Assembly Select Committee on Effective Postsecondary Career Technical Education and Workforce Development Programs

Well, good morning. Well, good morning. Thank you so much to each and every one of you for being here today. I'd like to call this hearing of the Select Committee on Effective Post Secondary Career Technical Education and Workforce Development Programs to order.

And we're so grateful to be here at Santa Ana College as part of the Rancho Santiago Community College District. And really thank you so much to all of you for being here today. We're looking forward to a robust discussion and this is our first meeting of the Select Committee.

I'm super excited about the work ahead and to hear all the different presentations. We have a number of robust presentations and I'm grateful to all the speakers for being here today. And thank you to our Chancellor Marvin Martinez and President Annabelle Neri and the entire team here at Santa Ana College for hosting us here today as well.

Also, I acknowledge the trustees that are here as well. We have Trustees Zeke Tina and Trustee Hannah. Thank you so much to all the leadership of the Community College District for being here today and for hosting us here today.

And as Chair of the Assembly Higher Education Committee, my priorities has always been to expand college access, college affordability, access to higher education, and to really do everything possible to make college more affordable.

And as a former trustee for the Los Angeles Community College District, and I see a number of colleagues here from the LA Community College District as well, thank you so much for your leadership and the work and efforts there.

And when I worked in the Mayor's office in LA City Council offices, we did a lot of work and efforts around partnerships to grow high growth sector training programs, career ladder training programs in the Los Angeles and Southern California area.

And we know that that work is so critical to continue to make opportunities available in these challenging times, especially around affordability. And we know that our economy needs more skilled workers more than ever, and students and adults need those options to really access these career ladder training programs.

And a lot of them start at the community colleges and the community colleges are nimble and able to meet those demands and needs. Chancellor Martinez and I were just talking about that as well earlier.

And areas around impact on enrollment and the working efforts of these types of programs to help boost enrollment, to help drive enrollment as well, is so, so critical. And this year the Governor released the Master Plan for Career Education.

And what's important about that plan is its emphasis on the continuum of education, starting with K12 schools, and the importance of a coordinated system that will enable students to land careers no matter what level of education, what level of degree, or where they attend a training program. School or college.

And this year I was very proud to be the author of a bill that implemented one of the recommendations of the master plan, Assembly Bill 1098, which establishes the California Interagency Education Council. And that's something that we were pushing for the last few years. I'm really grateful that we got it done this year.

And my chief of staff, Sophia Kwong Kim, and to the entire team, thank you so much. I have a number of my team members here as well. Thank you so much for all your work and efforts and for being here as well.

And this council is comprised of state K12 and higher education segments, labor and other workforce agencies. This body will review and propose recommendations to streamline existing programs. And I'm sure that today's panelists here today will highlight and identify those strategies using data to help students and adults secure jobs and careers of today and tomorrow.

And the purpose of this Select Committee is to uplift the very important work of career, technical education and workforce development programs as part of the continuum of education.

And this select Committee will also highlight programs in different parts of the state, not only to showcase their success, but also to educate other colleges and universities that might be interested in similar programs. And for those of you that are here today, watching today, and virtually, thank you for your interest in this very important topic.

And I'm grateful that all of you are here today as well. And with that, I'd like to. Also in today's announcement is the agenda materials for today's hearing is available on the California State Assembly's website on the Committee web page. So thank you so much everyone for joining us.

And all the materials are on that California State Assembly website on the Committee website. For anybody watching online, those materials are online as well. And for anybody who would like any additional information on that, please check the website for additional information.

And now it's my distinct honor and privilege to introduce the Chancellor of the Community College District here at Rancho Santiago Community College District, home of Santa Ana College, and somebody I've worked with for over 15 years.

When I first met this gentleman in 2009, when I was working in the Mayor's office, we were doing a lot of work on the higher LA youth summer employment program, hiring 10,000 young people each summer. And my entree into the Community College district was Marvin Martinez, who was then the Vice Chancellor of the LA Community College District.

And then through his leadership and roles at various community colleges, as President of Harbor College, as President of East Los Angeles College, and now as Chancellor of the Rancho Santiago Community College District, I'D like to give a warm welcome to Chancellor Marvin Martinez, who's also an expert on CT and workforce development. Welcome, Chancellor Martinez.

Good morning everybody and welcome Assembly Member Mike Fong. You know, we are honored to have you here. You are that person that we go to in Sacramento as it relates to workforce development, CT issues, apprenticeship. You are the man and we're so proud to have you here.

I want to of course welcome all of you to this is Santa Ana College and of course I'm going to introduce you in a couple seconds the proud President of Santa Ana College. We made up of two colleges, Santa Ana College and Santiago Canyon College.

We also have huge non credit programs that have a major focus on workforce development. This is a district that has a major focus on workforce development and on helping the people in this community. It makes it easier for me to do that because we have an incredible board who pushes that and it starts with the board.

As you know, as a former board of trustee, Assembly Member Fong and I want to introduce everyone here to the board Members right here. Let me start with the vice President of our board of trustees, Dr. Tina Idias Miller. Tina, if you could let everybody know you're here. Also want to introduce you to Assembly Member.

I already call my Assembly to Trustee John Hanna. Trustee John Hanna and also Trustee Zeke Hernandez. Zeke, please stand. Also want to introduce quickly we have some incredible CEOs who I know really well. So just quickly want to introduce of course the proud President of Santa Ana College, Dr. Annabelle Neary.

The President of Pasadena City College, Jose Gomez. Jose, see you. Welcome to the campus. And our fellow colleague and President of East Los Angeles College, Dr. Monte Perez. So just quickly, I know that there's a big agenda today, but I wanted to just quickly about a couple of bills back around 2014.

At that time, State Senator Marty Block created Senate Bill 850. The purpose of the Bill was to create bachelor degrees and it started with 15 colleges in order to create bachelor degrees. One of those colleges, original colleges at that time was Santa Ana College and they created one of those degrees.

Santa Ana College has gone on to create 44 or more bachelor degrees. And you know, and they have the most degrees out of any college in the state. And, and I think when you hear Dr. Neary speak and you hear Dr. Jeff Lam speak, you'll know why.

It's a campus that is very focused and they really want to do that. Then we had Assembly Bill 927 and Assembly Bill and the difference is the big difference between the two bills was Assembly Bill 850 from Senator Block stated it's okay to have duplication. Then Assembly Bill 927 came in and it stated no duplication at all.

And that prevented from a lot of colleges moving forward to create more bachelor degrees. So why is that significant?

Because what we have learned since being here is that the bachelor degree is the ultimate credential that will allow students to be able to qualify for those high wage, high growth jobs that we're going to talk about that today.

I know Dr. Nuri will let you know how well our students are doing who are graduating with BA Degrees from Santa Ana College. And they are making six figures. They're doing really well.

So we want, you know, so I think legislatively, if the word duplication could be eliminated from AB927, it opens up opportunities for many colleges to have BA degrees and an opportunity for students who are low income, students who are middle income to get the chance to have a bachelor's degree. Look, it costs a student $10,200 a year.

Just think about that. I wish that was what I was paying for my kids going to college right now.

And so we need to be able to open up those doors, take away that word that will allow for more individuals in all of our communities to be able to have the luxury of having that degree and to be able to get those high wage, high growth jobs. So that's my ask today.

And of course, we'll continue to talk about that as the year begins. On that note, everybody, thank you so much for being here and again it's an honor to have you here. Thank you for being here.

Thank you so much again to Chancellor Marvin Martinez for that warm welcome and to all the board Members from the district as well. And also want to highlight that the Vice President of the board, Dr. Tina, she also serves as District Director for our Assembly Member, Avelino Valencia.

Thank you so much for being here and the whole team. So really grateful to Chancellor Martinez. Thank you for highlighting the work and efforts around workforce development CTE programs as well. And when I served on the Community College District in LA, we had worked on some bachelor degree programs there. We had a dental hygiene program as well.

And then Vice President Biden was able to visit and that was a tremendous, tremendous opportunity. At the same time, I look forward to today's conversation. So thank you so much again to the Chancellor, to the entire team for hosting us here today. And we'll jump right into our first panel.

And thank you to all of you for being here today as well. I know it's a very busy time of year, so grateful for many of you for all of your leadership and efforts.

Our first panel today will provide an overview of the different types of funding and programs in the state of California to provide perspectives for market or job needs and to profile the role of apprenticeship programs as an effective workforce development strategy.

And I'm very grateful that a number of you partnered on my bill this year, Assembly Bill 323, which provide additional flexibility and statute around the strong workforce funds to be used for paid internships.

And I see a lot of folks out here who hopefully everyone will get a chance to utilize that legislation and help provide additional opportunities for our students. Now I'd like to invite the panelists to join us at the table.

Our first panelist, Anthony Cordova, the Vice Chancellor of Workforce and Economic Development at the California Community College's Chancellor's Office. Welcome. Jose Pelayo, Director of Workforce Development at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. Thank you so much and welcome. Andrew Gonzalez, Council Representative of the Los Angeles Orange County's Buildings and Construction Trades Council.

Thank you so much and welcome. And Eric Morrison-Smith, Executive Director of the alliance for Boys and Men of Color, thank you so much and welcome. And the Council is comprised. So thank you so much and welcome to all of you for being here today and we're grateful for your leadership and efforts.

So now we'd like to jump into the presentations. So we'll start with our Vice Chancellor Cordova. Welcome.

Good morning. There we go. We hot? It's hot. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Well, good morning, Chair Fong, Members, audience, guests, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Anthony Cordova. I'm the Vice Chancellor of Workforce and Economic Development for your California Community College Chancellor's office.

I want to begin today with a simple truth. Every major challenge facing California depends on the strength of our career technical educational programs. Our economy is changing rapidly. Employers across the state are reporting persistence and growing shortages, especially in health care, climate, resilience, sustainability, public safety, information technology, construction and education.

At the same time, Californians need pathways to economic mobility that are affordable and accelerated to meet the needs of our working learners. CTE pathways reduce time to completion, lower student costs and ensure learners from historically marginalized communities gain access to high demand fields. Short term certificates, industry recognized credentials and applied science associate degrees.

Applied science baccalaureate degrees in workforce fields and modern apprenticeship programs allow students to step directly into the living wage careers. Not just any student, but all working adults, veterans, high school students and returning learners. I want to Start by highlighting what we call credit for prior learning or cpo.

