2013-2014 ESL/Basic Skills Allocation End-of-Year Report
2014-2015 ESL/Basic Skills Allocation Goals/Action Plan and Expenditure Plan
Submission Deadline: October 10, 2014
Please find attached the instructions and form templates for submission of your 2013-2014 Basic Skills Allocation End-of-Year Report and your 2014-2015 Basic Skills Allocation Goals/Action Plan and Expenditure Plan. All documents must be received (not postmarked) at the Chancellor’s Office on or before October 10, 2014.
Contact: If you have any questions regarding program expenditures or the submission of these documents, please send your questions to .
[1]. 2011-2012 | 2012-2013 | 2013-2014 ESL/Basic Skills Allocation End-of-Year Expenditure Reports for FY 2013-2014
Please follow the instructions located at the beginning of each of the expenditure report forms for each funding year. Note that the report should include expenditures from the original funding date through June 30, 2014 for each of the funding years. Original signatures are required from the Chief Executive Officer, the Chief Business Officer, and the Academic Senate President.
[2]. Narrative Response
Respond to the following questions:
· How is your college progressing about institutionalizing your basic skills funded programs and projects? What are the obstacles to doing so?
· How are you scaling up successful projects and programs?
· How does your basic skills fund support the goals of SSSP plans and Student Equity plans?
Your college should be doing all three of these items. Your response is an opportunity for some self-reflection and will assist in statewide planning and coordination related to the Basic Skills Initiative. Your response will not affect your allocation.
Please limit your response to two pages total. (NOTE: There is no form for this section.)
Question 1: How is your college progressing about institutionalizing your basic skills funded programs and projects? What are the obstacles to doing so?
Progression: Because the Basic Skills Committee at Mt. San Jacinto College developed and implemented a very successful process for the submission of proposals wanting Basic Skills funding, those projects that have been funded have provided extensive data and other information to support their vitality and need. We are able to share this information, as well as mandatory assessments of each project, with various members of the college, and especially with those who decide what programs will receive institutional support. Two of our long-term and growth-oriented programs, Supplemental Instruction ($44K per year) and the Student Athlete Scholars Program ($25K per year), have been recently institutionalized (SI for FY 2014-15 and SASP for FY 2013-14). The BS Committee feels that the institution is very supportive of the work it does and actively looks for ways that the two can work together to ensure that important pilots/projects/programs Basic Skills has funded can become permanent resources supported by the college.
We have also been consistent in learning all we can about the success of programs we fund by looking at how they have done in other environments and at other colleges, and communicating that information effectively. We utilize FIG-type approaches and retreats to help us identify what works/doesn’t work so that we do not have to make the same mistakes others have made. We embrace the involvement of key personnel in discussions, including faculty (both instructional and non-teaching), students, counselors, and deans, and sometimes even the Vice-President of Student Services and/or the Vice-President of Instruction. We have even been asked to provide information about some of our projects to the President of our college! We feel that this very broad and effective communication encourages participation in and an understanding of the programs we help initiate. For this reason, too, when it comes time to ask for institutional recognition and funding, the familiarity we have created goes a long way in getting the support we need and want.
Another important reason we have been able to obtain institutional funding for some of our BS-funded projects is because of the way our process supports the Resource Allocation Proposal (RAP) MSJC requires for all institutional funding requests. In addition, the SI program completed program reviews for three consecutive years prior to successful institutionalized funding. Our Basic Skills Proposal form asks questions that the manager initiate a careful analysis of a project, especially with regard to the role such a project plays in supporting the goals of the college. Because these kinds of alignments are essential to any well-written and approved project through Basic Skills, authors are ready when they begin the process of obtaining institutional funding. This is because MSJC RAPs require the careful assessment of any project/program and its alignment to Strategic Plans, Program Review, Student Success, Institutional Pride, and even to Community Partnerships. Basic Skills required the same!
