Del Norte Area Workgroups 1& 2
CR Del Norte Campus, Room DM 15
July 11, 2014
12 Noon – 1:30 PM
Del Norte ABE, ASE, ESL and Disabilities Workgroup
College of the Redwoods
Del Norte County Unified School District
Del Norte County Unified School District
Rural Human Services
Rural Human Services- CalWorks
Rural Human Services - Supported Living Services
Rural Human Services - Workforce Center Employment
Del Norte Sheriff/Jail
Redwood Coast Regional Center--Del Norte
North Coast Children's Services
Yurok Tribe
Smith River Tribe
Smith River Tribe
Name
Julia Peterson
Coleen Parker
Randy Fugate
Christy Hernandez
Rick Willems
Rene Quintana
Randy Bancroft
Commander Steven
Karen Satern
Athena Csutoras
Jim McQuillen
Dorothy Wait
Scott Sullivan
Brief Introduction and Lunch
Julia Peterson, AB86 Program Manager, opened the meeting with a brief explanation of
the Workgroup structure and purpose. Those attending decided by consensus to
continue to combine Workgroups 1 & 2 in a single meeting in order to better manage
time and resources.
Introductions:
Julia Peterson is the Director of Adult Education, Community Education, and Noncredit
Adult Education at College of the Redwoods, and currently serves as AB86 Redwoods
Adult Education Consortium Program Manager.
Karen Satern represents the Redwood Coast Regional Center, and works with
developmentally disabled adults.
Athena Csutoras represents North Coast Children’s Services.
Randy Bancroft is with Rural Human Services (RHS) Workforce Center.
Benita Cabrera is VISTA, serving Del Norte Reads.
Rick Willems works for Del Norte County CalWorks, and is stationed at the Workforce
Center.
Jim McQuillen is Education Director for the Yurok Tribe. He supervises a variety of
services, including Pre-school and Early Childhood Care, Head Start, K-12 tutoring,
higher education, and vocational programs, covering a geographical area which extends
from Eureka to Klamath and Del Norte Counties.
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Christy Hernandez is the Workforce Center Manager for Rural Human Services (RHS).
Rene Quintana is the Manager of Supported Living Services for RHS.
Coleen Parker is Human Resources Director for the Del Norte County Unified School
District and oversees CTE.
Sheriff’s Commander Bill Steven represents the Del Norte County Sheriff’s Department
and County Jail.
AB86 Recap and History
The AB86 focus is on Adult Basic Education, Adult Secondary Education, classes for
people with disabilities (DSPS), English as a Second Language (ESL) and immigrant
education, Short-term Career Technical Education (CTE), and Apprenticeships. The
regional planning consortium grant is simply asking: 1) What’s here today? 2) What
used to be here? and 3) If we had what we want, what would be here to help adults
increase their skills and knowledge so that they could get a job, or a better job? What is
the gap?
Structure of the AB86 Committees
1. Executive Advisory Committee: consists of consortium members, partners, and key
stakeholders, establishes and tasks Workgroups, and meets monthly to process
regional Workgroup reports and report quarterly to Sacramento.
2. Workgroups meet locally to determine the resources, gaps, and future needs of local
communities, and report back to the Executive Advisory Committee.
Suggestions for Additional Workgroup Participants
1. Jamie Godla
ESL
2. Christine Ballou
DSPS
3. Laura Metheny
Vocational Rehab
Regional Focus
1. Identify existing adult services and gaps
2. Explore strategies for addressing gaps
3. Identify facilities where services can be offered
4. Establish referral processes for each of the areas outlined above
5. Report findings back to the Executive Advisory Committee
Need for ESL/ELD faculty in Del Norte (Rene and Coleen)
Christy Hernandez presented a CTE wish list (attached)
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Noncredit Adult Education is fully subsidized by the state of California. Classes are not
credit earning, and are measured in classroom hours. There are three categories of
Adult and Community Education in California:
1. Credit
2. Noncredit
3. Not-for-credit
Noncredit and Not-for-credit are not the same.
What CR has and can offer in Noncredit Adult Education classes for Fall 2015 in Del
Norte:
1. Education 225: High School Equivalency/GED
2. Reading 260: Ninth Grade level reading class which includes reading
comprehension and critical thinking, basic grammar, and spelling.