It's an emerging strategy to support California's workforce and worker learners. Through CPO, students receive college credit for knowledge gained through the military, industry training, apprenticeship programs and professional certifications. CPL students complete at nearly double and I repeat, at double the rate of their peers.

This strategy has already saved more than 70 million in tuition and time to completion. I want to share an exciting example with you. Through the partnership with the labor and Workforce Development Agency, the Chancellor's Office is supporting EMS Corp.

This is a five month intensive program that takes cohorts of 20 students roughly between the ages of 16 and 26 and gets them, or let me repeat that, 18 and 26 and gets them certified as EMTs or Emergency Medical Technicians.

EMS Corps produces wraparound services, stipends and counseling which we focus on in Vision 2030 of equity and support. The program has an 85% success rate and over 500 graduates working in the field. Today. CPL envisions a system where students can receive funds fair, consistent and efficient recognition for the skills they have already mastered.

By scaling clear assessment pathways, expanding faculty training and strengthening the partnership with employers and organizations, we strive to ensure that credit for prior learning becomes an equitable entry point for millions of Californians. Next, I want to talk a little bit about the Strong Workforce Program.

This slide has a lot of information within it and I will cover some of the highlights. Specifically, the Strong Workforce program is the backbone of our career technical education investments and supports more than 1.2 million students every year. Strong Workforce is remarkably flexible and allows each region to focus on priority sectors.

For example, 23.1% of the strong Workforce students in the Bay Area are in it while 2.4 are in agricultural. However, 14.4% of the strong Workforce students in the Central Valley Motherlode are in information technology while 6.5, which is the greatest amount throughout the state, are in agricultural.

Through approximately $290 million annually is split between colleges and the regional consortia. This regional structure ensures that workforce solutions are tailored to to the unique needs of our diverse regional economies. Funds are used to modernize critical equipment for hands on learning to design new curriculum, expand employer partnership and scale the work based learning focusing on the 323.

Our current funding has been reduced a little bit to help support the rebuilding of the nursing infrastructure Grant, a program that we are very close to grateful for. Moving forward, we hope the legislation can consider restoring our fund's Strong workforce while maintaining its commitment to the very critical nursing infrastructure program.

As California confronts rapid economic shifts and rising workforce demands, the Strong Workforce program stands ready to deliver the skilled talent and the state requires. Next up is dual enrollment. I'd like to elevate the dual enrollment as an important CTE strategy.

California's dual enrollment initiatives have become one of the most powerful levers in expanding college access, accelerating career readiness and strengthening the talent pipeline into high demand industries. Dual enrollment accelerates access to workforce pathways such as much earlier in students lives, especially for first generation and low income students.

Early exposure to career lined coursework, particularly within high demand fields like healthcare, it education, advanced manufacturing can prepare students for the workforce. Nearly 285,000 students participated in dual enrollment last year, but we believe there are still so many students who are not being served.

Our vision 2030 strategic plan includes a 9th grade to a 9th grade goal to 12th grade to ensure that every California high school student graduates with at least 12 units of college credit.

Given the strong correlation between dual enrollment participation and post secondary success, and given its capacity to advance the equity, legislative and budgetary support for continued expansion, outreach and support information for dual enrollment is urgent. Up next is Apprenticeship Apprenticeship pathways are a core part of our workforce mission.

These programs create the earn and learn modality, the opportunities that allow students to gain skills, earn wages and secure industry recognized credentials. Since the Governor set a bold goal of reaching 500,000 apprentices by 2029, we have already seen steady growth, rising from nearly 84,000 registered apprentice in 2018 to nearly 94,000 in 2023.

This reflects deep partnerships among colleges, employers and state leaders who understand that apprenticeships are critical to the economic mobility and the regional workforce needs. What's especially notable is how apprenticeships are expanding beyond the traditional trades.

While construction remains a strong anchor, we are now seeing rapid growth in sectors like health care, advanced manufacturing, information technology, and even fields such as cosmetology, healthcare. Apprenticeships alone have grown by over 400% and manufacturing by more than over 470%. Still more work is needed.

Reaching our statewide goals will require sustained investment and intentional efforts to ensure underrepresented communities have equitable access to these opportunities. In closing, California's future depends on a skilled, diverse workforce that is prepared for challenges ahead. Our community colleges are ready to meet this moment, but we cannot do it alone.

With your partnership and continued investment, we can ensure that every California, regardless of their background or region, has a pathway to a living wage and a meaningful career. I'd like to be able to take a moment and wrap up making three specific requests moving forward. We hope that the Legislature. Don't put the thing on your.

On the button. It'll shut your mic off. Where was I? Yeah, my three asks. I'd like to be able to ask the legislation if they can consider the restoring of the strong workforce program back to its full allocation.

I'd also like to request an increase in that allocation that is going to be able to allow us to support the regionalization and the activities that are engaged in the region as a whole at the same time. My last one is the expansion of the applied baccalaureate degrees.

We really want to be able to make sure that our programs are aligned to help support the workforce in demand and as we need it. As Chancellor Morven had noted, the ultimate goal of being able to allow our students to have access to that opportunity. Thank you for your leadership and for the opportunity to testify today.

Thank you so much, Mr. Vice Chancellor. Next up, we'd like to welcome our next panelist. Welcome.

Oh, there we go. Good morning. I think my deck should be coming up. Okay, perfect.

So, good morning everyone. My name is Jose Pelayo. I'm the Director of Workforce Development with Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. Just want to reiterate, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for inviting LADC. So looking forward to kind of presenting on some of the high growth industries, on some workforce trends and career pathways.

I know some were already mentioned here, but we'll be getting in depth. Not too much, but we'll get through some of these. So who is laadc? So, Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. We're a nonprofit organization.

501C3 were established by the Board of Supervisors in LA county roughly 43 years ago to bring economic development to the LA region. So we collaborate across the entire LA region and as well with our partners across other counties. So essentially what we do is economic development. Our end goal is very ambitious, but it's simple.

As you can see, we want to reimagine our economy to make it more inclusive for all, not just those who have opportunities, but everyone. And making that realistic is with everyone in this room. LADC is a small group. The way we move things is by partnering up and collaborating across the LA region.

So I oversee the workforce development Department. Very quickly, workforce development, I think everyone here in this room understands what that is, the importance of workforce development. Our team operates through a talent pipeline model. Essentially it's employer led, which I think is very important for anything that we do within workforce development. And we're data driven.

So what that means is anything that we do at LADC, it's kind of fueled by data. I want to bring this up so you guys can get an understanding of the importance of all your great work that we do on a day to day basis.

So if you see up there in the slide, you see a map, as you can see, LA County is more populous as 41 other states combined. Right. So I'm sorry, 1,200 other counties combined. And then it's also bigger than 41 other states.

If it were a, you know, essentially, if it was the economy ranks 20th if it was essentially on its own. So that, that speaks volume on how important it is. And I want to reiterate, you know, the work that you guys do affects the pipelines not only in LA County but across the state.

So it's very important that we align and make sure that we are providing our information with the data that we have to reflect the program. So I want to bring this up because I also think it's important. So for a household of one, what one individual should be roughly making to barely make ends meet.

And that's being your basics, which is food, medical, housing, transportation. As you can see, there's roughly 60,000. So when we think of our young adults, our individuals who need to reskill, a lot of them are not a household of one, right? They're supporting families, they have families of their own.

So multiply that times two as the household grows. So if you're a household of two now, you're going to be making roughly 120k a year, right? So again I bring this up because of the importance of CTA pathways is you're actually helping individuals go into high growth industries that will allow them to make sustainable wages.

So again I bring this up. The minimum wage specifically in LA County is roughly 1650. The importance of again putting individuals into pathways where they will be making sustainable wages. So very quickly, high level overview of where LA County stands, we see a gradual increase in job openings, very slight.

We see it continue to grow in 2026, but at the same time we see a rise in unemployment. It's been a very rough year, very different, you know, events that happened. So that fluctuates and changes. This was data provided by our Institute of Applied Economics, one of our pillars. So we have, you know, annual economic forecasts.

I urge all of you to participate in that. The next one that's coming up is in February. But we see continued growth in specific industries as mentioned here by my colleague. Education, Healthcare, the leisure sectors manufacturer continues to face decline.

And that's a lot of it to do with automation and just different components that we'll touch base in different slides. And then again the importance I think was touched base here is we live here in the state of California and our workforce, you know, rapidly evolves.

So the importance of building careers and and training programs to reflect that is of high importance. So here very quickly, as mentioned, just kind of want to give you an overview of what our Institute of Applied Economics team forecasts for 2026.

Some of the specific industries by growth, as mentioned, we see some of them that are definitely in decline as we see some continue to grow. As mentioned, education and healthcare are leading the pathways in growing as you can see there.

Again, one of the things that we want to also focus on is the unemployment rate that continues to rise. And again I just want to continue to reiterate the importance of the work that you guys do here in this room. So here we see Some of the industries with high growth and the reasons why.

So healthcare and social assistance, we see that it's going to continue. It has been continuing strongest and fastest growing. However, with some current situations, we do see an effect in that and that would be addressed in our economic forecast in February. So more data will be visible and kind of seen where we have to pivot there.

Education and government continues to rise. Not quite sure if you guys heard of the great tsunami, but that means there's going to be a lot of retirees. And you know, we projected that one third of individuals in specific industries, which is health care skills trades, will be retiring in the next few years.

So you see a lot of need there. Construction continues to remain a high growth. We see the various events coming down the line, right? We see FIFA, you know, we see All Star Games, we have multiple different sports here, as well as, you know, the Olympics that are coming tonight.

So you see consistent, you know, investments into infrastructure, life science and bioscience. That's an emerging industry that's growing. If you haven't heard, LA County received through the state funding to kind of continue to build the life science.

So if you haven't heard that, if you want to address that, I urge you to come speak to me and we can give you more information on how we can work together. If you're doing any, if you're involved in any of the life sciences and biosciences.

And then of course clean energy and sustainability, that will continue because of different components involved in that. So just very quickly just want to highlight some of the different high demand roles within each industry as you can see here. Of course, some of these might be familiar. We have CNAs, medical assistants, behavioral health technicians.

And I put these up because I think that's our greatest opportunities there, right?

