like tutorial, going to the Career and Employment Center, our health services, our food pantry. In Fresno, we have the free bus pass. So they can use it all over Fresno by being a student. So letting them know, just by even taking this one class, you're getting all these additional benefits that can support you, the person. Aside from you as a student, you have all these resources that the students can take advantage of. So it's been a really cool partnership to do that. Every time we do those classes, we're in the upper teens, lower 20s of students that are enrolled in that class. And they're enjoying it. And then they're going on to continue to take more classes after that. Let's see. With those transition specialists, we do have a spreadsheet with them, just to help facilitate the referrals of those students that we're getting from them, so that we can make sure that students are not slipping through. But again, that's all-- not almost like. That is those warm handoffs that we're working with, so that they're connecting with us and making sure that those students' forms get taken care of. And they're also great. I mean, we're all human. I have one student's form who just slipped through my emails during the crazy time right before that open house, and I didn't get it processed. So the transition specialist called me. And he's like, Eric, the student still has a hold on their account. I'm like, oh my gosh, I messed up. So I dug it up. And sure enough, the form came through. I just never forwarded it. So I apologized. I owned it up to the student. Hey, that was my bad. I called admissions and records. I was like, hey, this was my mistake. Is there anything that we can still do? And they said, fortunately, Eric, the deadline is-- this just happened yesterday. So they were like, the deadline is this Friday to still process any late forms. So we were able to work on it and get that student taken care of. But because we have that relationship with that transition specialist who has that relationship with the student, they were able to go and get that. And I mean, now I feel like that TikTok video, we saved them $150. Sorry, I kind of had a little squirrel moment right there. But I think it just really speaks to the type of relationships that we're establishing within our campus and with our outside organizations that we work with as well. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: FCC Adult Ed Website. (SPEECH) Next slide. So we do have our website on our-- this is from our adult education website. So it branches out into the different programs that students could reach out to and want to explore. And as you see it over there on the far right, we have our Adult Education Dual Enrollment tab. So that's where students can get more information about the process. It's been one thing-- and I'm sure everybody else probably struggles with it as well, but everybody always knows of dual enrollment for the high schoolers. And it's been a challenge to still even just educate our on-campus staff and faculty to understand that adult dual enrollment is similar, but it's still a different process. It's a different beast than the normal dual enrollment that they're used to learning about and hearing about with the high school students. So along with doing community outreach, we're also still having to do informing and educating our on-campus family as well about this process, because there's still a lot of information out there that people aren't aware of. So letting them know-- because I think we'll get random questions in the library and in division offices of, do you guys have a GED program here? And sometimes, people think, oh, no, you have to have that before you come. So it's us learning through different calls and questions that we get of-- it's not just you're not aware of adult dual enrollment. You thought they couldn't come until they had their diploma. So realizing that those are all opportunities we can take to inform front office staff, library assistants, student assistants, making sure that they're all aware, so that they don't accidentally close the door on a student unintentionally. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: FCC Adult Education Team Fresno City College Adult Education. (SPEECH) And if I can get the next slide, please. So this is something that we've done. I mentioned that we're a relatively small staff for the amount of places that we serve. And we're always out and about. For example, last semester I didn't even buy a parking pass on our campus because I was always at the adult school. That's how little I was on our main campus. So students won't always necessarily find us in our office spaces. So we did create this form. It was supposed to be just for our front office staff, so that they know where we were, but then it really became helpful for students to be able to reach us. So the little QR code goes to a Microsoft form that students can fill out. They can put, this is what I need help with. If they want to meet specifically with myself, or Jose Andres, or Crystal, they can mark on there that this is specifically who they want to work with. They can tell us what their issue is. So even if it's a situation where I'm out for the rest of the week and they wanted to talk to me, Jose Andres can follow up with them, because he speaks Spanish. And he knows, Eric's out the rest of