3. Math will be taught in the GED class in order to meet minimum class size.
4. We are looking for an ESL teacher and will add ESL.
5. We would like to add Work Readiness, but are not sure how it would fill.
6. Need for Vocational ESL or combined ESL/Work Readiness class (Rene). We
are not there yet.
7. The CR Eureka Downtown Site is teaching classes for people with disabilities
(DSPS), including Guidance 207 through 211: Survival Vocabulary, Life
Management, Career Preparation.
8. CR is working with the Redwood Coast Regional Center (RCRC) to provide
classes for Seniors experiencing cognitive difficulties, as well as students with
head injuries.
9. Ten allowable categories for Noncredit Adult Education:
a. English as a Second Language (ESL)
b. Immigrant Education
c. Elementary and Secondary Basic Skills
d. Health and Safety
e. Substantial Disabilities
f. Parenting
g. Home Economics: Financial Literacy, Consumer Decision Making
h. Courses for Older Adults
i. Short-term Vocational Career Technical Education
j. Workforce Preparation: Resumes and soft skills, how to get a job and
keep a job.
10. CR is working with the Humboldt County Jail, the Jefferson School Community,
and the California Conservation Corps (CCCs) to provide short-term vocational
training in the Culinary Arts, Agriculture and Landscape Maintenance, Janitorial,
and Commercial Art.
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11. Plans to add classes at the One Stop Workforce Center in Eureka.
Discussion: What does the Del Norte Community have in Place?
What does the Del Norte Community need?
Karen: Due to the small population, filling classes is a challenge.
Julia: Scheduling classes around public transportation has been helpful with Eureka
RCRC classes. Meeting students’ needs is crucial to full enrollment. Currently, we need
15 students per class. A year from now, with increased funding, we may be able to
reduce class size requirements. Designing classes to serve multiple student
populations, such as Seniors and People with Disabilities, can increase class size. We
continue to work closely with agencies to address enrollment challenges and barriers.
We can provide the teacher, but we need help from partners to make classes
successful.
Athena: We make referrals and try to encourage parents that either need ESL or need
General Ed to use other services because a very small percentage of our families need
that.
Julia: Parenting is a category for which we can provide free classes. Noncredit has no
tuition whatsoever. We generally don’t require textbooks, and try really hard not to
require textbook purchases by using classroom sets and handouts. Noncredit typically
has no homework.
Rene: We’ve been successful with integrating ESL into Workforce Preparation.
Julia: There hasn’t been an interest for this type of class in Eureka, however, if this is
what your community needs, we can write a special curriculum, in conjunction with our
ESL Coordinator, and offer it only in Del Norte.
Rene: We did that successfully with the GED. They got their GED and we integrated
ESL and computer training.
Julia: We are looking at a class called Career and College Preparation, which covers a
lot. We are writing that curriculum over the summer, and it could all be taught in English,
Spanish, or Hmong, if we can find a qualified teacher.
Athena: We do teach parenting, but it has dropped to a 3 week parenting class offered
to all the families enrolled in our programs. Although the class is not well attended, a lot
of parents who do attend say that they want more.
Julia: We could collaborate and provide ongoing parenting classes.
Randy: Adult Basic and Secondary Education is pretty well covered here, but demand is
high, and last year we had a wait list. The greater deficiency seems to be in technology
training, things that might not require a college degree, but people need a place where
they can develop more skills.
Betina: As a literacy project, we pretty much provide all the services we’ve talked about,
ESL, education for People with Disabilities, on the job training, vocational education, job
skills and resume training. We have a pretty large ESL class going right now. We have
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been getting a lot more calls, in the last 5 months that I’ve been here, for GED prep and
testing. It would be really nice to find out where they can take the GED.