To stack up credentials within our CTE, build dual programs with a lot of different community colleges and educational systems, as well as CBOs are doing a great job of, as well as we move on to the education and government which was mentioned, we also need, you know, educational teachers, STEM teachers, you know, different roles within government, public safety roles, firefighters, police officers.

And that also needs to be backed up by industry. So another opportunity there. I mean, I'm very quickly going through this because I know we don't have much time. So I urge you, if you haven't read any of our reports, they're readily available at our website.

I'll also share them with Assemblymember Wong who can share with you as well. But then we take a look at bioscience here again, the continued investment that's been brought to the area, you can see some growth there.

And I know some community colleges are doing a great job of actually already establishing curriculum that leads to employment in high growth industries within bioscience that lead to sustainable wages. So those are great examples of how individuals and educational systems are pivoting and making sure that they're staying attuned across these industries. Clean energy and infrastructure.

Those are your skill trades right there where you think about your electricians, your plumbers, your technicians, automation techs. So again, a great need for that. I mentioned earlier, a lot of our current workforce will be set to retire.

Where we see an issue here as well is that our new younger adults may not have an interest in some of these career paths.

So you just got to figure out how we can, you know, do a better job of marketing and build and inform through work based learning across the continuum how these opportunities can lead to sustainable wages. So I bring this slide up because when you guys think of data, data can be interpreted in different ways.

But how do you relate your data to the CTE programs that you're building? So it's important to utilize data, you know, it continues to allow you to stay up to tune with the changes I mentioned earlier. Our workforce, you know, evolves very rapidly in LA County, as mentioned, we're the 20th largest economy in the world.

You know, expand your work based learning across a continuum. Apprenticeships is a big component, but think of it as well as, you know, K through 12 bringing exposure. I think that's big, especially for underserved communities. If they don't know about it, there's no way they can dream about it.

There's no way they can be, you know, go out and pursue a degree or, you know, education or any component of that. So I think that's also big to understand. And then continuing to stack credentials and then using tools for career exposure.

LADC launched Gladiola, which is a free platform for anyone in the LA region who wants to learn about high growth industries. And then what are some effective programs? Again, I think with the model that we utilize, it's very important to always have industry informing what you're building and always have industry at the table.

So again, aligning your curriculum, aligning some of the decisions with the industry needs, and you use that by starting with data. A lot of the components where I've seen successful workforce programs is a wraparound support. Right?

You know, I go back to the percentage of individuals we have, roughly 9.2 million people in LA County, if you are not well aware of our population is declining. So again it's declining. That's not good for our economy.

They're moving out and we want to make sure we keep our population here and how do we keep them here is by providing career opportunities where they can be able to make sustainable wages.

How have colleges and universities supported or how can they support Again I mentioned, I think everybody in the LA County educational system does a great job. But you can continue by aligning programs with regional economic forecasts like the ones LADC provide. Continue to expand and be flexible with with some of the curriculum that you're building.

Partner, partner across different CBOs intermediaries like LADC to build that curriculum and internship and then use the support again support specifically those that are underserved communities and continue to navigate in demand career pathways. So this is a big one. Again, I don't have much time so I'll jump very quickly.

What are some of the future trends that we continue to see? AI. I know that's a big one. AI will continue to remain across all industries. You get asked the question, do you think it's going to replace individuals? I don't think it will replace individuals.

I think the most barrier that we have is the need to reskill individuals. You already have a community with digital divide. You have new technology so you're going to be leaving people behind.

If you think of current workforce that are now automating and might not have the ability to learn that technology, that's where you're going to have some losses. Right. So again the importance of AI and teaching AI and having that as a tool in your resume, it's going to be big.

Another thing that we've heard across all industries and employers is a continued need for soft skills. I'm sure that's not new for anyone. That's continuing. And then we've seen effects with Covid the pandemic affect some of those soft skills for our younger generation.

So just continue to do a better job of building that within the programs that we have within RCT Skill first hiring again we see industry changing very slowly. But I think it's a good thing that skill first is coming on top as conversation.

And then we have again as mentioned, digital literacy is pretty much going to be required across all industries entry level. So the importance of again staying on tune into some of this technology. And then again we see continued investment into construction clean energy projects for reasons that were mentioned earlier.

And again the demographic change again, the retirement and people leaving county the need for those specific industries and occupations. So this is the platform that I mentioned earlier. If you guys want to learn more about some of the occupations, gather some data, you're more than welcome to jump in.

It's a free platform for anyone that wants to kind of be more informed about what's going on and utilizing data. It's a free source for anyone. But in conclusion, I think, you know, one, opportunities like this to speak and inform about data is crucial.

Continue utilizing data to build your programs and having that central to anything that you do will be successful and you'll have some successful outcomes. And then also just for everyone, LADC here. LADC is here to collaborate and partner and making sure that you guys are being supported because you are doing great work.

So with that being said, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak.

Thank you so much, Mr. Pelayo. I really appreciate your leadership and efforts around workforce development. Next up, we'd like to warmly welcome Mr. Andrew Gonzalez, Council representative from the Los Angeles Orange County's Building and Trades Construction Trades Council. Welcome.

Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Fong, for inviting us to be here today. Really important conversation. I'd love to be a part. This is one of my. I love talking about this subject. It's what we do every day. My name is Andrew Gonzalez.

I'm with the Los Angeles and Orange County's Building and Structured trades council, representing 48 local unions, 14 crafts and trades, about 160,000 men and women in union construction. We put on registered apprenticeship opportunities. Apprenticeship readiness and career technical education is near and dear to my heart because this is what we do every day.

A little bit we're talking about today is registered apprenticeship, apprenticeship readiness and community workforce agreements. Apprenticeship is probably one of the sexiest terms in workforce development in education right now. Everyone wants to talk about it. Everyone likes to bastardize it as well and really kind of take it for what it's not.

But registered apprenticeship actually has a full term attached to it. And a registered apprenticeship starts with being industry driven. My colleague over here to my right was talking about making sure industry is a part of what you're doing. Where every workforce development agency fails to connect people is with the actual jobs themselves.

You're going to put people through training, but if there's no job at the end of the day, you've just jerked everybody around, right? That burns out your community. That burns out people who go through these programs. It just says, hey, the actual training at the end of the day doesn't mean anything, right?

I'm a product of community colleges. I went to universities, right. And our colleges sometimes. And no offense to the folks here, I'm going to offend some people probably, and that's fine, I don't care. You know, we go through these programs, we give them a degree and then say, hey, good luck, go get a job. Right?

If it's, if your training is not attached to an industry, it's ready to welcome those individuals. Where does all that money go? Where does all that time go? We were here to put people to work. We're here to put people into career pathways, not just run them through education programs.

It ends up being a waste of time in the end. So by having a career pathway that's industry driven, you have industry buying into and saying, when you put people through these programs, we're going to put them to work. And that's what we do in the construction trades.

I know there's a lot of talk about non traditional apprenticeship opportunities as long as they're meeting the three pillars of registered apprenticeship. Call it what you want, that's a registered apprenticeship program. Now what are those three pillars? One, this is a paid job, right?

A lot of our members of our community cannot afford to go to school and not get paid. The reason why people aren't attending training programs or education programs because they can't afford to take time off of a job that's got to be paid, right? Without that, you are not a registered apprenticeship program. You're just a training program.

Cool. Awesome. But what is that doing for your community? That's how people get stuck in dead end careers they can't afford to step away from. They got to put food on the table. Today I've got three jobs I got kids I got to take care of. They need soccer cleats and shoes for school.

I can't afford to not take my third job today because I got to put food on the table. If it's a paid job, you will get more buy in, right? It's got to be paid from day one and it's got to be. You got to get wage increases throughout that time frame to make it worth your while.

Two, you got to get an education. On top of that, it's both in class and hands on training. The majority of the training can actually happen on the job site in the workplace. Now I understand I represent construction workers, but you can apply this to everywhere.

One of the greatest needs we have in our society actually here in Orange County with the largest employment centers, is health care. Why does it take a four year Bachelor's degree and another two to three years of education to become a nurse. That's criminal, right?

We don't have enough teachers to teach nursing because you can make more money as a nurse, right? So there's not enough teachers to provide the program. And then when they do become teachers, like what? What level of instruction are you getting? Right? So why can't we make this an apprentice of a career?

It can be and it should be. Everything out there should be a principle, right? So get the hands on and the education, you got to have the book learning too. You got to understand, you know, even as electrician, you know, jolts and you know, I'm not an electrician. So this full disclosure, right?

But if you don't know those aspects, right? And then you go out into the field and you put the wrong wires together, you put the wrong things in there, you can electrocute someone, set something on fire, and that's no good for anybody, right?

So you got to make sure you have the hands on experience and the book learning at the same time. That's vital. Vital. And three, you got to be left with the credential at the end of the day. Something you can take.

Not just to my current employer, the one employer who's hiring me today, it's got to be taken everywhere. So if today I get laid off from my job, which happens, right. Think about AI replacing folks in the tech industry, right? Can you take that job in Pittsburgh? Right. Can you take that job in Houston? Right.

And then that credential follow me to where I go. If it's only good for the one employer, it's useless to you at that point. Once you're laid off from the job, they go back into more training and you're gonna feel jerked around again. Like we talked about, this isn't about paid training or internships.

This is about a career from day one. As long as we treat it that way, that we'll have a response in better and healthier communities. Now, apprenticeship readiness NAB to the national building trades unions. We realized that when people were going through our apprenticeship programs, there was a pretty high failure rate.

You see it at colleges, see it at junior college. People start programs and don't finish. Same thing with apprenticeship. They get in thinking they want to do something and they realize halfway through that they don't like it, they don't enjoy it, or maybe something happened in their life, they have to move on, right?

So we started what's called MC3 or apprenticeship readiness. This is a 12 week program. We have an apprenticeship readiness program here at Santa Ana College at the Remington Center. It's a 12 week program where we introduce students to basic construction math, some basic instruction skills. Think about it today.

When I was a kid, you know, I would help my dad fix the car, we would mow the lawn together. We do housework around the house. We don't do that other kids nowadays. So a lot of our kids don't even know how to use a screwdriver, a tape measure, basic tools, right?

So we give them some of those basic experience. But then the other thing we do is we introduce them to all 15 trades. Because you never know what's going to light up a student's mind. Junior colleges are great for this. When I left the military, full disclosure, I was a terrible student in high school, awful student.

