(DESCRIPTION) Presentation: Adult Dual Enrollment September 2026. (SPEECH) LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: So if you are in the Zoom call now, if you can please introduce yourself, your name, your consortium, your institution, and complete the following. This gives us a little chance to know where you are in adult dual enrollment. Since our last adult dual enrollment CoP session, one key development or insight has been and you can fill that in. And if you don't have one and you're new to ED, that is all good, too. We are here at different levels of learning, progress, and development around adult dual enrollment. Next slide, please. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: Housekeeping. (SPEECH) Shaundi, did you want to do the housekeeping for today? (DESCRIPTION) Video feed for speaker in upper right hand corner. (SPEECH) OK. Shaundi was having a little challenge with her text. So I'll go ahead and do it. So we are recording this session. And it will be remediated and posted on the Cal Adult Ed site. We are sympathetic to the fact that, particularly in September and October, our schedules are super busy. And so we may have colleagues who may have wanted to join us today and could not. Please mute when not speaking to reduce background noise. And we welcome this as a learning space for questions, examples, and honest discussion around adult dual enrollment. Next slide, please. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: Agenda. A bullet point list. (SPEECH) Here is our agenda. As I mentioned, our program spotlight for today is Santiago Canyon College and Dr. Joanne Armstrong. We always leave plentiful time for questions and answer and group discussion on adult dual enrollment. And then there'll be some time for closing and feedback. I am going to announce that we are very excited that we are launching an action research project on adult dual enrollment. An announcement went out today on the CCTAP Listserv and will be forthcoming as well in the CAEP newsletter. So please stay tuned for more about that research project. Next slide, please. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: C.o.P. Logistics and Expectations. A bullet point list. (SPEECH) So a little bit about the structure of our community of practice. We meet each month for 60 minutes. We did take a pause over the summer. And we are also taking a pause in October, given CAEP Summit and other conferences taking place in the very busy month of October. Please come ready to share your experiences and pose your questions to engage in discussion and collaborative problem solving. And participation is encouraged, but is certainly not required. Next slide, please. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: Objectives. A bullet point list. (SPEECH) So objectives for today's session-- we are going to, as I said, engage in sharing ADE program models, share implementation insights. And as Joanne was speaking with our team just before we got started, in education, we never expect things to go perfectly because they don't. And we would like to know what is going well for you, as well as what some of the challenges are. We facilitate peer exchange, identify promising practices and scalable ideas, gather input for future community of practice, structure, and topics, and strengthen the cross-consortia connections and collaboration. Next slide, please. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: Guest Speaker. A bullet point list. (SPEECH) And with that, I will very happily turn it over to our guest speaker, Dr. Joanne Armstrong from Santiago Canyon College. She serves as Dean of Instruction and Student Services. Welcome, Joanne. JOANNE ARMSTRONG: Hi. Thank you so much for having me here. I appreciate it, allowing me to share our program. You can go to the next slide. I'll just jump right in. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: Access Is Not Enough. (SPEECH) My presentation-- Access Is Not Enough. And why I say that is just because we build it doesn't mean they'll come. And so we have to go out and recruit these students. And we have to be that bridge that they don't know that they even need sometimes. So connecting our non-credit programs to credit and pathways in a very deliberate way, I think, is important. Next slide. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: Who SCC Serves Through Adult Dual Enrollment. (SPEECH) So who SCC serves through adult dual enrollment, we have our adult high school diploma students. We have HiSET and GED preparation students. We have multi-language adult learners. So we teach HiSET in both Spanish and in English, our career pathway students and our incarcerated students. So we serve all of these through adult dual enrollment. Next slide. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: SCC Pathway in Practice: Child Development in Spanish. (SPEECH) So our pathway and practice actually started in child development in Spanish. So the idea came from our credit side. We've been talking about pathways a lot. And so credit got this really great idea. They were going to be running a cohort of child development in Spanish. And they thought, what a great way to help the students get in. If they could just enroll in high school, then they get it for free. So they did not understand what adult dual enrollment was, what the requirements are, what the necessary steps were. And they ran with this idea without including the non-credit team. And so what they ran into is they just enrolled everyone into high school diploma and into their Spanish child development program. So not every student needed a high school diploma. Not every student also spoke English well enough to be in our adult high school English program. Next slide. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: The Initial Implementation: What Was Missing. (SPEECH) So the implementation in the beginning was missing. It was a credit-led launch, which we know in the non-credit, isn't always the best because they don't always understand the limitations or restrictions that non-credit has. Outreach went out, but without the infrastructure. We didn't have counseling in place. We didn't have anything in place really, because they thought they understood and went running with it. It was a great idea, but there was no shared eligibility process. We didn't filter students. We didn't place students. So it was a missing link. It wasn't coordinated. So next slide. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: What the Data Revealed. (SPEECH) So what we found-- of the 19 students they enrolled in that very first cohort, only 11 actually needed a high school diploma. But nobody had asked them. They just told them, if you sign up for this, you get this free. And that wasn't accurate. So 58% needed it. 42% did not need it. So this was another workflow issue. So next slide. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: The Student Experience Problem. (SPEECH) So the student experience problem-- there was a mismatched placement. So a lot of those 11 students who did need a high school diploma really needed to be in our high school equivalency, because we could offer that in Spanish along with the Spanish course in child development. So there was fragmented application steps because they had done CCApply, but then didn't register or had registered in high school, but then dropped the child development class. There was language mismatches. And one of the other challenges we found is that in dual enrollment in our Ellucian system and Datatel, when you're in high school, like an actual high school student, and they enroll you in dual enrollment, they block you so that you can't enroll in anything else. And that has a parameter date that ends. But with adult dual enrollment, they don't block them because they're adults that can enroll in anything. And so there was a challenge with when do they stop being in adult dual enrollment. So once they had registered, my college was leaving them as adult in dual enrollment indefinitely, without making sure they were registered for high school for the next semester. So those are some other sides that we had to really think about the parameters of-- how do we make sure the back end? The other thing was residency. And so some of our students, even though they are dual enrollment students, were getting charged out-of-state tuition when it should have been free under dual enrollment. So those are some other things that we didn't realize on the non-credit side because once we enrolled them in credit, we're like, great, we did the handoff. And then they were coming back to us, going, I owe $11,000. What happened? Oh, we got to look into it. So those are just some of the things to keep in mind as we were going through this process. Next slide. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: The Turning Point. (SPEECH) So the turning point is now we have a parallel or joint design. So we invited high school leadership. We invited the child development master teacher, non-credit counselor, and admissions and records to an orientation-type event for this cohort of students so that we can make sure they're placed. They get their Ed plan right there on site. They get enrolled. They do the CCCApply. They do the credit enrollment. I'm there to sign the forms off on the dual enrollment so that it's all really a one-stop-shop, and making sure that we have counselors who speak Spanish as well and we have A&R who speaks Spanish-- all of that coordinated effort to make sure the students had access and that we weren't creating any bottlenecks or sticking points for this program. Next slide. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: The Redesigned Enrollment Event. (SPEECH) So yeah, the redesign of an enrollment event-- like I said, we welcome them. We check their high school diploma status. We meet with the counselor. We do the non-credit piece. And then there's somebody right there to do the CCCApply and A&R on the credit side at the same event. So we sit with them. And we walk them through all these steps. And now that it's-- what's it called now? CCCStart? Or I don't know what the new acronym for it is for the application on CCCApply. They're calling it something else now. But having it all in one stop really helped. We told the students to come prepared with their IDs and things that they would need for the ID.me portion of this, so that we could help them through, because that's a real bottleneck for our students. Next slide. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: Removing the Testing-Fee Barrier. (SPEECH) So this is something on the side that we do with our HiSET and equivalency is that the barrier to high school equivalency was the testing fee. So we had a private donor who gave a donation who said, I want there to be scholarships for people to get their HiSET or GED. When they're done, I will give them $200. And so we went back to her after a year because she was like, why isn't anybody getting my scholarship? And we said, because the barrier is the testing fee. The barrier isn't-- so she was willing finally to pay for those testing. And even just in our incarcerated students, we've had 97 tests in the last year because that barrier was removed-- and so clearing up the documentation, getting them all the things. So we want to remove as many barriers as we can to help with dual enrollment so they can continue on their path. Next slide. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: Roles and Responsibilities Matrix. A table. (SPEECH) So we created a little roles and responsibility matrix of who's responsible for what and who supports what. So as you see, Noncredit is the lead in most things except for CCCApply. And then the Credit side is Lead, Support, Consult on different things because we take the bulk of this, because they're our students that we're transitioning them. So we just sent this out so people would know what their role is in helping the students to move through this path. So you can see language access, we need Credit and Noncredit to take the lead and Counseling in having access to language. A&R support-- as long as the counselors are there, they can translate. But we do need counselors that speak the languages that the students speak for this cohort, because it is a multilingual cohort. Next. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: What We Would Do from Day One. A numbered list. (SPEECH) So what we would do differently from day one, I think we would co-design before recruitment ever began. One shared script and eligibility checklist, so when we're marketing this to the students, they see if they qualify. Never use high school diploma as a blanket gateway. This isn't just sign up for high school, get it for free. I think they need to understand there has to be the need there for that. Screen for languages and diploma status in the very beginning, before we are enrolling them in anything or before we're promising them anything. And then we assigned somebody to case manager, own those students and to audit early. So as soon as the students are enrolled, we go back and double check, did they actually show up to the high school class? Did they show up to their first credit class? Are they still enrolled so that they still qualify? And if they drop, we're doing outreach to them to make sure that we catch them early. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: Q&A and Discussion. A graphic of people talking with speech bubbles above them and potted plants nearby. (SPEECH) [INTERPOSING VOICES] So any questions? Miss Araxy, you're not on mute. So we hear a lot of background noise. Thank you. ARAXY MARKARIAN: I do apologize. JOANNE ARMSTRONG: That's OK. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: No worries. Joanne, that was just fantastic. And you went through a lot quickly. So much good content and humility in the learning process and the coordination process. Do we first have questions for Joanne in the model that's been established? And, Joanne, forgive me because I was trying to address things in the chat as you were presenting. Did you give us a timeline over how long this process has taken Santiago Canyon to get to this point? JOANNE ARMSTRONG: Well, we've been doing dual enrollment since the very beginning. But it was just like we have this. It wasn't a concerted effort until probably the last 2 and 1/2 years. But this cohort of child development, last fall was the first cohort. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: OK. OK. That's great. JOANNE ARMSTRONG: So it relatively new. And that first semester was them led. I didn't even find out about it until people were complaining. And I was like, what? What are you talking about, cohort of child development? But going and having those conversations and not making anyone feel bad that they didn't know-- I don't want to ever put off a credit side from wanting noncredit students to come and to create that partnership. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Right. Great. OK. Thank you. Let's start with Carla. PARTICIPANT 1: Hi I'm very new to the noncredit side. I've been in the credit side for about 12 years. JOANNE ARMSTRONG: Welcome. PARTICIPANT 1: Thank you. And one of the biggest struggles that I think I'm finding with my students is in order to implement the adult dual enrollment, I'm not able to implement some hold for our students. So we're seeing a lot of that-- extra charges, and with the non residency, and everything like that. I think I kind of understood where you mentioned that you then were able to implement those holds. Was that an automatic situation when the K-12 students-- or that was a manual process? JOANNE ARMSTRONG: Manual. Everything is manual. And there's not really holds. It's that we just keep checking our list against A&R to make sure that the things are done. We've had some issues with the back end coding of those students by A&R, not holding or sticking the way it should. And so those charges are coming up. So one of our students-- A&R just wrote off the balance. So that has had to happen because they couldn't figure out how. So in our growing of this program, we in the beginning were like, we passed them on. Here you go. Here's a gift. We're done. But that really isn't how it should be, because we're seeing that credit isn't prepared to handle the challenges that come along with that. So they still need that noncredit partner to go with them through the whole process, not just yay, we transitioned you. PARTICIPANT 1: Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. I mean, at least it makes me feel better that I'm not missing a big step in my-- JOANNE ARMSTRONG: No. It's a huge challenge. They don't know how to fix it yet here. PARTICIPANT 1: Yeah. OK. Well, thank you very much. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Thank you, Carla. We actually got a TA request similar to that yesterday. And I do want to acknowledge Marlyn Garcia, who is with us today, because really the community of practice was her brainchild, along the lines, Joanne, of what you just mentioned. And Marlyn, I'm wondering if you have anything to share with our group today about that transition process that Joanne was talking about, or about some of the tricky A&R kinds of issues that may have come up at Santa Rosa? MARLYN GARCIA: Hi Lisa and everyone. Good afternoon. And I have Wendy Garcia, who is our adult dual enrollment coordinator here at Santa Rosa Junior College. So we have struggled. Now the program is doing a lot better. But because every college implemented the program in a different way, we did some research and tried to get information from other colleges. But it was hard finding that information. And then we reached out to some partners. Right now, we're struggling because we're just in transition from our student information system to Banner. And Banner sucks, big time, the new version that we purchased. But anyway, so-- JOANNE ARMSTRONG: They all do. [LAUGHTER] MARLYN GARCIA: I thought it was just the new version. We have had a lot of issues. And like I said, Wendy, who is that dual enrollment coordinator, can talk more about it. But we're still struggling. And we want to get more information, specifically on what other colleges are doing to make sure that the students are being successful. We have a lot of interest from the students. We don't have to do as much outreach as we did at the beginning. But the part that we're struggling with is how to help the students to be successful in credit because, like I said, we're adult education, so we are experts in noncredit. So we're just trying to get more information from other colleges who have-- and I have heard workshops on teaching the students how to prepare to be a credit student. We have counseling classes. But we feel that that's too long and that a lot of the students are not able to take those classes-- like how to take notes, how to read a textbook, how to take a test, and things like that. JOANNE ARMSTRONG: We have an 8 hour non-credit course called Orientation to College. And it's part of our high school diploma program. And we hope they go through it before we do the dual enrollment with them. MARLYN GARCIA: But is it required? JOANNE ARMSTRONG: No. MARLYN GARCIA: OK. It's not required. JOANNE ARMSTRONG: Yeah. It's hard to make things required. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Thank you so much, Marlyn. I see Wendy Jackson has a question. WENDY JACKSON: So hi, everybody. And I apologize for joining late. But my question is around how are you all getting your community colleges to come on board with you with regard to the enrollment piece? So we do early childhood education, just like the gal that just did the presentation. That program is highly successful. And we're not having the issues there. Where we're having the issues is with our Emergency Medical Services, EMT, and advanced EMT, and EMR courses. So how are you bridging that gap? Because what we're seeing is our community colleges don't necessarily offer all of the courses that we are offering. And so getting the dual enrollment piece moved forward on a course that they have taken out of their catalog, or they've suspended it because there wasn't interest or whatever, how are you guys getting your folks to come back to the table to have those conversations around credit on the courses that are being offered through the adult Ed courses that are the same curriculum, the same everything that they had on their calendar, and in their catalog years ago, but are not currently offering? JOANNE ARMSTRONG: So you're talking about programs that have transitioned from credit and are now noncredit programs? WENDY JACKSON: OK. So for example, all of the community colleges up in our area-- JOANNE ARMSTRONG: Where are you at? WENDY JACKSON: We're up in Feather River. JOANNE ARMSTRONG: OK. WENDY JACKSON: So I'm part of the Feather River Adult Ed Consortium. But we work with all of the community colleges up in our area because we're so small. And to keep from there being an overlap of the same thing, we're partnering with the colleges that offered the programs when we offer them. Does that make sense? JOANNE ARMSTRONG: OK. WENDY JACKSON: OK. So what has happened is Feather River no longer offers any of the emergency medical services classes for credit. They were on their calendar years and years and years ago and in their catalog, but they're not now. So how are you guys working-- and maybe this isn't even an issue for you-- working with your community colleges to partner with you in for credit through the college on courses that are no longer in their catalog? Because the interest just isn't there. They don't have folks that are willing or able to pay $2,500 for an EMT class or an advanced EMT class. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Wendy, I want to make sure I understand the question. So I understand you're with Feather River Consortium, correct? WENDY JACKSON: Correct. Yes, that's correct. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: And you're trying to see if the college can offer courses that are no longer offered in the adult school members? WENDY JACKSON: No. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: No? OK. WENDY JACKSON: In their catalog, in the community colleges catalog. JOANNE ARMSTRONG: The college had the program and they discontinued the program. You still have the program. WENDY JACKSON: Correct. JOANNE ARMSTRONG: And you want to bring it back onto their campus. WENDY JACKSON: Correct. JOANNE ARMSTRONG: The conversation is not one that usually we lead because everything is faculty purview. You have to find a faculty champion. And then there has to be funding for whatever that program is. Some of those programs-- we have gemology, a credit gemology program. The numbers are not there. They want to move it to noncredit, the program does. But the faculty don't. Because then they're going to get paid less or they're going to have different expectations. From my opinion, you have to find a faculty champion. But there also has to be that return on investment, that there's enough students who want to take it in order to make that. But that doesn't really deal with dual enrollment, because dual enrollment is high school diploma. WENDY JACKSON: So we do both. JOANNE ARMSTRONG: Yeah. WENDY JACKSON: So we have high school students that are taking our classes. And through the-- I think it's AB 554-- that's how we're doing the dual enrollment. But where we're having a little bit of a hiccup is with the fact that some of these courses are courses that have been sunsetted at the junior college, but there is a huge interest and huge-- understand, our population for our entire county is less than 3,000 people. So when we have three students come to us and say, hey, we want to take this class, but how can we get dual enrollment, that's a big number for us. So we have been successful in getting our early childhood education staff on board. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: OK. WENDY JACKSON: And we have been successful in getting one, the EMT, Emergency Medical Technician. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Yeah. WENDY JACKSON: But now we're having interest in our lower level, which is emergency medical responder, and our higher level, which is advanced emergency medical tech, because we have some students that are right there in the age limit and they took the EMT, passed it, did the national registry and are licensed. And now they want to move to the next step. So that's why we're wanting to add. But because they've been sunsetted, we're running into some walls. And I just wanted to know if any of you guys have had any experience with that. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Yeah. GISELLE CABRERO: I've had experience. WENDY JACKSON: I've heard this. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Before Giselle speaks, I just wanted to suggest, Wendy, as Joanne said, this is faculty purview. So it is very important to connect with academic senate leadership, curriculum committee leadership. But now, let's open it up because there may be some expertise. So let's hear from the field. GISELLE CABRERO: So there is an example at College of the Redwoods, where we had a medical assisting program that was previously a credit program. It was discontinued. And then it came back as a noncredit program. So that's something you could look into. And one thing that I would mention also is proposing to the college that making it a CDCP certificate they'll get higher apportionment for that than if it was a credit course. So that's really a motivating factor to get them to bring it back. Even if it's got fewer students and things like that, you'll get that higher apportionment rate or the college will. So finding someone on the campus, like they said, who can be a faculty member, ideally on their academic senate, who is interested in bringing back that program and/or has experience with CDCP programming-- bringing it back as a noncredit CDCP certificate would probably be the most motivating reason for them, rather than bringing it back as a credit program. WENDY JACKSON: OK. So one thing I probably should have said is our instructors have all been vetted by our JC and have gone through the process to be approved as instructors through our junior college for these programs. So we actually have the instructor on our staff for all of these-- GISELLE CABRERO: Are they a full time instructor or associate faculty? WENDY JACKSON: They're part time, so they would be associate. GISELLE CABRERO: But you would definitely want to get a full timer, because it's going need to be somebody that's going to be able to advocate on the academic senate. And those are usually all going to be full time faculty. The associate faculty, they're less involved in the governance structure at the college. They're more involved in just instruction. So you want to find somebody-- WENDY JACKSON: Go ahead. I'm sorry. GISELLE CABRERO: You want to find somebody that's involved with curriculum writing, creation, and that whole process. And typically, associate faculty, they can be, but it's more on a contract basis than it is a regular responsibility that they have. WENDY JACKSON: So does that individual have to be involved in the program in which you are wanting to push forward? GISELLE CABRERO: No. WENDY JACKSON: Because there isn't anybody. GISELLE CABRERO: No. They do not. WENDY JACKSON: OK. All right. Well, maybe I can talk to my ECE person because she's full time. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Yay. Thank you, Wendy and Giselle. Noah, thank you for your patience. WENDY JACKSON: Thank you. NOAH LEVINSON: I had one other thought. In my previous life when I worked in the traditional high school dual enrollment, if our local community college didn't offer a specific class, or course, or sequence, then we could get their permission to move and get a dual enrollment through another college. So for instance, we use Lake Tahoe Community College for culinary, because our local Sierra College didn't have it. So that might be another route you could look at, too. WENDY JACKSON: Thank you. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Great point, Noah. Do we have other questions, or models, or best practices that folks would like to share, or questions for Joanne? GISELLE CABRERO: Just another point is the-- so the model of making it a noncredit CDCP certificate now with credit for prior learning, that is something else that they could potentially in the future look at. So if the students take it as a noncredit course, if they want credit in the future, the college could potentially look at it as a credit for prior learning situation if they want to offer that. WENDY JACKSON: That's how we're doing our EMT. GISELLE CABRERO: Yeah. WENDY JACKSON: Yeah. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Really interesting. Thank you. Yeah. I'm going to echo Scott. It's very interesting. And again, if you weren't with us at the top of the hour, this is the announcement you'll be seeing in the CCTAP Listserv survey in the CAEP Newsletter that we are launching an adult dual enrollment action research project, exactly for this reason, is that we want to be able-- there's not a lot of hard data. There's very little published on adult dual enrollment. So Scott will be looking to you and others to complete the quantitative part of it, which will be a survey deployed this fall. And then if you're interested in being part of a focus group, which we hope to have both students, and program administrators, and faculty participate in these focus groups. And then, of course, we will be sharing the findings of this research project, we hope, in several different places in the spring. And we thank Dr. Armstrong for inviting us informally to present at the ACE conference. Other questions? Go ahead, Noah. NOAH LEVINSON: I've got one. So we're just in the very beginning stage of getting dual enrollment and working with our community college. And I am excited because we got invited to the college's counselor meeting. So we have 30 minutes next week to present to the college's counselors really about what adult education is, because they don't really know that either, and then open it up to discussion. And I'm just wondering, folks who have gone through this process before, what are some things that college counselors, you'd want them to know from the beginning? JOANNE ARMSTRONG: I think that college counselors from the beginning need to know the parameters of adult dual enrollment, who qualifies and who doesn't, what the process is that they need to have attendance in both, and it's not a blanket free-for-all, in my opinion. So I think those are really important and the benefit to the student and how successful those students are when they transition, because they have the support from noncredit coming and that hand holding and the support that noncredit provides. And then once your program is going, I do want to say, make sure you're getting the credit for what you're doing. So my school loves to report out their dual enrollment numbers of all the schools they partner with. And we weren't even on the list. Our own high school diploma program wasn't even on the list, because they only looked at the outside schools, not even the school we have inside. So that was a change. We had to say, hey, but we have a high school diploma program. We've had it for 30 years. And we have a dual enrollment program we should count. And getting the credit side, dual enrollment person in charge of dual enrollment to also start supporting our students and not leaving it fully on us, but to have somebody on the credit side to be that hand-holding person. We got a credit counselor that is now our go-to, one credit counselor that we refer all of our dual enrollment students to because they understand the challenges. So get your champion on your credit side. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Shannon, go ahead. PARTICIPANT 2: Yeah. Hi. I think one thing that we've discovered was the counselor that we work with, she was asking like, yeah, I can make an Ed plan for the students, but how do I know what they've already completed in their high school courses, or how do I know if they're going to be successful in English without knowing their scores there? So she developed a checklist is what we call it. So now the instructor on the adult Ed side can fill it out. And then the student can bring it to the counselor. So they just have a better understanding of what path they need to go on. So I think creating a really, really good relationship and asking the counselor what they need in order to support those students would be really helpful and really important to do. One other thing I was going to mention. Joanne's information just hit home. We found out this year-- and we've only been doing it for, I think, a year and a half now-- but we found that students were super interested in the college classes. But when they were doing their online GED platform, that was really lacking. So we implemented, this year, that they need to do at least 12 hours per month on their adult Ed side of the schooling. So that way, it's not just all college work. They're doing awesome in college, getting their tuition waived, and then their GED preparation is really lacking on this side. So anyways, that's something we found. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: That's super helpful, Shannon. The reason my hand was raised is I wanted to bring up something that has come to our attention. So you've heard Joanne speak at length today about the high school completion component of SB 554. What we have learned is there are colleges across our system who are allowing noncredit students, regardless of the program they may be in, to participate in the adult dual enrollment. And I see Joanne shaking her head. And it's not the role of CAEP TOP and NOCE to rule on this. It's not in line. I've spoken with several colleagues about this. But I just wanted to put it out there that I think one of the downsides of it is what Shannon just mentioned is that we do really want to have folks have their high school diploma or GED. Wendy? WENDY JACKSON: So when the folks are working on their GED, are any of you working with your JCs to allow the students college credit for their GED prep, depending upon how they do on their test scores? Because that's another way to encourage the students to make sure that they're continuing to move forward on getting their GED. So that's one of the things that I'm doing. And we're getting that in place now in our consortium for the English, the math, and the science and the history. Because they can earn up to-- I think it's 9 or 11 units of college credit based on their scores on their GED. So that's another way to help keep them moving forward on getting their GED and doing really well on their GED testing. And I think they have to score a 160 or higher. JOANNE ARMSTRONG: I haven't heard that. We don't do GED. We do HiSET, but I haven't heard that. So that's interesting. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Super interesting. Thank you, Wendy. Shannon? PARTICIPANT 2: I was just going to ask Wendy if she could share that information, where that's documented. Because a few years ago, we found out that we couldn't do-- well, I'm just going to let the skeleton out. But we were awarding high school credit for GE completion, and we found out that wasn't allowable. So I would love to see if there was more information regarding that. I realize you're talking about college credit, receiving college credit for the passage. But I would like to see the EDCO documentation, so that way we can possibly do things like that. WENDY JACKSON: So Sonja Lemons has posted it's on the website, the GED website. And that's true. That's where it's coming from. It's partnerships with the GED administration and the various Boards of Regents across the country, with regard to accepting that. Sonja, go. SONJA LEMONS: Hi, everybody. I'm sorry. Someone walked in. Happy to be here. So I just heard the tail end. So if you go to the GED website, it is a ton of information. It can sometimes be overwhelming. But it does give you a breakdown-- the higher the score, what the student's next steps could be. So it leads them into different paths. So she's correct. I never encourage them to get the bare minimum score, the 145, which is barely passing. The higher the score, it lets you know that they would get transitional college credit, et cetera. So that is something that a lot of people don't look at, because students just want to get in, and get out, and pass. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Super helpful. Thank you, Sonja. Great. SONJA LEMONS: You're welcome. GRACE FLOREZ: Hi. We use GED Manager. And in GED Manager, it will say if their score is college-- credits or depending on their score. So we use that. And we're trying to talk to A&R now to see if we can get some of that credit for our students. But it's from ged.com. And it goes onto their score sheet, based on every subtest for math, social studies, if they get college ready or college ready plus units or something like possibility. But you have to work that through your A&R and everything else. It could also be a mapping issue. So once you get that all settled-- because we're at the very beginning stages of that and trying to get more buy-in so that the students who are scoring that high will then also be able to get the equivalent of some type of college credit. But like I said, we're at the very beginning of it. But we use it with GED Manager, so that we can see all of those scores ahead of time. And that's been a very good tool for us to use that way. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Excellent. Thank you so much. Raquel? PARTICIPANT 3: We have brought this up about a year and a half ago because we did have students inquiring about this. We did check with our A&R and our counseling team. And my understanding, and I spoke to GED folks at the GED office, was that there needs to be an agreement between the college and GED. And so if we don't have that, we can't. At the time, we didn't have a group of people supporting it. So I think the first thing is building that relationship, possibly an MOU, and see what that would align with. Because back then, we weren't able to award any course. So we weren't on the list with GED. And we haven't built that relationship. So I think that's something to consider if you are thinking of doing that or connecting with your college. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: OK. Excellent. Thank you for pointing that out, Raquel. And then thanks to Joyce for putting the specific spot. I put the GED home, but she knew the specific spot that Joanne was referring to or someone else-- sorry, Sonja was referring to about the scores. So good for us to know about that. You might want to bookmark that spot. Do we have other questions, comments, models, best practices, artifacts that could be shared? Go ahead, Grace. GRACE FLOREZ: I just want to know-- we use dualenroll.com. Does anybody else use dualenroll.com? And we're finding that it works great with our high school students. But it does bring up other issues that you have to have in place for adult dual enrollment. Because dualenroll.com does a lot for our campus on our high school end, like getting parent permissions, counselors sign off, all of that. But in setting up dualenroll.com, we took a lot of those things. Because obviously, they're adults. They don't need parent permission. So we took a lot of those considerations in setting it up. What we're finding that is a limitation, and now something that we have to address, are those grades, test scores. So that say we have a student who wants to take a dual enrollment math class, well, it's showing that they've never taken a math class. And maybe they can't. So because we don't have cohorts-- I know you guys were talking about a child development cohort-- our dual enrollment students, adult dual enrollment can go into any pathway. We connect them to the counselor that is appropriate for their learning area that they are working for. And they help them come up with an Ed plan to start with those credit limits. So we're such a small site that to make a cohort, say, of child development or something like that is just not feasible for us at this point. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: OK. GRACE FLOREZ: So they can take any course. But I'm just interested if anybody else uses dualenroll.com, and if they have had any issues or any advice in navigating dualenroll.com. Because we do love it. It does do a lot for us. And we appreciate it. But there are little things that we want to take into consideration with adult dual enrollment that are different than high school dual enrollment. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Got it. Thank you. OK. I did place the website in there. Yeah, Giselle is saying she's never heard of it. I also had never heard of it. Roxanne, go ahead. ROXANNE STELLMACHER: Hi. Roxanne Stellmacher. I'm the chief of operations for California EDGE Coalition. We actually sponsored SB 554. And so one of the things that's been interesting is I am getting to be across the state in a lot of conversations. And this is the first time I've heard of the software, which is interesting because one of the things that has come up across the board is that it is that transition piece. And how do you build that, especially with small teams, especially in rural areas? And so a lot of collaboration ends up going on between the adult education program, the community college. MOUs are usually one of the methods of doing that. But some of the most successful programs that are doing well with this have a specific team. So they have an adult school counselor or principal who actually is trained to be that transition point, or they have a transition specialist if they're large enough. They have an adult education counselor that is specifically tagged to that-- not a cohort, but that collective of identified students. So I'm curious about that dual enroll. Does that help with that transition piece? Because that was