Julia: I run the GED testing group at CR, through my department, and about 3 weeks
ago, we finally got the GED official first review down in Eureka. What we are trying to do
now is go with one of the alternate high school equivalencies. The state has approved
both the TASC and the HiSET as high school equivalencies. They have not yet,
however, signed the MOUs, so they can tell us they are approved, but we cannot yet
purchase them. As of yesterday, Sacramento said that the contracts were agreed upon
and were upstairs, and they were past the lawyers. Now, we expect that within a month
or two we will be able to provide the HiSET here in Del Norte. If you want it right there in
Klamath, we’ll be able to send an examiner out to Klamath. The GED will not allow us to
do that. For example, we can’t go into the jails to administer the GED without
purchasing the additional equipment they require. With HiSET, we will be able to offer
English and Spanish tests, computer-based or pencil and paper. Many students lack the
basic computer skills to pass a computer-based test. We will be able to serve the
students much better, and give people a realistic chance of passing, without failing due
to a lack of computer savvy. We did develop a class, Education 207, Getting Started
with Computers, that’s designed to give students enough computer skills to pass the
GED.
Rene: How many weeks are the GED classes? Is it a semester?
Julia: The interesting thing about this is that we do not follow the college calendar, so
sometimes we do, the classes that are scheduled right now do, but we can actually run
these year-round. We can make them longer or shorter. With Noncredit, it’s open entry,
so students can start any time, and however many hours they complete, they are
successful. They can come to class for a month, they get sick and don’t come for 3
weeks, they can show up the day they feel well enough, and they’re right back on track,
unlike Credit, where they’ve now missed too much to be successful, and have to wait
until the next semester to retake the class. This is a real forgiving place for people to
just keep trying and make progress at the speed that they can. So, we will have testing
for high school equivalency here in Del Norte.
Betina: My VISTA position requires that I work with Zero to Five populations, so we’re
doing an Early Childhood literacy program. We’re working with the Youth Training
Institute, and the youth will have a Read to Me program where they’ll go to childcare
providers or Head Start and let the children read to them in their own way.
Julia: The one thing we don’t do much with is kids. As a community college, when they
hit about 16, we have some forms that they can sign to let parents know they’re in a
college class, but otherwise, the only thing we do with kids in Humboldt is that we
partner with HCOE to provide childcare for the ESL classes.
Rick: A certain percentage of the people we see that are coming through the CalWorks
program fail because some need ESL, you know, the real basic stuff, and we also have
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a certain number of people who have the high school diploma or the GED who lack the
most basic literacy skills. That’s one category. The other category, and I’m not sure we
can fix this, is that we get people whose high school experience was not positive, and
so a lot of what we’re trying to do is get them to see that college is a little different. So,
people on our side of the world will say is, “Go take one class.” And so with some of this
Adult Ed stuff you can kind of do that, and I think that can be helpful because some of
these people are going to want to transition to college credit classes, and somehow we
need to be able to do that.
Jim: With the Yurok Tribe, we have a lot of pilot programs. We’re doing a lot of job
readiness stuff with our new business which is being built in Klamath. The past 18
months we’ve been doing more GED preparation, more individualized tutoring, trying to
take small group tutoring to the Tribal Offices. It’s very positive, in a smaller setting, very
flexible. Although there are lots of other needs there that we’ve identified: substance
abuse problems, other problems, people with the whole issue of living in the shadows
without self-esteem, and helping to build that confidence to come out of the shadows of
their earlier bad experience with high school or their K-12 experience, and helping them
regain confidence to come back into an educational setting, confidence that they can do
this. That speaks to what we try to do, and more needs. We do some vocational
training, with some of the tribal programs, from our mechanic program to education,
where we’re sending people who are ready to truck driver training certificate programs,
and heavy equipment operating seems to be a really popular program. In this area,
though, there aren’t that many jobs. We have a lot of interest in certificates in
Phlebotomy. There’s a big need and desire for folks to get that vocational technical
certificate.
Julia: One of the things with Noncredit is that we are strongly encouraged by
Sacramento to put things into certificates, preferably stackable certificates. A lot of
these classes today are not certificates, but they will be, hopefully by the end of
December. We’re working on them now, so we’ll have a Customer Service Academy
certificate, the Work Readiness, and Hospitality Certificate, and Community ESL or
Community and Career ESL Certificates. Students will be able earn Noncredit
certificates, and I think that helps with the confidence building that they earned a
certificate that means something to them. They can take it to an employer, they can
hang it on their wall, they can say, “Hey, I did this. I saw this. I attended class. I met the
goal.”