And I went off and joined the military and I got my head straight. It took me four years to become an adult, right? But then when I joined local junior college, I didn't know what I wanted to study, so I was just taking classes. But I found a career in something. I was introduced to it finally.

Political science was my love. I never knew it. But we do the same thing. We introduce the students to every single trade out there so they for themselves can pick career pathway for them. Often a student will find an apprenticeship this way. Most people do is they have a relative or a neighbor.

They see a guy with a guy or a gal with a giant truck and a boat and all these jet skis in the back and they go, what do you do for a living? oh, I'm an electrician. I make good money. Okay, cool, I'll be an electrician too.

And they get a year and a half into their program, they, you know, they shock themselves a little bit and go, oh gosh, I don't want to do this anymore. And they quit the program. Had they gone through readiness and been taught this is the pathway forward, they could have said, maybe electrician wasn't for me.

Maybe I want to be a Glazer or a sheet metal worker. Who in this room knows what a sheet metal worker does? Or a boilermaker. That's right. We'll show them how to do that. I actually attended a graduation at the Remington Center here last year.

And nine of the 13 students chose sheet metal as their career pathway, having not known it was before they got there and chose that as a career pathway. But that's what we can do when we show them what's possible. And by, you know, the training connects people too. But like my colleague over here was talking about.

It's more than just training. Our apprenticeship readiness Fund provides wraparound services. Let's say your car breaks down, you work in construction, you got to drive to where the job site is. Your job is not going to be in the same place every day. You got to be able to get there.

The amount of times you had to pay for an auto repair to get a set of tools to help pay rent, we've done that work because without the wraparound services, those life events can cause someone to drop out of their program. And then we've lost the opportunity to help somebody.

We lost the opportunity to put some into a career pathway just because some little thing occurred that we could have fixed. $300 could be the difference between finishing career pathway and not. And we provide those services now. What about success for our apprenticeship readiness? Throughout the program? It's been a little less than 10 years.

Nearly 2,000 students were placed into registered units. Union apprenticeship programs. This is vital into union programs. Of those, 88% were either African American, Hispanic or Latino. 88%. And of those placements, 28% of those placements were women. The national average for construction is 3%.

At LA Metro, they have a goal of 20% hiring of women on their construction sites. We're about 9.5%. We're beating the national average by three and a half times because of programs like this. It works. This works. When you invest in programs like this, it works. What does that do for your community, though?

People who work in union construction or you go through union apprenticeship programs, you see benefits to your community with higher wages, health insurance benefits. Talk about that. $300 if your kid gets hurt. My kid got hurt. He was riding a skateboard. I was out there with him at the skate park. He fell and he hurt his elbow.

We had to go to the doctor. I have great union health insurance, right? I was a $25 copay, was good to go. What if you didn't have that? All of a sudden? You can't move on. We build healthier communities. But of the folks who are placed into our programs, 34% were formerly incarcerated or justice involved.

When you leave prison, when you leave jail, there's two jobs you get to do. You get to work in a kitchen or work on a construction site. Hate to say it out there, but kitchens don't pay. Hours are long. The only way you make money is being a celebrity chef like Gordon Ramsay.

The only people really get real money, right? But you could work on there. But how much are you making for your wages. Right. That's why the prevailing wages, the union wage is so important. 34% from low income housing, 60% receiving government assistance. A great percentage of them were actually homeless within the last year.

Got them off the street, got them a job, got them a career. But how can you as an agency, a city, a school district, community college district, invest and actually put your money where your mouth is for this education? And one of them is community workforce agreements. Community workforce agreements. How we buy into programs like this.

If you put on a training program but you don't provide the work like I told you about the job, at the end of the day you're not really providing anything. You're not putting your money with, you're not buying in. We have a community workforce agreement here with Rancho Santiago Community College District.

I think we just inked an agreement with Pasadena City College and that actually put your money by saying we're going to put prioritize our local residents, we're going to prioritize our students, we're going to prioritize our graduates for construction projects here on our campuses by putting in a community workforce, community a number of benefits, local hiring preferences, targeted hiring goals, like you know, the disadvantaged communities, people who were justice involved women.

You could actually put those targeted hiring goals in your community workforce agreement. It's your community, it's your agreement. You tell us what you want us to involve. Veterans and MC3 graduates. I mean we owe it to our veterans when they come home done serving.

Less than 1/10 of 1% of our population decides to serve and protect our freedoms. The least we can do is offer them a job, a career. That's the least thing we can do. And we put that as a priority in ours.

We provide labor compliance to make sure that people working on your construction sites have a safe, healthy and a well paid job environment. And finally, what we provide to your community is on time, on budget delivery projects. Time is money. And when the drag drives out, all of a sudden the construction price drags out.

Because we have skilled and trained workers that have gone through registered apprenticeship programs. You know, you're getting the best labor possible. That is it for me. I'm really passionate about this. And last night I was at a concert, I went to go see Old Dominion with my wife and there's a song there.

And our students, like in the song, they're jumping off a rope swing, right? They're joining our programs because to them it's a shot in the dark. They don't know what's happening in the day. It's up to us. It's up to us to love like there's no such thing as a broken heart. We owe it to them.

That's it for me. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Mr. Gonzales. Really appreciate the presentation and for your leadership and efforts around the space. Next, I would like to warmly welcome Eric Morrison Smith, Executive Director of the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color. Welcome.

Good morning, Chair and Members of the select Committee. First off, just want to say thank you for the opportunity to speak here this morning and also just want to give a quick apology because one, me and my wife, we just had a newborn baby, so we are—I heard the aws, I appreciate it and I'll take the claps as well.

But we're in the newborn trenches, which means I don't have no slides. I'm going to have to leave here shortly after to give her a break for lunch. So, I just want to apologize for that but appreciate the grace and understanding.

But as already shared, my name is Eric Morrison Smith. I'm the Executive Director for the Alliance of Boys and Men of Color, which is a network of over 200 organizations across California working to advance race, gender, and economic justice.

And we do that by advancing state policy and transforming systems that are failing our families and our communities. And I'm here to really speak about some of our work around apprenticeships, specifically, you know, some advocacy that we did to establish the California Opportunity Youth Apprenticeship Grant Program.

And then also some of the work that we did through this report that was on the screen a second ago and then disappeared. But that report that was on there where we brought together stakeholders from across the state to really shape what does the future for youth apprenticeships look like in California.

Another part of my apology is I do have to rely on my notes a little bit more because when you got a baby, it's really hard to prep. So, my apologies for that. That's that report right there that we just released. So, some background.

In 2021, the Alliance of Boys of Men of Color alongside Youth Will, which is a youth led organization, and the California Opportunity Youth Network worked closely with Senator Durazo to establish what would become the California Opportunity Youth Apprenticeship Grant Program through SB 191.

And the goal was pretty simple—to build real paid pathways into high quality jobs and apprenticeship programs for young people who had been disconnected from school and work.

So, for opportunity use specifically, and you know, the hope was really that this would help expand access to apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeship programs across the state and demonstrate what's possible when we really intentionally invest in young people who have been sort of the furthest from opportunity. So, some of those people have already been mentioned.

You know, our young people who are experiencing homelessness, justice-involved youth, our black and brown youth and those who are living in concentrated poverty are specifically some of the folks who were thinking about when we established this grant program and in the process of designing it, we were really focusing on learning from the best practices across the country and around the globe as well, to ensure that California's model could address some of the unique challenges that like Californians are facing, while, at the same time, learning from the best practices in other places.

And then, some other key things that we want to ensure for the grant program is that one, it's sort of, you know, able to evolve with the emerging needs because the economy, as we are seeing, is constantly shifting and then, also, making sure that we are providing some of those wraparound supports for young people because like, as Andrew mentioned, like, the difference between someone staying in a program is really sometimes like $300 transportation support and those sorts of things.

So, it's really critical for us to include those types of resources and ensure that community-based organizations who are often working with young people were involved in the process as well. So, that's a little bit about the...grant program. And then, to speak specifically about the Youth Apprenticeship Committee, we basically, in the legislation, created this Committee because we knew, you know, we had a lot of strategies for what was needed for out of school youth.

But in terms of, like, how do we connect the community colleges, the registered apprenticeship programs we've heard from today already, we knew that there was going to need to be much longer conversation. So, through that original legislation, we created the Stakeholder Advisory Committee, which consisted of community organizations.

There were some young people on the Committee as well, which, you know, shout out to...for helping to make sure that happened. Labor partners, employers, county offices, education, community colleges, workforce boards, and state agencies were all represented on this Stakeholder Advisory Committee.

And again, the intent was to ensure that all these different stakeholders that are working on apprenticeships were coming together to develop what that model could look like here in California. So, we met consistently for over, you know, the report said a year—I remember two years, but you know, we could debate that later.

And basically, that the way that the subcommittee was structured was that there was sort of two subcommittees, one that was specifically focused on how do we build out our approach for in school youth, specifically K through 12, and then how do we build out youth apprenticeships for out of school youth, specifically those opportunity youth who are disconnected from school and work.

And the nice thing about this structure is it really allowed for us to both, like, grapple with the unique needs of in school youth, and also out of school, while, at the same time, making sure that we were coming together to talk about how we could sort of bridge apprenticeships across all of these different systems.

So, across dozens of meetings, briefings, and listening sessions, members representing community organizations, labor, and all the folks that I mentioned really talk through curriculum alignment, employer engagement, data needs, legal and regulatory barriers, and then supportive services required for young people.

And again, the deaf really just allowed for us to have some really deep conversations and, you know, even work through some of those disagreements that have been mentioned here today. And then, just one thing that I will mention is you should always start with the why, but mine's a little bit in the middle.

Like, the reason why we were working on this is because at least in 2021, the average age of an apprentice in California was 34, and that number was rising. And only a fraction of 1% of the apprenticeships statewide were under 24.

Which, when you look at some of the things that happen globally, it's like, it's kind of bad, right? We got to get more young people into these apprenticeship programs. The Governor had a whole goal of, I think, hitting 500,000 new apprenticeships or apprentices by 2025, but no plan for how we get young people into those apprenticeship programs, so, we tried to take that work up.

And then, also, it's already been mentioned, we know that the silver tsunami is on its way. So, we recognize that this is going to be a huge opportunity to make sure that young people who are ready to fill these jobs get the job training to be able to do that.

So, to speak specifically to some of the recommendations, and again, this is very high level. The report is, you know, over 40 pages, so highly recommend people take a look at it.