this week. I can follow up with this person because they need Spanish support. So it's been really helpful in minimizing the amount of times that we get one student calling all four of our voicemails and then leaving all of us text messages with the same question. It's really cut down on those type of things where, when we're dealing with a large volume of students, even just playing phone tag for three or four minutes. But when you multiply that by four people, it's a lot of time that we've been able to start saving by just having this one landing spot for students to fill this out. And it's been really cool, because, I mean, I get alerts throughout the night and I'm getting a student filling it out at 1:15 AM, another one at 3:43 AM. So it's out there, and students are using it. And it's been a really cool resource to have, because that's also a voicemail I'm not getting at 3:43 in the morning. Let's see. Crystal, David, anything I'm missing? I think this was our last slide. Is there anything that I didn't hit on that I should have? (DESCRIPTION) Slide: Q and A and Discussion. (SPEECH) CRYSTAL LEE: No, I think you're good. Thank you. UTE MASCHKE: Thank you so much for that impressive presentation and your impressive work. We have a few more detail-focused questions in the chat, and then one big question. But again, thank you so much for that presentation. ERIC MORIN: Thank you. UTE MASCHKE: And you just said, it's really exciting and thrilling to get alerts at 1:00 in the morning. Really? When do you sleep? ERIC MORIN: Oh, I mean, I'm waking up and I'm seeing those alerts. UTE MASCHKE: Yeah. It's better than a phone call. Totally agree. ERIC MORIN: Yes. Yes. UTE MASCHKE: So we had one question that was about the college course you offer at the adult schools, taught by a transition specialist. How long is that course? ERIC MORIN: We've had it running as a 15-week course. Our semesters on our campus are 18 weeks. So we have it set up with a late start, just because the first time we did it, we started it off at the very beginning of the semester, and then we ended up having some students that didn't follow through with sticking with the class. And we had such a short window to recruit new students and get them processed. So we just realized, all right. Let's have it as a late-start class, so that it gave us a little bit of a runway at the beginning of the semester to get that going. So we have it as a 15-week class. It's a three-unit class for us. So their class meetings are about two and a half hours when they meet, but they do it once a week at the adult school site. So it's already in a place that they're familiar with. A lot of times, students are taking a lunch break after their morning class, and then they have the class in the afternoon for counseling. So we try to strategically do that, so that we were not also competing with these students' other classes that they're taking there. UTE MASCHKE: Yeah. And as you pointed out by the-- a somewhat late start helps with applications processing and all. Sometimes, students haven't completed CCC Apply. So starting a little later helps there. And students immediately have access to a lot more benefits that those of us at adult school sometimes simply cannot offer. ERIC MORIN: Yeah. And it also just lends itself to the word-of-mouth aspect about it too, where some of these folks-- particularly I think in adult schools, they may decide just, you know what? I should go. And then if they go and then they find out-- and then we're already in-- if they find out too late and we have such a short window for them to be able to join the class, then they miss out. It's like, well, you can take it in January instead. And for them, it's like, gosh, January feels like so long from now. So that extended window has been something that has just become a regular part of our process now. In the past, we used to offer our EMLS classes out there. And we did the same thing. We had them all late start because the word of mouth started hitting out there and people wanted to join. So we just said, let's just give it a little bit more runway to allow for that. And it's proven to be an effective practice for us. UTE MASCHKE: Yeah. And then there was another question. How many students are in your program? Oh, you-- yeah. ERIC MORIN: Yeah. So David put it in the chat, but he said we have somewhere around 86 students for this academic year. That's been district-wide. We're working on different avenues to continue growing that. But this has been something where it's been a concerted effort the last few semesters. But each of our campuses is trying out different little things. For example, one of us offering that class on campus. And as we've been dealing with different also staffing changes at adult schools, having to reinform the new administration or reinform the counselors and getting them to get on board with how to integrate it into their counseling processes and stuff, you hit those hiccups in the process. So fortunately, now I think we're starting to get into a groove where, OK, staffing is staying consistent now. Now we can just actually put this on repeat every semester, so that we can get some more momentum going with these. UTE MASCHKE: Yeah. And you mentioned early on that you have this team chat with admissions and records, which is an awesome way of keeping track of issues that come