Randy: In the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), a lot of times they want to see people
earning a certificate.
Julia: We’re trying to put as much as we can into Certificates. Right now for some of the
Noncredit classes we’re making unofficial certificates. The guys in the jail were the ones
who asked for a certificate for every class. We just print a bunch with their name on it,
and it says “Participation,” but they did. We say “You participated in this class for 13
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hours,” or whatever it is, and the teacher fills it out. It’s not on their transcript or
anything, but that actually makes the guys in the jail really happy. They do a 3 week
class, they get a certificate that says “I have 36 hours of Reading 260,” and they’re
happy. And that’s a stackable credential because their hours are going on their
Noncredit transcript, and when they get enough it works toward their College and
Career Basic Skills Certificate.
Jim: One thing that comes to mind when you were speaking there is “restorative
justice.” We have a judge at the Yurok Tribe who has really brought that whole
philosophy to us. Restorative justice is helping people find that way back in to being a
productive member of the community. It could be a certificate, it could be a clean slate,
it could be classes or various activities that show them that forgiveness, so that they can
forgive themselves, and we can welcome them back into the community.
Julia: We’re working with the jail on Cognitive Behavioral Training, Anger Management,
things that are really going to help people, even in jail, to understand that if they keep
thinking the way they’ve been thinking, they will be able to see where that got them. We
need to show them new ways to think. We can’t help 100% of them, but we can offer
something to those who are ready. We can’t change anyone, but we can offer them help
and small steps that will incrementally lead to big steps, if they’re ready to get on the
staircase. As a college, we’re good at training, but we can’t always know what the
community we serve needs. We need to know what the community thinks. We need to
know what you see, from your chair, when you see potential students every day and
ask, “What do they need?”
Christy: We’ve been asked about computer classes, which we used to offer at the
Workforce Center.
Rick: Students are more likely to attend software-based lab classes on a drop-in basis
than to show up for regularly scheduled lectures.
Julia: Incarceration and tying class attendance to TANF benefits motivate class
attendance.
Christy: Basic computer skills, such as using a mouse, are necessary to function in the
modern world. Clients who can’t use a computer have great difficulty accessing Social
Security benefit information and filling out online employment applications.
Julia: Education 207 starts with where the “on” button is, and how to turn the computer
off, how to get a Gmail account, how to open Internet Explorer, and what to do if
someone sends a fraudulent email asking for personal information. In Eureka, we’re
working to open a One Stop computer lab which will be open 6 hours a day, 3 days a
week.
Christy: We have quite a few regulars who use our computer lab for personal internet
access. Others come in to print resumes, or to fill out online job applications. Luckily, we
have somebody in our lab on Mondays and Wednesdays to help with online
applications and resumes. We also have a Job Finders workshop to help people
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connect with employment. Local employers are always looking for good customer
service skills, which is why we asked for a Hospitality workshop.
Julia: I love the wish list, and we can talk more about vocational training in the next
meeting. CR will be offering a Work Readiness certificate, and we have Work Keys
National Work Readiness Certification down in Eureka. Since the site license is so
expensive, we will not offer Work Keys in Del Norte until we are sure that enough
people will use it.
Rick: Work Keys grew out of SCANS (Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary
Skills).
Julia: The software is based on surveys of 50,000 different jobs. It helps businesses
make better hires, and it is proven to reduce turnover, which benefits both the employer
and the employee. When the Eureka Chamber of Commerce was surveyed, they said
that they would pay a dollar more an hour for someone who came with a National Work
Readiness credential.
Rene: There is a need for ESL in this area because of the large Hispanic population.
People with Disabilities also want basic computer skills in order to have access to the
internet.
Julia: If you can send students, I could start that up tomorrow. Literally, I have that class
running in Eureka, so the curriculum is approved, but we would need to find a teacher.
Rene: There is also a need for basic literacy.
Julia: We have Survival Literacy and Basic Computer Skills for People with Disabilities.
That’s actually a need we could meet today.
Karen: But the challenge is filling the class.
Julia: There are two challenges . . .
Rene: It’s 15 here, and in Oregon it’s 5.
Julia: It’s the amount of reimbursement we get.