But some of the high level recommendations that came out of that report is that one, we want to make sure that we're creating a connected pathways for both in school and out of school youth. So, that includes a career apprenticeship bridge program that lets high school students begin the first phase of an apprenticeship while still in school.

And then also, you know, providing more opportunities for opportunity youth to get reconnected to school and work.

And, you know, one of the things that we're excited to be working with the Assembly Member on is AB 805 to create this bridge program that will really help to provide some more cohesion across the community colleges, CTE programs, and registered apprenticeship programs.

Another thing that was really highlighted is that we need intermediary infrastructure to be able to do this effectively. So, other states have essentially shown that for youth apprenticeships to work effectively and at scale, there needs to be regional and sector-based intermediaries coordinating employers, colleges, K through 12 districts, and community organizations.

And the nice thing about California is we essentially have all of those pieces already, but we just need some additional coordination and resources to be able to scale and build out that infrastructure more. So, that was one of the key recommendations, and then there's just two more that I'll speak to at a high level.

One, addressing employer barriers. As Andrew already mentioned, we basically need to ensure that employers are engaged in this work, but there's also a lot of barriers that they are facing, especially when we're talking about working with young people.

And that includes some state legislation that is operating as barriers as well, that includes issues with like liability, fingerprinting requirements. Basically, if you're going to have a young person on the job, every single person needs to be fingerprinted. And we've heard that that's a huge issue for employers just because of the additional cost.

And then obviously, the cost of training was another issue that people had mentioned through this Committee. So, we just know that if we want to really ensure that employers are engaged, we have to find ways to reduce costs and incentivize the continued collaboration.

And then, the last piece, which I think people have already spoken to, is really just focus on aligning state funds and funding streams. It's weird in that there is a lot of money going to apprenticeships, but also not enough money.

And one of the things that we have talked about is, regardless, we want to try to advocate for additional funds, but we also need to make sure that CTE programs, workforce training, apprenticeship systems that exist, are sort of coordinating more with one another.

So, those were some of the big things that came out of this report that we had worked on with all the stakeholders that I had mentioned—and then I need to go to the learning other states.

I guess I'll just close in saying like, you know, thank you so much for, you know, making the space to have this important conversation.

Definitely looking forward to future collaboration and also, would just offer that while I have to leave here early, like feel free to add me on LinkedIn because there's some people I know that I would love to be able to connect with in this space to talk more about how we build a California model for youth apprenticeships that supports our young people.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. Eric Morrison Smith. Really appreciate your leadership and efforts and everything you're doing. Actually, we'll start with you. I know you have a very tight schedule. So, Mr. Morris Smith, you highlighted the work and efforts around SB 191, SB 805, different sector initiatives. And thank you for being here.

I know it's a very busy time of year, and so I really appreciate the work and efforts. And a report by the Youth Apprenticeship Committee we know is ambitious, but also an attempt to connect the dots between our education systems, our employers, apprenticeship programs, and that Committee.

Did rules also talk about implementation, about whether or not particular recommendations should be prioritized? So, I wanted to get your thoughts on that.

Yeah, so the top priority that really came out was that CAB program. Folks are really feeling like one of the biggest issues that we're experiencing is the lack of coordination between all these different entities that are working on apprenticeships.

So, building out that CAB program was definitely, you know, one of the number one priorities, as well as just making sure that we're building out additional infrastructure at the state level to be able to track like, how many young people are actually getting into apprenticeship programs.

Because right now, from my understanding within the Department of Apprenticeship standards, there's not a sort of like a tracking code for when young people are actually getting into apprenticeships.

So, to be able to, you know, do this work effectively, that was another key priority that came out, in addition to just, you know, making sure that there's additional resources that are going to be going into both the California Opportunity Youth Apprenticeship Program to support out of school youth, as well as the community colleges and the CTE programs.

So, those are some of the key things. And then, also, I should just add, like, really being intentional about making sure that young people in high school could begin the process of, you know, developing that, the instructional lessons and skills so that they can matriculate into the community colleges and to register to apprenticeship programs more quickly.

Because I think one of the key things that was coming up was we wanted to make sure that we could actually really lower the age of youth apprenticeships in California, or youth apprentices, I guess, in California. So, that was another key recommendation that folks really want to prioritize.

Thank you for uplifting those recommendations. Really appreciate your insights there. The second question I have is also on—we know that you mentioned disconnected youth. One out of five youth, at least in the LA area and probably throughout California, is disconnected from either school or employment programs, and you've highlighted some of the work there.

What are some of the additional strategies to reach out to young people, 16 to 24 years of age, that are not in school or not currently employed? And how do we connect them to these types of programs?

Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. And even before doing this work with the Alliance, I used to work on opportunity youth issues in San Diego County.

And I think one of the key things that we had included in that SB 191 is really additional resources for community based organizations who are often the ones who are already providing the holistic wraparound supports is a critical piece of this.

So, like, even within our network, we work with over 220 organizations who are already connected to many of the young people that we're talking about, but often aren't being connected to, you know, these types of strategies to get people into apprenticeship programs.

So, providing additional resources for those community-based organizations to support with outreach, to support with some of the holistic and wraparound supports that are going to be critical for young people, you know, not only getting connected to the programs, but staying in the programs long term, are some of the key things.

And then also, I think especially, you know, given that you are Assembly Member, I do think that finding ways for the state to really do some PR and marketing about the importance of apprenticeships and really changing culture around it, because I mean, I'm sure everybody in this room has said it at some point, but there's been such a cultural emphasis on young people going into four-year education that they often don't even think about apprenticeships as a viable pathway.

But now, especially in a moment where we're seeing the ways in which people are graduating with four year degrees but are finding that automation, AI, has essentially eliminated their jobs, I think that, you know, really thinking about the ways in which as a state we can sort of do communications to ensure that young people see apprenticeships as a viable pathway is also going to be extremely critical to be able to make this effective here in California.

Absolutely. Thank you for highlighting that. And work and efforts of apprenticeship programs, of additional workforce development programs. And we know that folks have highlighted welding and electricians and carpenters and just everywhere, all those—so much building happening in California and the infrastructure work and HVAC and other different skilled trades.

So, this is something that we want to continue to uplift here. And so, I'm grateful that for your leadership and efforts. So, thank you for mentioning that. Next up, we'd like to—thank you so much to our Vice Chancellor Cordova, on behalf of the California community colleges.

Thank you for your leadership and efforts in the workforce development space. And this year, we partnered on the strong workforce funds programs and, and you highlighted that a couple times in your remarks. Quick question I had is in Budget Sub 3 on education finance, we had a really robust discussion on strong workforce funds and committee.

And we know that, as a state, the funding formula for strong workforce funds, 60% goes to our community colleges, 40% to the regional consortia, and there's a lot of work being done there at each of the individual community colleges, but also on a region wide basis and to our partners at the Economic Development Corporation and partners at the Building Trades.

We know that there's so much work to continue to build out apprenticeships and workforce training programs here.

So, the question I had is, to our Vice Chancellor, is, on a statewide basis, when there's planning that's happening, but also on a regional basis, do you believe it's more important to do planning on a statewide basis, a regional basis, or how best can our community colleges do what's needed in their respective localities?

Yeah, great, great question. Both. Right? To summarize it. I think one of the things is when you take a look at like Vision 2030, it's our roadmap. It provides the guidance and the direction for the state as a whole and it outlines some of the metrics and what the expectations are.

But then at the regional level, you got to be able to have the autonomy to support your local needs. And those local needs, they vary amongst the different regions. So, I'm going to go back and say a little bit of both.

But at the same time, I'm going to also add, you know, when we start talking about like for example, the apprenticeship programs itself specifically, I've always been an advocate to sit down and say, well, let's do it in a partnership.

Let's be able to build a system that's providing an opportunity for our students that want to have various on roads and off roads to be able to provide them the opportunity for the higher degree education attainment. Right?

So, that's where our California community colleges come into play, to be able to provide the accredited aspect of the work that is being done so you can leverage credit for prior learning on the statewide aspect of it and allow our students to reap the benefit of a system that is going to be able to support them in both the workforce and their degree attainment goals.

Thank you so much, Vice Chancellor. I really appreciate that. And you mentioned the credit for prior learning as something, as a body we're going to continue to uplift as well. And I know that we had a number of, I think tens of millions of dollars allocated there.

I think the request was 100 million, but I think it was tens of millions. But it's something as we go forward to really make sure that we highlight credit for prior learning and the work and efforts there. And so, thank you for that. And then also, just yesterday, the LAO released a report on the Strong Workforce Program.

I really appreciate the report, and thank you to LAO for doing that. The LAO also indicates that there's a duplication due to multiple programs with similar regional planning requirements. As a Legislature, how can the Legislature address the issue of duplication at the regional level?

Yeah, so, I mean, you gotta look into what does it mean by the duplication aspects of it. Right? And you could take, for example, I'm gonna plug this in. I've been really trying to increase the visibility. All roads lead to workforce. Right?

And I say that because I'm a little biased, because I am, you know, the Vice Chancellor for workforce. So, so, with that being said, you know, everything that we're doing, we're doing it with intention. So, you have a variety of different entities out there. For example, community colleges have their eight regional consortias. Jobs First have 13 regions.

K through 16 has 13 regions, workforce development boards, the regional planning units, there's 15. There's 45 workforce development boards. So naturally, you're going to have a little bit of a, an overlap and some misalignment in the work that's doing.

So, when we start talking about the regional aspect of work, I think it's something that we need to dive deeper into and really look at those service boundaries. Where does that alignment best fit to be able to help support the various entities?

And at the same time, I'm going to, again, a little biased in this, but I think our regional consortias, they're the strongest foundation out there. We've been around for over 40 years. We've done this work from day one when the only funding mechanism that we had was Perkins.

And it was a very limited amount of funding, but we still drove the goal. So, we still have that same mindset and initiative.

So, I'd like to be able to elevate the regional consortia to be the hub and the conduit that connects those different entities that I mentioned before and really help support the whole aspect of the regionalization.

Thank you for that context, Mr. Vice Chancellor. Appreciate that. And the regional consortia, as you mentioned, does tremendous work. I know the one in LA, 19 community colleges, and I know throughout the state you mentioned workforce development boards. Over the years, I worked with different workforce development board entities, LA City, LA County, and other folks.