up. Very, very impressive that you have that team chat with a very busy department on campus. ERIC MORIN: Yeah. At first, it became a thing of like, I would always-- it'd be something where I would message one of them separately. And then Crystal would have a separate conversation. And she'd be like, oh, well, they told me this. And it just became like, why don't we just have this as a group? And it felt like, even for them-- because people take vacation. They have sick days. So when all of us can be in that conversation and if one person's out, whether it's on the counseling side or the admissions and records side, it allows the work to keep going, because all three of those admissions and records people know the processes that we're dealing with, because they see it on a regular basis. So it just reduces the amount of interruptions that we have to some of those flows. UTE MASCHKE: And then I want to come back to a bigger question in a moment and probably put some of us on the spot. But there's one more specific question. You see it in the chat. "For the adult dual enrollment, if a college offers the HiSET prep, but the testing is at our partner adult school, can the students taking the HiSET prep classes as noncredit courses still qualify for adult dual enrollment?" Eric, do you want to take that on? ERIC MORIN: I'm not sure, because, I mean, our class, we offer it on our campus. So we're doing that. But then the student, I mean, when it comes time for them to set up their testing location, we do have the opportunity for them to use one of our study rooms in the library that they've gotten pre-approved by HiSET. Or if the student sets it up for them to do at-home testing and they meet all the parameters, that hasn't affected it for us as far as where they test. It's just a matter that they're enrolled in our class. I mean, Crystal, is there anything-- CRYSTAL LEE: Yeah. For us, it just matters where they're enrolled in the program. So if they test at home or they test at our West Fresno Center, it doesn't matter where they test for us. They do have a choice to go and test at a local adult school that does accept outside students to test there. But for us, yeah, it doesn't matter for us. They can still qualify for the SB 554. UTE MASCHKE: Yeah. So in the bill, it says, they have to be actively engaged, actively enrolled in a high school diploma program. So they would qualify. A slightly bigger question. How do a dual enrollment and high school dual enrollment differ? ERIC MORIN: I mean, for one, obviously, just logistically, they are different sites. Our adult school partners, even though a lot of them reside within their K-12 districts, are not always connected to all of that. They're not connected to a lot of those other advising parts. So for one, it's us connecting more with them, not so much of district-wide communications that they're doing. The audience is another. And I think, for a lot of these, it's-- just because an adult school student comes in and tells me, hey, I want to take all three of these classes, not just ourselves, but the adult school counselors are very mindful of triaging that student and figuring out, hey, is you taking biology and English and this other class too much to take on while you're still deep in everything that you're doing here to work on your diploma? And it's not that they're shutting it down, but it's having that conversation to make sure, hey, you also told me your son's in two different sports. You also told me this and this, and making sure that they're not biting off more than they can chew. I know it sounds like a silly thing. But when we're doing a presentation, telling students about SB 554, we're telling them, just because we're waiving the fees doesn't mean that these are practice classes. This will be on your record. This will affect your probation. This will affect your standing. So these are not, oh, because it's free, it doesn't count. These do count. So we don't want to start you off by digging a hole in your first semester when you get started. And I think because of the nature of the relationship that they've either been able to develop with us or the transition specialists or the counselors, I feel like they all take that really well and they understand. Yes, this is free, but we want to make sure that you take care of this opportunity and you don't use it to hurt yourself academically. But this should be an asset to you, not something that helps you start a slide from the very beginning. UTE MASCHKE: Yeah. KIMIKO STRAYER: If I may clarify-- oh, sorry. UTE MASCHKE: Yeah. Please do. KIMIKO STRAYER: Yeah, my question is more process-wise. Is it a different process, or are there different classes for-- it's the same classes for high school versus adult ed students, or it's different? UTE MASCHKE: It should be different. I'm curious whether Anacani has more to add to the conversation before I chime in. ANACANI: Oh, yeah. Actually, I'm aware that the high school dual enrollment students do have a more seamless registration process because the courses that they get to take are grouped off for them and often offered at their high school campuses. Well, for the most part, they are. And then there's a dual enrollment instructor from the college teaching at their high school campus. And then the registration is more accessible than our SB 554 students. So that's what I