Obstacles: Although funding was extremely limited because of the economic shifts education had to contend with and persevere through over the last few years, now that more and more funding is coming back to our community colleges, we believe that fewer obstacles will present themselves as we work to continue to institutionalize the important projects and programs this committee has funded. Of course, the main obstacle is money. We are presently involved with the possibility of receiving much needed funding relief through a majority yes-vote on a bond measure. If we do lose, then not only will our resources be strapped once again, but so will the atmosphere and the consciousness of the college. We anticipate a bond measure loss, and we understand that this loss would create obstacles that we just have to acknowledge and work to overcome.
Question 2: How are you scaling up successful projects and programs?
When proposals are submitted to the Basic Skills Committee for review and possible funding, one of the concerns the committee always has is the scalability of the project. One of our most successful programs is Supplemental Instruction. This has been due, in part, to the excellent and professional facilitation of this program. Because of its excellent oversight and proven success, this resource’s growth is dependent really only on the attainment of additional funding, as it is heavily reliant on financial support. Its reputation is such that, when asked to move funding for Supplemental Instruction to the general fund, it met hardly any opposition. Instead, this program was applauded and is being funded now by the college.
In addition to making sure we have a clear understanding of projects’ scalability before we ever fund them with BS monies, we also are quite aware of the pros and cons associated with the project. One of the criterions we cultivate and anticipate from funding seekers is the long-term viability of a proposed project, and its scalability. For this reason, we are able to provide very specific and targeted feedback to project managers with regard to growing a project. We can anticipate early on the enduring potential of projects submitted with long-term goals in mind. We also make sure these programs are marketed in such a way that all constituents, including administration, faculty, and students, receive strong marketing information and informative literature about the success the project is experiencing from the very beginning. (We strongly value communication between all parties who have the potential to support our growth of any project. We have learned that it takes the participation of all of us [“it takes a village”] if we want to ensure that the valuable resources we create are available to all those who will benefit from the support the resources will provide.) Because we have an institutional mindset that mimics this idea, and we cultivate that mindset, scalable projects are mostly welcomed at MSJC by all constituents.
Thirdly, we make sure, as a committee that the institutional researcher is involved in the analysis of many of the projects we fund. With this support, we have learned much about why projects work, and even more importantly, why they do not. This informs us in important and unbiased ways, and allows us to be objective in decisions we make about changes/revisions that may improve the success of a project. We are very mindful that we are in a “people-business,” and we are as interested in successful programs as the program authors are.
Question 3: How does your basic skills fund support the goals of SSSP plans and Student Equity plans?
All Basic Skills funds are used to support the goals of the SSSP and the Student Equity plans, as the goals of these programs are tied to the goals of our institution.
The Student Success and Support Program (SSSP): At this time, the SSSP is reviewing its policies and procedures to make sure they are all in alignment with the requirements of the Student Success Act of 2012. SSSP sees great opportunity in improving core services to students, especially with regard to helping the institution in its goal to transition from information dissemination to learning.
The overall mission and intent of the SSSP Committee is to promote student success and access, two of the most important themes adopted by our institution at all levels. The essence of SSSP is to ensure every student has support from application to graduation. SSSP will encourage student persistence, personal and intellectual growth through the assistance of developing educational plans and registering for courses. It is also focused on creating comprehensive and obtainable goals within student engagement efforts. Basic Skills has the same goals in mind and supports this vision through a variety of means. Basic Skills Funding is providing counseling services to basic skills students by targeting monies to pay for a Basic Skills Counselor (BSC). The Basic Skills Counselor is a counselor who receives extensive training related to basic skills academic planning and academic support programs. The BSC is tasked with facilitating and collaborating between instructors and counselors within the Basic Skills College Success Initiative classes. The BSC also assists and coordinates/conducts student advising sessions for students who have been identified as basic skills learners.