But as we look at regionalization, as we look at different issues of duplication, but also looking at digitization of resources, and especially in challenging budget times, I think it's even more critical that we have this alignment and communication and folks collaborating and working together.

So, really appreciate your work and efforts there as you continue to elevate this at the California Community College Chancellor's Office. And I know our Chancellor here, Martinez as well, is very focused on these efforts, and a number of you are focused on these efforts. I really appreciate everything you're doing, Chancellor Cordova.

No, thank you. I appreciate it. I have 100% confidence that we'll get there.

Yeah, let's keep pushing. So, thank you. All right, I'd like to ask some questions of our next panelist.

Mr. Pelayo, thank you for being here on behalf of the LA Economic Development Corporation and the LAADC and other regional economic development corporations. Looking at industry selectors, growing industries that are growing, but also make sure there's partnership with industry, as you mentioned, and alignment as well.

In terms of the work and efforts that's happening, this year, the Governor signed our bill, Assembly Bill 323, which allowed for strong workforce funds to be used for paid externships, internships, apprenticeships. How else can we get employers to provide, to utilize these opportunities, but also provide additional opportunities? Want to hear your thoughts on that.

Yeah, no, I think that's a big step forward. I think being able to utilize those funds will definitely help get more engagement with industry partners.

I think just the work that LAC does, and it was mentioned briefly by my colleague, I think we have to also take a look at the administrative burden that we're putting on some of these employer partners.

And what I mean by that is when you're asking them to take on, on the job training or different programs, you're also, you know, putting a lot of administrative burden on what can be a small, medium business. Right? If you take a look at LA County alone, 94% of businesses are small businesses.

So, just kind of also understanding and using that model that, you know, like LADC does, which is talent pipeline model, where we engage directly with employers to have their understandings as well. I think that builds more an opportunity and a robust partnership, and we have the ability to then continue to build on that.

Thank you for that context. And so, really, with LADC, working directly with the employer partners and helping them, kind of like a warm handshake and really to really make sure that they're accessing those programs, that's tremendous.

And also.

Yes.

If I may, I know this question wasn't directed to me, but I'm going to take an opportunity to do another shameless plug because it was a great question and I wanted to jump in here and do a little bit of advocating for Laype. You know, a couple years ago Laype was removed.

But I think if you take a look at the bones of what the Learning the Line Educational Program provided us, it really gave us the opportunity to leverage those vetted employer engagement opportunities and bring in the employers to help solidify the work that we're doing. So, that would be another one of the shameless plugs.

Let's look at how we could reinstate learning aligned educational programs, but let it flow through the workforce entities and not put so many limited or so many restraints and limitations upon that itself.

I appreciate that. Thank you. And Mr. Pelayo, just following up on the administrative burden question they brought up in terms of the employer engagement part. Thank you for sharing emerging job sector needs and what educational institutions can and should do to partner with industry.

In addition to the administrative burden barrier, what are some other additional barriers that you see to implementing the recommendations?

Yeah, so additional barriers for the same question, correct?

Correct.

Yeah. So, I think flexible funding as well, as mentioned, is an opportunity where we, we can have more of robust partnerships and move as again our workforce pivots very quickly. I think that's another opportunity.

And I go back again, I think a big, important factor is understanding our community as well as being able to provide those wraparound services to get those individuals who are willing and have the opportunity to complete those.

So, I think, again, for me, top priority would be that flexible funding, understanding the employer's perspective as well and reducing administrative burden and then understanding the community that you're serving in and you're working with and putting them in the forefront.

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Mr. Palayo. Appreciate that. To Mr. Gonzalez, representative from the Building Trades Council, thank you so much and really appreciate your leadership and efforts in this space and highlighting the work of community workforce agreements and project labor agreements.

When I served as a trustee for the Los Angeles Community College District, we implemented some of the strongest community workforce agreements and labor agreements across the region and the working efforts on MC3. And so, I'm glad you highlighted that as well. We know that apprenticeship programs have a strong track record of success, a proven record.

And this year, the Governor and the State Legislature has increased funding to expand apprenticeship programs. This is something that is when you mentioned the work and efforts around us, we need to continue look at developing new apprenticeship pathway programs.

In terms of those pathways, what are some of those programs or pathways that you think the state should focus on?

I think the MC3, the pre apprenticeship, is vital. Some students know where they want to go and be sure. Right? Some they already have that plan. Like I told you, my pathway, my history is I was a terrible student in high school. There was three things I wanted to do in high school.

None of them were high school, but my school was not offering me another pathway. They weren't telling me there was something else I could have done. And so, seeing no hope for myself, I found myself in the military. And I'm glad I did. It allowed me to grow up.

But we need to be collaborating with our educational partners at the high school level, the junior high level, and even exposing students as young as the elementary school level that these are valuable career pathways that they can find themselves into. My son, shameless plug for my son, go kid. This was a couple years ago.

They offered a wood shop class at his junior high and a home economics class. And he got to work with his hands. And I love my kid. And he just—school doesn't fire his mind, doesn't get him where he wants to go. And so, he had his little pencil case and his toolbox.

He was very proud of that. And he had the pizza that he made in home economics class, and we were making pizza with the dough and he looks at me and goes, dad, I think I want to become an electrician. I'm like, oh my gosh, it's working. We're doing it.

We're telling kids they can work with their hands. And so, you know, I was 13, I want to be a baseball player. That was it. But it's about letting people know these are real career pathways, these are real things we can do. And saying you can see yourself there.

I think the examples with women in the trades is we as a society have said men get to be one job and women get to be another job, right? But if you don't see yourself in that role, then, gosh, you won't see yourself in that career pathway.

So, I think exposure, one, but two is to some of these other points too is the regionalization is so important. The Central Valley agriculture is going to be number one. You're going to want to find career pathways there.

Here in Orange County, it's going to be something different in LA, it's going to be something different in San Francisco. You've got to have that pathway. So, I think those are some strategies we can take a mention, really advance those career pathways that way.

Absolutely. Thank you for highlighting that. And then, in terms of the colleges, I know you mentioned the work and efforts of community colleges. I know you went to K-12. But in terms of our community colleges and higher education institutions, what can colleges do better to expand apprenticeship partnerships?

You know, your community college is the entity that's training your community for your workforce. Right? And that the regionalization is important, but they need to be, you know, earnestly and with intention putting these programs together, not just say we have a program and we graduated people. I talked about hospitality earlier.

Yeah, there's a lot of jobs in hospitality, but a lot of those are dead end career pathways. No offense to anyone who's got a career pathway in that, but the pay structure is not the same as how are you advancing community to jobs and career partnerships that do that and your community college is that thing.

But are they reinvesting those efforts back into their students by providing them going to highlight community workforce agreements again, where else can you have a community workforce agreement for your college more than in construction? Like what else are you offering? Are you actually being the educational and the career hub?

I don't know if you've ever seen the show Downton Abbey, but Lord Grantham saw himself as not just the lord of this castle, but a place of employment. Our cities are the places of employment.

Our community colleges, our high schools, they're the hubs of our community and they have to be be reinvesting back into their citizens, their residents, and their taxpayers.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for highlighting that. I really appreciate the work and efforts that the building trades has done with our community colleges, with our K-12 institutions, and really building that pipeline and building greater awareness of the opportunities in the trades and really the working efforts are leading to a solid middle class career pathway.

So, thank you for your leadership. Appreciate you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much again to our panelists from the first panel. Appreciate all your insights and your leadership and let's give them a big round of applause for everything you're doing, and we look forward to future conversations. Thank you so much.

As they. Thank you so much again. Next up, we'd like to jump into our next panel, Firefighting Academy programs. Our next two panels are profiles of two types of programs, Firefighting academies and programs for justice. Involved individuals. And the first panel we have is. Will the panelists for panel four please come to the table.

We'd like to welcome Dr. Annabelle Nery, President of Santa Ana College. Dr. Jeffrey Lam, Vice President of Academic affairs at Santa Ana College, and Dr. Jose Gomez, the President of Pasadena City College. Warm welcome to each and every one of you. And we'll start with our Hometown President, President Dr. Annabelle Nery. Welcome. Good morning.

Hello. Good morning. And I'd like to give a very warm welcome to you, Assemblymember Fong. We are really honored to host this hearing and we always love an opportunity to showcase our amazing college. As stated earlier, I'm Dr. Annabelle Nery, the very, very proud President of Santa Ana College.

Before we begin with our presentation, I'd like to share. Out of 116 California community colleges, we are the second largest, serving over 77,000 students across the state of California. It's much to scream about, but we did something that most California community colleges wouldn't even try.

We went after the adult learner free career workforce training and infused thousands to millions of dollars for career technical education and career workforce training. In fact, we serve the largest non credit unduplicated headcount in the entire system, serving over 30,000 adult learners with the largest free.

Let me say that again, Free work workforce training in our system and the state of California. But today we are here to talk about our fire academies. Now we have a lot of number ones that we're proud of.

Second largest college in the state, number one in online education, Number one in offering the most bachelors in a California community college. But we are also the largest trainer of fighter fighters in the state of California. Now I'm glad my colleagues in the earlier panel talked about partnerships, partnerships, partnerships in the California Community College.

We are not a junior college, we are a community college because we are here to reinvigorate our local communities and our workforce and to put our students into livable wages.

So our partnerships in the fire academies includes the sheriff, local law enforcement, and most recently the United States Forest Service, which came about from one visit in Washington D.C. with the Department of Labor and the U.S. forest Service. In a matter of four to six weeks, we had a partnership with a national apprenticeship in Wildfire.

Not only that, we have grown so large in the state of California. Not only there's a reason we're the number one trainer.

We work not just in Orange County and by the way, 99% if you run into a firefighter, first responder or law enforcement in Orange County, 99% of the chance we train them, but we also train San Bernardino, Riverside, Los Angeles, North Orange County, North San Diego County. Again, one of the largest trainer in the states.

Now, I stated earlier that we offer the most bachelor's degree. We already have three approved bachelor's degree and our fourth one will be in bachelor's of science in fire management and leadership. What I'd like to share about our bachelor's degree, by the way, we have a goal of 10. Our bachelor's degree has over 90% job placement.

Let me say that again. 90% job placement in the field of study. Sometimes some of our cohorts are 99%, if not 100%, which is quite true for our fire academies.