was going to add to that. But you can continue this. I have a different question. Thank you. UTE MASCHKE: OK. OK. Yes. Yeah. Yes, that's an important add on. So though they fall under the same kind of special admittance under the enrollment, there are some very crucial differences between adult dual enrollment and high school dual enrollment, which often is by way of CCAP, but not always. And the main difference, as they already were pointed out, the dual enrollment for the high schools, those are courses, more often than not, offered at the high schools, where high schoolers attend as a cohort. They all go into one specific course or three specific courses, whereas adult dual enrollment clearly states that a student can choose to take up to 11 units each semester at the credit level. So it's the adult learner's choice to select the courses they want to go into. Of course, we want to support them, as Eric explained, in making an informed choice, what is the best fit for them. And they usually take those courses at a college campus, unless there is this model where a course is offered at an adult school. But it's the student's choice. It's up to 11 credits in a course of their choice. And usually, it's on a college campus or within the college environment. KIMIKO STRAYER: Got it. OK. Thank you. Yeah. Ours are online. So that's why I was wondering if there's much of a difference. But maybe the process is a little different, I guess. UTE MASCHKE: So the process is also different from what Joyce just pointed out in the chat. The support structures and the whole process is a bit smoother and stronger than we have currently in place for adult dual enrollment. And I think we are all working on changing that. A student in a CCAP agreement and a dual enrollment at a high school has also all their fees waived, textbooks, materials, which is crucial. Some of our consortia have agreements with their college foundations that cover other fees, but not all of us do. So the high school dual enrollment, especially in a CCAP, has a lot more system-wide support right now, which also makes the whole enrollment structure a little bit smoother. But as Eric just pointed out in his presentation, I think that we are developing processes to support adult dual enrollment in similar ways. Anacani, I have not forgotten that you had another question. And there was a question in the chat about apportionments, mentioning CDCP apportionment at colleges that enhance apportionment for career prep and college readiness courses. Those are two different things. Special admittance statuses are counted in the student success formula versus enhanced apportionment for noncredit courses is an FTEF category, the funding formula per student hours spent in college credit courses. So if you think about adult dual enrollment offering a student the choice to take any credit-level course except for PE at a college, then it would depend on the course the student selects. That course itself might be a CDCP course. That's the enhanced apportionment for the course itself. Now, the student is also a special admittance student. That is student success formula. So there might be another way your college will receive additional funding, because of the student success formula, but that has nothing to do with the CDCP apportionment. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: OK. And we are just about out of time. We have had a really robust discussion. I know Anacani had another question about how are seats saved. I'm going to save that discussion for next time, and we can see what Jenee has to say about that for her particular campus. We may put that out as a question to attendees next time. (DESCRIPTION) Slide. (SPEECH) If I could ask for our next slide, so that we can announce to you that the first meeting of the fall semester will take place on September 15. You've got the QR codes. Join the series for the '26-'27 year. Please put in-- for example, that question, how are seats saved?-- questions that you would like addressed in the next Community of Practice. We may consider an FAQ over the summer, because there are some common themes that I've been hearing, if we have time for that. And then also, do let us know if you're interested in sharing your experience or model program for subsequent sessions as we are continuing to highlight programs. We would like to thank Eric, and Crystal, and David so much for highlighting the fantastic work being done in collaboration with the adult schools at Fresno City College. Very enticing and exciting for us to hear. And if we can have our final slide, please, (DESCRIPTION) Slide. (SPEECH) here are some resources for you. Because we're at 1 o'clock, I'm not going to click into the links. We are continuing to gather resources for you on adult dual enrollment. We may take a look at some other states' models as we continue to actually embark on some formal research in this arena. I want to thank everyone for joining us this afternoon. We wish you a happy summer. Here is a QR code for our CC TAP listserv. Most on the call are new-- I'm sorry, most on the call are already subscribed. But since we had a few new colleagues, we encourage you to subscribe to the listserv for all things related to CAEP TAP at NOCE. We wish you a wonderful afternoon. And thank you again for joining us. We can stop the recording. UTE MASCHKE: Thank you.