something that I know popped up earlier, too. Or do you have to also have people trained to facilitate that work alongside the website? GRACE FLOREZ: So hold on-- let me. I feel like I'm speaking to the void. Sorry. So we have our outreach and recruitment and dual enroll director handle dualenroll.com. So what we do is when-- and we only have one partner school at this point. But we started with our own program. So we have our own GED program here on campus. So we piloted it within our own students and our pathway navigator who is part advisor, part outreach to verify that our own current students are part of our program, that are meeting the attendance, that are ready to take into that. We do not have a dedicated counselor for our adult education students, because we are such a small site. And again, I'm from Lemoore College here in the Central Valley. And we are part of the West Hills Consortium. So that part of it, we have been told, just any counselor can help them. And it's like, I have been shouting into the void about this is a very special population, and they have other needs. So our pathway navigator takes on the role of maybe the Ed plan. The abbreviated Ed plan gets them started, maybe gets them going, connecting them to the learning area counselor. And we do a soft handoff saying, this is a dual enrollment student. This is the needs that they're coming in. So now the pathway navigator and the counselor are having a conversation about this particular student. Then we send it to A&R. A&R then codes them as a dual enrollment student so that they are coded correctly and don't get the billing, don't get any of those hold-ups that may come up as a credit student. So we do all of that. But I'm still trying to champion for us to get an adult education counselor. It's going to take a little bit more. As our programs grow and as we get more students interested, then there may be a little bit more of leverage for me to say, OK, this is a larger population we're talking about. Let's grow into this. Right now, it hasn't been unmanageable, but it is starting to become a little crazy for our high school dual enrollment and us. So it's a collaboration. I hope I answered the question. I feel like I rambled on a little bit. JOANNE ARMSTRONG: Grace, are you at an adult school or a-- GRACE FLOREZ: I'm at a community college. JOANNE ARMSTRONG: So remind your college people that counselors in noncredit count towards the FON. They're the only noncredit, full-time faculty that count towards the FON. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Ooh, good, Joanne. Thank you. NOAH LEVINSON: Can I ask what is that, the FON? What is that? JOANNE ARMSTRONG: That's the full-time faculty obligation number that community colleges have to have a certain ratio of full time faculty. And noncredit, full-time faculty do not count towards that number. And so if you don't have that number, the state penalizes your college for not being at the appropriate number. So hiring a full-time, noncredit faculty does not alleviate that penalty, but still costs. But a counselor does alleviate that penalty. So it's helpful. It goes to that 50% rule as well. ROXANNE STELLMACHER: That's smart. That's a good point. GRACE FLOREZ: They're struggling with that. So that's good. JOANNE ARMSTRONG: Yeah. Everybody keep that in mind. Counselors count towards the FON. PARTICIPANT 4: And that's full time, right? JOANNE ARMSTRONG: Full-time counselors count towards the FON. So it's one way to advocate for the full-time person in noncredit that it does count towards the FON. PARTICIPANT 4: That's a good idea. JOANNE ARMSTRONG: Most colleges will start with a counselor as their first full-time person because it does count towards the FON. So just keep that in mind for your smaller programs. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Super helpful. JOANNE ARMSTRONG: Thank you. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Super helpful, Joanne. We do a lot of work with Maryanne Galindo. JOANNE ARMSTRONG: Oh, I love her. She's on ACE with me. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: And one of the things that she shared in one of the webinars where she joined us was around hiring full time, one counselor and one faculty member. But you're really the first to share in one of our webinars that distinction for the FON. So that is great because NOCE is a noncredit standalone. Our counselors are absolutely critical to our student success. And so now, we've learned that as we're having this adult dual enrollment and building up that infrastructure, that that noncredit counselor can, as we say, kill two birds with one stone. That's not really what I want to say, but you get it. JOANNE ARMSTRONG: Yes. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: There's a dual purpose to have that noncredit counselor, because it touches on what Marlyn brought up when this community of practice was born, which is the warm handoff and the insurance that the students will be as successful on the credit side as they've been on the noncredit side. And now, we've had the suggestions for JC CDCP programs, for programs that may have been archived. And we have, from you, the suggestion for the counselor that can count towards the FON. Fantastic. Other questions or comments? SHERRI WATKINS: I've been chatting with a Araxy, who's from Fresno State College on the side here. And I wanted her to come off mic to maybe explain how the process works at Fresno City-- LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: That would be great. SHERRI WATKINS: --because they work closely with our larger adult schools. So Araxy, if you don't mind. ARAXY MARKARIAN: Thanks, Sherri. Thank you, everyone. Yes, my name is Araxy Markarian. I'm one of the adult education counselors at Fresno City College. We are, I think, a larger team than most other adult Ed teams. We have one full time counselor. That's myself. And we have three part-time counselors that service the Central Valley in our adult schools. Our adult schools are Fresno Adult School, Central Adult School, Caruthers, Washington Union. We do work closely with all of them. The majority of our students, I think, who we have the closest relationship with is Fresno Adult School. For SB 554, specifically, typically, what happens is the adult school counselor is the first point of contact. So what will happen is the adult school counselor meets with a student. And they determine, in their conversation, readiness for starting to attend community college and take community college classes. That's when they'll send a referral to us. The population is not that big. And our team is pretty big. So we don't have another system that we use, although we've tried different things in the past. Simply what they'll do is send an email. I have a student who's interested in taking community college classes. They're part of either a high school diploma or a HiSET GED program. And then they'll send us their information. And we will contact them and follow up with them. We'll help them with all the