And the starting salary for every one of our graduates in our bachelor's degree programs along with our fire academies have starting salaries and in the six figure income, like again, starting salaries in the six figure income.

So before I hand it over and introduce you to my team for the presentation, I'm going to put the ask at the front end, please, for AB19 927. It says no duplication with the Cal State University. But I can guarantee you as a sociologist, I'll pick on myself.

I can guarantee you that bachelor's in sociology will not get you 90% guarantee employment in your field of study. And I certainly didn't have a starting figure starting salary of six figures. So it is critical that we remove duplication because we don't do a bachelor's of arts degree in the California Community College.

We do a Bachelor's of science degree, which is career technical education, which is workforce training. And we cannot actually offer it unless we prove to the Chancellor's office that there is living wage jobs in our service areas. So we can't even offer that program until we prove that.

And let me tell you, the pride I have in being the Santa Ana College President, but the pride I have in knowing that the Palisade fires and the Eaton fires were our very own firefighters, first respondents and law enforcement is due to our faculty, our staff and our leadership who I'm about to introduce because they have trained the best of the best and times when we need them the most.

So to introduce my team, they hate speaking after me. Dr. Lam, Vice President of Academic affairs and I'd like to introduce the Associate Dean, Bill Burden over the fire academies who will do our presentation.

I won't be able to get too far in the presentation without Bill Burden. So Bill, can I get you to bring a chair and join us at the table? It's a pleasure. Question mark, exclamation point.

To work with Dr. Nery, always such a visionary leader, always challenging us to think a little differently and really pushing us to serve our community, which I think this is one of those programs that does that.

We do have a presentation that we can go to and I will just kind of get right to that and start out. As Dr. Nery mentioned, Santa Ana College is the home to one of the oldest and largest nationally recognized and respected fire training program. We are very proud of that history.

I have friends and family who have gone through this program and that really helps to elevate our community. You know, it was the Orange county, the Orange County Fire and Chiefs association saw benefit in this program and were the one the kind of the founding group. If we talked earlier, heard earlier about listening to your employer.

I think these programs are designed and geared specifically to meet the needs of these employers. And it's really a collaboration that brings this our program together. Our program history really starts out in like 1959 in which we started our associate's degree in fire science. 1967 we had our first academy. So we've been around for quite some time.

And then the first accredited regional Training Academy in 1993. And as Dr. Inaria mentioned, just one of the largest programs in the state. And I think what makes us a program that has that size is because we're not just a one trick pony. We don't just do the basic fire academy.

And Bill Burden will share a little more about some of those details. It's not just one thing. We're many things in our fire program. You can see that the degrees and certificates that we offer. On the next slide speak to our associate's degree, Public service, fire prevention, fire Administration.

The certificates of achievement, as I'm sure you're aware, are meaningful certificates that are industry recognized. I think this is really one of those spaces. The prior panel talked a little bit about significantly about the apprenticeship programs.

And I think the handshake that can happen is when the community colleges can develop the curriculum that is informed obviously by our partners, but that the partner has have expectations of outcomes of what the student competencies are and to the degree that they can articulate that to us.

And if we can then certificate, make it a certificate of achievement, that allows us to kind of lean into our funding formula, right. The 70, 30, 20 and recognize that not only are we meeting an industry partner expectation, there's a certificate that they can identify. Those industry certificates are really critical.

So ours are expressed through these certificates of achievement and certificates of proficiency, of course, total of 88 course offerings. So a real breadth and depth of a program that's been around for quite some time.

The next slide speaks to kind of just the conceptual framework that this program works under where we are linking up to the Vision 2030. We have our own Santa Ana College educational comprehensive educational plan, but it is really around these 21st century fire and emergency services requirements.

We are leaning into obviously the training standards that are both statewide and also national.

The next slide, I think I mentioned that we're not a one trick pony here at Santa Ana College and you can see that it's a real blend of yes, our basic fire academy, but we're also doing advanced officer training, those perishable skills that are required.

We have a wellness program that is ensuring the lifelong health and the lifelong benefits to those who are currently employed. Our wellness van is driving up and down through LA and Orange County, San Diego County, meeting the needs of those first responders, ensuring lifelong health and the wellness program that works both locally and abroad.

We also have an advanced officer training, as I mentioned, we have a lifeguard training program. So Santa Ana College in this space is significantly intertwined into various different areas. And so if we see a decline in one, we're able to balance that. Out with the other.

Bill's going to share you some more information specifically around some of the workforce training, development and other kind of more operational aspects of the program. Bill.

Thank you. Dr. Lam and Assemblymember Fong appreciate the opportunity to showcase the Santa Ana College fire technology program. I do want to acknowledge the hard working faculty and support staff that really make this program happen.

We have our co chair in the audience so we appreciate her being here and it certainly takes a team effort and certainly appreciate the leadership that I've received from both the President and the Vice President. Specific to our program. We want to highlight hands on training.

We spoke about before about the importance of getting out there into the field and we certainly do that with our program. It's more than sitting in a classroom and looking at PowerPoints. We're obviously doing training for urban wildland firefighting. We do fire prevention inspections with our students.

We actually go into the field and do mock fire inspections so they get that hands on training. We certainly do fire station visits, career opportunities as Dr. Lam mentioned, we're not just training future firefighters, we're training fire professionals that are currently employed so they can aspire into fire engineer, captain, fire chiefs positions.

Also in the fire prevention realm, providing training for fire inspectors plans examiners are a big commodity right now, especially in light of the fires up in LA and certainly community risk reduction, which is a more contemporary term for fire prevention today in our communities.

Specialty fields as far as arson investigation, urban rescue, hazardous materials as ongoing training for those professional firefighters. Workforce preparation. So we do all this training right in the classroom at the academy, do the wellness. But what do we do to prepare our students once they get done with school to go out into the workforce and obtain employment?

We do mock interviews, we work on the resumes, we do oral board coaching. We also work with our fire agency partners and do sponsorships. So that way when recruits get done with the academy, they go directly back to that agency, begin working for them. We also ensure that our fire agency partners attend our career centers.

And we have many graduates that are hired, as Dr. Nery mentioned, throughout Southern California, the state and even the Nation. For example, 25, excuse me, 35 fire recruits that have graduated from our academies in the past three years are employed by Memphis, Tennessee Fire Department. So they went directly from our academy to that agency and gained employment.

Now I say they kind of poached them from Southern California, but the bottom line is those students got jobs. So we're very proud of that. And most recently, the academy that graduated this past Saturday, six of the recruits already have a job with the city of Fullerton Fire Department. So.

One of the primary differences between say the fire academy and the Police Academy, Police academy typically are sponsored by an agency. So they basically already got a job when they come in for the training. Fire is different. They get the training and then go out and look for the job. So.

So the onus on the preparation for getting the job is really something that they take very seriously.

Okay, workforce development. I'm going to just kind of highlight a couple areas here. One that's worthy of mentioning is that again, through our advanced officer training and career long training that we provide to fire professionals, many of the current fire chiefs in Orange County and Southern California are sacred. Fire academy alum. We're very proud of that.

Matter of fact, one of our foundation Members, directors is a fire chief here in Orange County. That's an alum of our program. As far as the partnerships, as Dr. Lam had mentioned before, we engaged with many partnerships up and down the state, not only with fire lifeguard as well as police agencies.

And we work with Explorer programs, we work with fire prevention interns.

And again, our wellness program is so important to our first responders because we want to make sure that they have a successful and long career not only in the mental health area, but in physical assessment so they can go home to their loved ones and also serve our community for a lifelong career.

As mentioned, we're working very hard on a bachelor's degree in fire Administration and leadership. We feel confident that we'll be able to get that across the finish line and again provide for those continuing education for those fire professionals.

And as far as the cost of the program, it's about $7,000 to go through the associate's degree program at Santa Ana College with the fire academy. But the median salary in five years is $144,000. So I think that's an incredible return on investment that really makes it happen for our students and they earn that earnable level wage.

Cpl, as mentioned before, is a significant component of our program.

Matter of fact, one of our fire technology faculty Members is chairing our college's CPL Committee and we're making great inroads on that to provide that CPL for veterans and other industrial firefighters that now have an opportunity to get accelerated, get through the Fire Academy quicker and get out there in the workforce.

Yeah, I was just going to add that, you know, Santa Ana College has just recently been really leaning into the CPL work not only in the first responders but in different areas and looking how we can even maximize the student experience in our non credit programs and recognize when there is an industry exam or industry certification that they get, say like a COMPTIA sort of certificate, a student who did that in a non credit program and didn't have to pay for it.

Why wouldn't we offer them credit if the outcome was the same? They passed an exam that was nationally recognized or state recognized. So I think we're really trying to figure that out. One of the things is just a little future sense of this is that it is the case that the funding for those for a community college.

It's a little bit of a complex idea that. We can talk to you in a minute.

Yeah, we can talk about that later. But what I wanted to share is Bill's being a little modest because this fire academy was highlighted in the LA Times in 2024 as the model firefighter academy. Not just for Southern California, the state of California, but nationwide.

Recognizing the great work of the faculty and staff and in addition to That I don't think again, Bill, the faculty staff, they're very modest. But if you see in the slide, the credit for prior learning is equivalent to six courses. Six courses. So imagine what is that equivalent to? 18 units.

Out of the 60 units, they are more than a quarter done with their pathway to completing an associate's degree based on just their experience or their experience in the military.

Amazing. Thank you. All right, thank you, Dr. Neary. This is a chart that basically breaks down the complexity and the various programs that we offer. Starting on the left lower side, fire technology core. This is the preparation classes that lead the students into the fire academy. Fire officer training for continuing education for our fire professionals.

The Fire Academy FAC is really the fire academy itself. As you can see, it's a small component but mighty component. All those other areas lead into that fire academy that provide that student preparation. Our wellness program is 16% and interesting enough, 39% of our students are through our instructional service agreements.

This is the continuing education that occurs at fire stations every day. Typically the goal is to train two hours per day. They train under our curriculum through those instructional service agreements.

And as Dr. Neary mentioned, similar to the wellness program, we have agreements with fire agencies throughout southern California, not only in our district, to support those fire agencies. Talk about a lot of students. We served over 12,600 students last year, academic year 2425, generating 1860 FTS, which is a significant component of SAC's credit portfolio.

And bottom line is 9% of the credit students that went to Santa Ana college last year were enrolled in the fire technology program.