Rene: Oh, I see.
Julia: We could go as low as 11 or 12 in Del Norte.
Karen: It’s tough because our students need so much one-on-one.
Julia: I have two challenges. One is instructor qualification, which requires a Bachelor’s
degree, but is also very specific about what is required, so finding a qualified teacher in
a small community can be very challenging. So, we have to find a qualified teacher, and
then we have to fill the class.
Rene: We also have people wanting training in interview skills and filling out
applications, and how to dress for interviews so that they have choices in applying for
other kinds of jobs, and customer service skills, things like that.
Julia: So, Life Management and Career Preparation for Students with Disabilities? Is
that what you’re looking for?
Rene: Yes.
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Julia: OK, so now I know what you see a need for. I will have to try to find an instructor. I
will probably have someone figure out what we need, and we can explore that.
Coleen: We are offering a Transitions Program for Disabled Students from 18-22. We’ve
been doing this for 2 years now, but a lot of the same things Rene said would be good
for us. The way our program works is that it’s very individualized, so that if you offered
these classes, they could come to these classes during the day, because they
individualize everybody’s program, and so that would be something that students could
participate in during the day.
Julia: Who would be the contact for that?
Coleen: Christine Ballou. I’ll give you her information. Now that I’m on the HR side of
things I might be able to help you with the teacher side of it too. I have access to all of
that.
Julia: Even for Life Skills classes teachers have to have experience teaching students
with disabilities. The minimum qualifications are very specific and there’s no flexibility.
Rene: For the literacy, do you use CASAS?
Julia: We do not, but we will be. We just received a WIA grant, and we will get CASAS
free. The grant is currently directed at providing childcare and bus passes for Basic
Skills students, because that’s what we need the most. I am going to training in August,
and I will be the administrator, but Julia Morrison will manage the online system. We are
still learning and could use your help.
Colleen: So, ESL definitely. We used to have an ESL grant, but the funding was cut,
and all we’re providing right now is Smith River, where there is an open lab for students
to come in and do Rosetta Stone. So, there is definitely a need, and childcare needs to
come along with that. We’re doing high school diploma in the jail here, I have one
teacher for that, and that’s all I have funding for. The charter school is doing the Del
Norte diploma now, and that’s the one that has really taken off and done really well, and
we don’t have enough teachers for that either—that’s the issue—and the way the
funding works is a little quirky: they go off the funding cycle for regular schools, so that
by March they don’t add any students because they’re not going to get paid for March.
Julia: We don’t have that problem. We get paid per seat-hour into 15 minute increments.
You can show up on the last day of class for 15 minutes and we get paid for you, if you
fill out our one-page paper work.
Coleen: That would definitely be a really good connection, because, as they fill up, they
can’t add after March and you could capture those folks. Parenting, I know we could
add that. I know the district is trying to do some stuff with parenting, but it’s not been
real successful. I think that has more to do with how it’s marketed versus the actual
program itself.
Julia: We partner with Humboldt State University, and they’ve got some grant money
that they’re spreading through HCOE, and we may be able to bring some of that up
here. Humboldt State is able to provide food for the parents and the kids, a Parent
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Liaison gets a small stipend to call the parents and remind them about class, and the
topic. We may be able to bring that in. I could talk to Humboldt about that, but we don’t
have the Parenting curriculum written yet. That’s something we’re working on, and we’re
just doing ESL for Parents, focusing on things like vocabulary for parent-teacher
conferences.
Coleen: And then computers, our parents are always interested in computer literacy
type programs, and the CTE stuff, which I’ll save for the next meeting.
Stipends
As part of AB86, we have asked for stipends for travel and staff costs, and the
information requested is presented in multiple spreadsheet tabs that go screen-over,
screen-over, wanting both historical and theoretical and future data. Stipends would
allow you to have staff time to dig up that information without harming your budget. So,
we are finalizing an MOU for those who are interested in participating at that level that
would basically provide you with a flat stipend for providing that information. We have 3
levels, starting at $1000.00.
I need to know which of you are interested in participating, and at what level. Or should I
just assume that everybody is interested?
I can put the spreadsheet up after a short break, and we can discuss it at the beginning
of the CTE meeting.
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