Built to Last: A Consortium Built for Collaboration

The Program of Practice

The Education to Career Network of North San Diego County (ETCN) consortium has an exemplary model of collaboration among all partner agencies and within all California Adult Education Program (CAEP) program areas, noted below. This has been achieved by aligning the state priority area of Leadership into a governance system that is built to last.

Many consortia in the state continue to struggle with collaboration among member agencies and remain in silos with boundaries never crossed. ETCN founders understood that the problem of practice for collaboration lies in a clear governance system of shared leadership. The need for a clear and strong governance system for collaboration among agency partners was only vaguely outlined to the field by CDE and the Chancellor’s Office at the onset of AB86 through to today’s CAEP. ETCN leadership stands on the premise that a governance system developed on their model could be replicated by others still struggling to achieve optimum collaboration in the consortium format.

The Response

When ETCN set out to build a governance system that included strong leadership and collaboration, the respective college dean, k-adult director and principals, turned to the Journal of Public Affairs Education article by Ruth Hoogland DeHoog from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, titled, Collaborations and Partnerships Across Sectors: Preparing the Next Generation for Governance. From this body of work they took three key points and put them into practice:

~Organizational Structures and Values: Gaining a knowledge of the structures, values and processes of partner agencies in order to design appropriate systems that will reduce conflicts, communication barriers and competition, and promote accountability, trust, and coordination of effort.

~Interpersonal Relationships: Holding an agreed upon concept of trust and trustworthiness in order to build and maintain trust partners must regularly demonstrate reciprocity, and express mutual commitment. Thus a strong sense of joint ownership of successful outcomes can be realized.

~Leadership Qualities and Skills: Infusing an awareness of organizational cultures and ensuring communication and listening skills are present. Finding conflict resolution solutions, as well as the ability to influence and negotiate with each other. Also, of great value are networking skills and bringing creativity, innovative and entrepreneurial skills to the table.

With the above three key points for collaboration, ETCN leadership began work on their structural framework for supporting educational change. The framework includes a governance document, a funding philosophy, a new course proposal form, a New Leader Essential Learnings guide, an MOA for participation, funded positions and priorities, shared positions and contractors, and an agreed upon meeting schedule.

The Unique Features of the Program

ETCN’s overarching governing document neatly lays out expectations. Instead of a hired consortium director, ETCN set a Chair position that is filled every two years on a rotating basis by one of the agency Leadership Council members. Priorities are set in order of importance. A shared set of Guiding Principles was put in place along with Leadership Council member responsibilities. A New Leader Essential Learnings guide was designed to assist in any leadership turnover. The meeting protocols and decision-making process includes an attendance expectation, a consensus model on voting that allows one Leadership Council member one vote each irrespective of agency size. A new course proposal form was developed to keep all agencies in the loop in the case that an agency wants to introduce a new course. It ensures that research has been completed, a gap area is being met or a non-gap area is not interfering with existing courses or populations. All of these documents were designed to keep the consortium members’ institutional memory and governance system alive for years to come.

The consortium has a written Funding Philosophy with an agreed upon formula for funding each agency. A written Fiscal Agent Protocol outlines expectations of the fiscal agent responsibility to the consortium. An annual audit is conducted by an outside agency to ensure transparency and compliance. With such clear and fair funding agreements in place, ETCN leadership has found it to the advantage of all members to apply as a consortium for WIOA and Carl Perkins grant funds. When a FPM cycle comes up all agencies work together to gather evidence for the CDE visiting team.

As all consortia must have an MOU for participation, ETCN’s MOU outlines not only roles and responsibilities, but also references their three-year plan, their governance document, and their funding philosophy. All being kept up to date helps to keep the focus on the work year to year.

Within ETCN’s MOU is the agreement that all member agencies will fund on their school staff the common positions of one Career Advisor and one Transition Specialist position. Some agencies appointed someone already on staff as that position to ETCN. For example, a counselor may be appointed by their agency for those duties of a Transition Specialist and report to not only their school supervisor but also to the ETCN Leadership Council. Some agencies hired additional staff for those roles.

Another feature of ETCN’s governance system that makes it function so well is the agreement to use CAEP funds for Shared Positions and contractors. These positions work for all agencies within ETCN, and some travel on a schedule between agencies each week. The positions include: a Data Coordinator (hired by Escondido), a Partnership Coordinator (hired by Poway), an Adults with Disabilities Support Counselor (hired by Vista) a Technology Education Integrationist (hired by Poway), an Accountant (hired by the Fiscal Agent at Vista), an Administrative Assistant (contracted by the Fiscal Agent), and a Curriculum Specialist (contracted by the Fiscal Agent).

Meetings are key to coordinating and collaborating with each member in each agency. ETCN holds monthly meetings that rotate in location at each member agency site. This is an important practice as it allows all to participate equally in travel and hospitality. Agendas are set by the Leadership Council on a short Zoom meeting one week prior to the monthly meeting. Monthly agendas include Leadership Council sharing of important CAEP/TAP correspondence or announcements to the field, ongoing business matters, the fiscal agent report, then the meeting is open to the shared positions and contractors for reports and project work. Quarterly, ETCN meetings include all consortium staff (shared positions and common positions). Each year a two-day planning retreat is held at the end of the school year to reflect on goals, build a work plan for the coming year and set new goals if needed. On day one of the retreat the Leadership Council meets on their own and on day two of the retreat all positions meet.

The Outcome

The ETCN shared governance system has allowed collaborative efforts to be practiced at their quarterly meetings by holding Data Dialogue sessions. Data Dialogue is a protocol developed by the School Reform Initiative (SRI) titled, A Community of Learners 2002 www.schoolreforminitiative.org. It is a deep-dive into ETCN shared data that allows for a clear and transparent reality. Ego and competition are off the table. Some data may show an agency deficient in a program area, and another excelling. The time is used to ask questions about the things the excelling program is doing that could inform and help the deficient program. Other data examined may compare ETCN data to state goals, and so on. These practices lift all boats, and in the end, all of the agency’s efforts serve students better. For example, the past four years of collective data show ETCN supporting student learning and outcomes as a whole include enrollment numbers in all program areas from 2020 through present increasing by 8.5%. In this same time period career training certificates and certifications are up by 56.5%, and college and post-secondary transitions have grown to 62.9%. Additionally, ETCN has provided more than 20,000 services to students with career development and transition support over the last four years.

More supporting evidence of a well-run consortium governance system can be noted in the fact that through yearly audits no findings have been flagged nor have any findings been cited after two consortium wide FPM visits by CDE.

All in all, ETCN’s governance system is inclusive and supportive of all consortium members thus allowing the work of their adult education Three Year Plans to succeed and better serve the students of North County San Diego. ETCN believes many consortia could benefit from running on this model program. All governance documents can be made available to anyone.