steps, doing the application, talking about classes. If they are doing a high school diploma and they do have credits that they can use from the college, we'll also discuss those options as well. And if the student is able, and they're ready, and willing to take the classes at the community college, we'll complete all the steps, all the way through registration, complete the SB 554 form, and send it for signatures, and then forward it to our A&R department so the student can be appropriately billed or rebilled. So they waive all the fees. And then we will do the follow-ups with the students. Depending on the MOU-- some are a little bit different-- there are different data sharing things that we can do. Right now because of how it's set up if the adult school wants information, the student is the one that provides the information. So the student will come to us and say, the adult school's requesting XYZ. And then we'll help them get that information and present it to the adult school. We do not use CASAS testing or any type of testing to determine readiness. So we are an open campus. And if students are wanting to, willing to take classes with us, then we will help them. Of course, as adult education counselors and community college counselors, we are able to have that conversation with them and help them determine which classes are appropriate for them. But we don't use any type of testing. We don't work with GED to see what their test scores are and if they can get credit with us. That was something new-- and actually, I sent that to my team-- that was something new that we learned today during this presentation. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Fantastic. Araxy, thank you for sharing. And Sherri, I appreciate you bringing up Araxy's work with the adult schools forward in this discussion. Do we have others who would like to share or ask questions? (DESCRIPTION) Slide: Next Community of Practice Meeting Series. A bullet point list. Scan new link to join F.Y. 2026-27 Zoom Meeting Series. A QR code. (SPEECH) OK. I see that Shannon's put a nice comment in the chat. We created a model that is similar to EOPS. Students have an ADE orientation and have to sign a contract that they will do two progress check-ins with our AE college career coordinator, and also at least one counselor contact with the college counselor. If they don't fulfill these requirements, then they might not be eligible to ADE for the next semester. And we're finding that these policies and artifacts, as I'm calling them, are developed at the local level. And that's why we're trying to cull them together as part of the Action Research Project. I want to thank everyone for joining us today. Joanne, just a fountain of information. In addition to sharing your own program at Santiago Canyon, you really educated all of us in the Zoom room today on some items that will be important for the work moving forward. We will have our next meeting on November 17, right before Thanksgiving, at 12:00 PM. And we will take a break next month. So look forward to seeing everyone at CAEP Summit. I also wanted to put out a plug for the Vision 2030 Noncredit Summit, taking place October 7th through 9th in Newport Beach. Please do use the QR code to join for the link. It just will register you for all of our sessions. And then do let us know in the chat, or you can also email any of us with topics that you might want to see included. We are always looking for model programs. We were referred to Joanne by a previous participant who said, oh, you should call on Joanne Armstrong. And we were delighted to have her join us and thank her again for taking time out of her schedule to join us. (DESCRIPTION) Slide. (SPEECH) So here you have some sources and resources about SB 554. It's always interesting to us that this was legislation passed in 2019. So it's not brand new. But I think with COVID in between, it's taken a little bit of time. And I really saw the opportunity once Marlyn came to me last winter for us to really elevate this, as is the Chancellor's Office and CDE, and seeing the need for learners to make transitions. So you've got some different sources and resources on this slide. Next slide, please. (DESCRIPTION) Slide: Continued. (SPEECH) Here are some additional resources for noncredit. You have our Adult Dual Enrollment FAQ, which we continue to add to through these webinars, additional ADE resources. And probably by the time we meet in November, I'll probably take a small portion of our time to talk about where we are in the research project. We will have deployed the quantitative survey by that point, so please watch out for it in your inboxes. And our next slide, please. (DESCRIPTION) Slide. (SPEECH) Here is our QR code for anyone new, because we have several new colleagues who are not subscribed to the CCTAP Listserv. There is your QR code for that. All things CAEP TAP are promoted through the CCTAP Listserv, as well as our CAEP Newsletter in collaboration with our colleagues at the Sacramento County Office of Education. We do want to thank you for spending your lunch hour with us, sharing your questions, your expertise, your timelines, and your journeys, along the lines of what Joanne shared today. And we look forward to seeing you again in November. And with that, I think we're at the end of our slide deck. Do we have one more slide, Shaundi? LINDA BERNABE: Lisa, I have a question that's not related to this necessarily. It's more of a-- the email that went out this morning about the research project on dual enrollment. So if we want to participate, do we reach out or is that something that you guys are going to be doing throughout with all the consortia? LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Yes. LINDA BERNABE: I'm just wondering. OK. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Yeah. So the first thing that's going to go out, Linda, is the quantitative survey. We launched the research projects because there is very little hard data on enrollment transition completion in SB 554. It is a mixed-method study. We want to learn about the experiences of students, faculty, and administrators. So I would say by the time we meet in this space in November, we'll be in a much better place. And I would venture to guess that we will have a QR code by that time, if not sooner, but definitely by that time, pre-Thanksgiving, if you're interested in participating in a focus group. And it will be an online focus group, I assure you, because we want to gather voices from across the system to join us for that when we come back to this space in November. LINDA BERNABE: Wonderful. So we'll be on the lookout for those emails and follow-up? LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Definitely. LINDA BERNABE: OK. Thank you so much. I appreciate the clarification. Thanks, Lisa. LISA MEDNICK TAKAMI: Absolutely. All right, everybody, wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and a good rest of your week. And we'll see you back here for the community of practice in November. Have a great day.