State Priority: Program Development / Curriculum / Classroom

This brief outlines how closer collaboration among adult education, workforce development, and vocational rehabilitation partners can advance effective practices and programs for workers with foundational skill needs and disabilities. It provides a case study of one such approach, and state and federal policy recommendations for strengthening alignment between these systems and replicating this approach in other communities.

CAEP adult education practitioners situated in a rural environment and experiencing challenges providing adult education programming and services in their region began this gathering identifying what defines the term rural. The participants split up into break-out rooms each with a forced-topic. Group A addressed the vastness of services and the need to connect with students across it and Group B discussed key strategies for the success of CTE programs. As the time came to a close all the participants agreed that they would benefit from another PLC.

CAEP adult education practitioners situated in a rural environment and experiencing challenges providing adult education programming and services in their community met and collaborated for their second peer learning circle (PLC). The group focused on common struggles and strategies for rural adult education providers and consortia. The participants and co-facilitators concentrated on enrollment targets, student supports, and recruiting practitioners due to staffing shortages.

The CAEP Technical Assistance Project (TAP) contracted with High Road Alliance (HRA) to listen to adult education practitioners about their experiences leading, building, and delivering IET programs, to glean lessons for the future of IET in California. This brief begins with a summary of the reasons providers offer IET, followed by an overview of the diversity of program structures, partnerships, occupations, and funding models seen among the providers who participated. The next section describes themes and promising practices that were heard during the interviews and listening sessions, related to each of the topics above. The brief concludes with recommendations drawn from the interviews and listening sessions to sustain and scale high-quality IET programs in California.

High Road Alliance