In addition, and with the help of the Basic Skills Committee, the BSC consults with students who are struggling academically and helps them in determining strategies these students can employ to become successful. With the help of the BSC, basic skills students become aware of their educational goals and processes needed to obtain these goals, thus enabling the student to progress through remedial courses successfully. The target populations are students who assess in Basic Skills courses, including MA 55 & 90, ENGL 61, 62, and 92, and ESL 50, 51, and 62W.
The Student Equity Program:
BSI funding enabled professional development over the last 8 months to focus on Student Equity at MSJC. In Spring 2014, BSI funding (as well as STEM and Title V) brought Professor Darrick Smith to our campus to be the keynote speaker for our 4th annual MSJC Student Success Summit. The theme for the day was Student Equity, and faculty worked together to understand the concept, tie habits of mind to equity, and begin to populate the document that will be submitted to the state in January. In addition, Student Equity was also the theme of our Fall convocation, and BSI funding in concert with other grants brought Kay McClenney, founding director of the Center for Community College Student Engagement, to come speak to MSJC faculty about equity and engagement. Both of these events will inform the MSJC Student Equity plan that will be submitted in January.
The Basic Skills committee has addressed areas of disproportionate impact through funding projects, but we look forward to working along with the student equity committee to become even more deliberate in strategic projects designed to address the objectives outlined in the plan. Also, the committee has generally attempted to measure equity by comparing completion and awards percentages to the percentages of students who enter the college.
Overall, regarding both SSSP and Student Equity, it is our hope to work toward integrated proposals for all three of these grants to maximize the impact of projects and increase scalability when shown effective. We coordinate with other federal grants already (notably STEM and Title V), so we are looking forward to coordinating the new state grants as well.
[3]. Data Analysis using the Basic Skills Cohort Progress Tracking Tool
In preparation for answering the question below, you need to access the Basic Skills Cohort Progress Tracking Tool on the Chancellor’s Office website (http://datamart.cccco.edu/Outcomes/BasicSkills_Cohort_Tracker.aspx). Directions for use of the tool are provided through the Tracking Tool web page, and 3CSN provides an introduction to the Tracking Tool at http://3csn.org/basic-skills-cohort-tracking-tool/. Explore the progression of cohorts of students through your basic skills/ESL courses into transferable coursework. In addition to class cohorts, disaggregate your data by gender, age, ethnicity, and other characteristics. As you explore the data related to the progress of these cohorts, identify data that raise concerns or questions that you, as a college, clearly need to explore further or seek to address. For example, after determining that a certain percentage of students have progressed from point X to point Y, you might consider whether this represents acceptable progress and explain why or why not.
· Was your college’s basic skills program more successful in 2011-2013 than it was in 2009-2011? Explain your answer for each discipline separately.
Your answer should address English, ESL and mathematics separately. Include quantitative results and narrative.
Please limit your response to one page total. (NOTE: There is no form for this section.)
English
In analyzing and comparing the success rates of students in English starting two levels below transfer through the transfer level, MSJC has remained steady at 26% of students successfully completing English 101 within a two year window. However, due to section cuts linked to the budget crisis, our raw numbers were lower in 2011-2013 (95 students) as opposed to 2009-2011 (131 students). 26% is still a low number, and due to these data, we embarked on curriculum revision in 2011 to accelerate English (the new ENGL 092). This new course (combining 1 and 2 levels below transfer) was offered in Fall 2012 and raised our transfer level completion rate from 26% to 59% (Fall 2012-Spring 2014). In addition, when disaggregating by ethnicity, African American students improved from 16% to 53%, Hispanic students from 28% to 53%, and White students from 27% to 59%. Overall, even though success rates in individual levels below transfer have fluctuated, statistically significant improvements have occurred in the last two years due to acceleration efforts. Supplemental Instruction is also working well in the accelerated courses where in the older courses it was either not attended or unsuccessful. For English, thanks to acceleration efforts, our basic skills program was more successful and continues to make progress.