So we're considerably large part of the program and we assist in the college maintaining large collection college status which allows for growth funding to come in to allow to build our program and provide more access to our students degrees. You can see right there last year, 64 certificates, 485.

These are certificates that are issued also through the state of California state fire training. And they open up career pathways and they provide that training and background. When people want to go take a job interview, they've got certificates that we provide them through the state fire training, student retention and success. It's very high.

And that's a tribute to our faculty and everyone's hard work in preparing our students so that when they finally get to the fire academy they're successful not only academically but physically. We have physical preparation classes that's a component of our wellness program to ensure that once they get to the academy they can be successful student outcomes.

So again, we do all this training, what are the outcomes? So the bottom line is we have presently employed firefighters serving in the forest Service, Cal Fire, blm, for example, certainly urban firefighters up and down the state. And like I said before, throughout the nation, including industrial fire departments.

A lot of people don't realize that many industrial agencies have departments, have their own fire departments, such as Grumman, SpaceX. Some of our graduates work there as well. Disneyland? Absolutely. Again, they learn EMT as well. That's certainly a big part of our program.

And fire prevention certificates, behavioral health, I spoke to that before and that's a very contemporary and it's a very important part of our program. Unfortunately, over the last few years, I don't have the exact number, but the suicide rate for firefighters has gone up. So that's part of our wellness training.

We want to make sure that we're providing that mental health and awareness. Also, cancer prevention is very contemporary. We want to make sure that they're taking all the proper precautions. They have the appropriate equipment, they use the equipment appropriately to avoid that cancer. And again, four year degrees in transfer is one of our goals. Long term growth.

Okay, so we've got this great program. We don't want to just rest on our laurels and say that we're the largest, we've been around for a long time, but we want to continue to move forward. As already mentioned, we're working hard on that bachelor's degree dual enrollment expansion. We have many articulation agreements.

We're in the process of switching those over into dual enrollment to get those college, get those high school kids into college sooner, get them out into the workforce.

Our wellness program, which is led by Dr. Annie Pitchford, she's very aggressive and working with other agencies to get them to come on board for that wellness program, including ongoing negotiations with the Orange County Sheriff's Department, which has over 3,000 Members. We also work with lifeguard agencies.

And I did want to mention that we partner with police agencies as well for that wellness program because they're just susceptible to some of the mental strains that it takes to be a first responder. Instructional service agreements, I've already mentioned before, we want to grow that with our continued partnerships.

Our forester training program, as Dr. Neary mentioned, we've had great conversations with the United States Forest Service. They're desperately looking for people and we're training them up because one of the components of our fire academy is a wild land component. So they actually go into the field.

They know how to deploy fire shelters, they know how to work in that environment. And many of our firefighter recruits have gone on to work for the forest service fire training facility. Long term goal. Okay. Right now, currently we lease a facility. We're at several satellite facilities.

And our goal long term is to have a dedicated fire training fac facility. One of the challenges that we have where we currently lease a facility, it's a great facility. We've had a great partnership with them. However, they're very busy and we've.

Matter of fact, as mentioned, Dr. Lamb, this morning we wanted to run a class the other day and they said, zero, sorry, our facility is full.

So we did a feasibility study and our goal is to try to get something in our district, in our backyard that we can dedicate to increase our enrollment and provide greater access to our students. And with that, I will have a video.

It's one minute, but it really highlights all the work and preparation that it takes to train our future firefighters. And this is an example of a snippet of the graduation from a recent fire academy graduation.

Liberty and justice for all. The Terminal 4, Engine 1, Engine 6, Engine 2. Tuk 42 for 65 commercial at Central May 18301. This is your 184th fire academy. In St. Anne College.

Okay with that. That's essentially the conclusion of the presentation. I did want to note that the most recent Academy graduated was 188th Fire Academy. And we did the math the other day and so we produced over 6,000 fire recruits since our fire cat has been running from 1967.

Amazing. Thank you so much to the U and the Santa Ana College team. Thank you. And next we'd like to welcome President Gomez and the team from Pasadena City College. Welcome.

Thank you. Chair.

Appreciate being here.

Is your microphone on by chance? Thank you.

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Good morning, Chair Fong. Really appreciate you inviting Pasadena City College here today. I did want to mention one thing because Chairman Fong actually represents our district. Thank you. Give him big hand.

Very honored to.

Thank you. And he is without a doubt the most important champion for higher education in the state of California. And we are so fortunate to have him representing us. And I really appreciate you bringing us together to have this conversation. Thank you. Thank you again.

I also want to just recognize two of my mentors, two real giants in higher education, and I'm so happy that we have come back together. President Monte Perez, who's here, and also Chancellor Marvin Martinez. You know, it doesn't matter.

You know, time goes by, but we always seem to be back in the same room doing important work together. So it's great to see you all and be here with you all.

And I also wanted to recognize the amazing people at the State Community College Chancellor's office who are here today that have done so much for Pasadena City College, but also for our community colleges generally. We have. Vice Chancellor Cordova, thank you so much for everything you've been doing, especially after the fires in Pasadena.

And I know that Linda Vasquez was here as well. She's a tremendous advocate for the community colleges. And it's also great to see my former colleague, Professor Mike Willard from Cal State la, who's doing so much work in education for folks that are incarcerated and people that have been previously incarcerated at Pasadena City College.

And I'm also here with our Dean, Matthew Barboza, who's doing great work. We are here to talk about Pasadena City College's Wildland Fire Academy, a program that addresses critical workforce needs while opening pathways to meaningful careers for our students. After just one year, this program has already doubled in size, which speaks to both.

Speaks both to the urgent need and extraordinary interest in this field. We are offering at PCC benefits not only for our students, but for our entire region and state. The Wildland Fire Academy is an intensive, intensive, 8 week, 144 hour program that strategically combines rigorous physical conditioning with comprehensive classroom instruction.

The program is intentionally designed to ensure that our cadets can successfully pass both the physical requirements and also earn the certifications necessary for employment throughout California and and in the nation.

The students complete this arduous physical conditioning program that prepares them to serve as seasonal type 2 wildland firefighters for the U.S. forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and also other federal, state and local agencies. Through classroom instruction Our cadets earn certifications from the National Wild Wildfire Coordinating Group and also Federal Emergency Management Agency. Okay, good.

Our inaugural cohort which launched in spring 2025, which was strategically timelined to align with the hiring season for federal and state agencies, but not strategically aligned to to be right after one of the most devastating fires in the history of the nation that hit our region. At PCC, the results of our program exceeded our expectations.

40 cadets enrolled. We had a 95% completion rate. 10 of those cadets were hired directly by the U.S. forest Service. 15 were accepted into full structure fire academies, maybe some here at Santa Ana. And we had 13 students that continued their FIRE technology education at PCC.

These outcomes demonstrate that when we align our training with workforce needs and provide students with quality instruction, they will succeed. A significant factor in our students success really was the caliber of our instruction, our faculty and our staff. Our lead instructor, Chief Dave updike, brings exceptional credentials. 31 years of wildland firefighting experience. 20 years teaching wildland fire.

And he was the former Branch chief of training and education for the U.S. forest Service Fire and Aviation Management program nationwide. He currently serves as an Incident Commander and safety officer, type one on a full time national incident management team. One of only three in the country.

This is the kind of expertise in our classrooms that ensures our students receive training that meets the highest professional standards. Due to this overwhelming demand, we have expanded the program from 40 cadets to 100 cadets for spring 2026. Our academy is also sponsored by the U.S. forest Service.

This federal partnership means our graduates are qualified for employment not just locally, but throughout the national forest system. The U.S. forest Service in fact, has committed to hiring the top 50 graduates from our spring 2026 cohort. This guaranteed pathway to employment is life changing for our students.

Additionally, PCC is going to host the first of two US Forest Service hiring events in California this coming January. All 18 California forests will be represented. This positions our students and California's workforce for immediate career opportunities. The program exemplifies effective career technical education. It meets our critical state needs. Obviously, California faces increasing wildfire threats.

We in the Pasadena San Gabriel Valley area more than most. We're training the workforce needed to protect these our communities and our natural resources. We have clear pathways to employment. As our colleagues at Santa Ana mentioned, students complete their training knowing that they have direct routes to great paying jobs with federal, state and local agencies.

We're also leveraging the partnerships. Our collaboration with the US Forest Service is maximizing the resources we have and ensures that our training meets our industry standards. And. And we're serving our students. We're providing accessible, high quality training that leads to careers with advancement and potential, and also, most importantly, public service value.

The Wildfire Academy demonstrates what's possible when community colleges respond strategically to workforce needs with quality programs and strong partnerships. We're proud of what we've accomplished in one year. We hope to be here as long as our colleagues at Santa Ana Community College.

We're learning so much from you all in our region as well, and we're committed to continuing this work that serves our students, our students, our state, and also public safety. I do want to mention the experience of one of our cadets.

We started the program, obviously before we knew that we were going to experience the fires, the Eaton fires in our backyard on our doorstep. We had actually three students in the program that lost their homes. They had already applied for the program.

One of those students told me the story of his first couple of days in the program. He was actually a bit out of shape when he started in the program. And he remembers the first day feeling overwhelmed and feeling like, you know, he wasn't going to be able to do it.

He felt like he wanted to quit, but, you know, he knew that he couldn't quit. He couldn't quit because his community was depending on him. All of his. I mean, his family and his neighbors that had lost their homes, and he struggled. He struggled mightily. But he made it through the program and he graduated.

And he really is an exemplar of what this program has meant to our community and the demand and how many more people you would. You know, all these people losing their homes, our community being impacted, and these students, these community Members, our neighbors stepping up and wanting to serve our community. It's incredible.

So we wanted to also conclude our presentation with a short video of our cadets participating in the program. Thank you all for your time and your support. Hold on. Your support, Dean Barboza. I'm going to have to. To leave soon after, but he's going to be here and happy to answer any of your questions.

Let's start the video. Thank you.

For this I'll never lose my voice if I cut out all the not I know I was born for this I know I was born for this I believe, I believe we can write a story I believe, I believe we can be a lonely we are the warriors who learn to love the pain we come from different places but have the same name. All right.

Thank you so much, President Gomez and team from Pasadena City College for that amazing video into Santa Ana College as well. And to both of these firefighting academies, Pasadena City College being the newest one and Santa Ana College being the oldest one. This is a lot of best practices knowledge.

I'm glad to hear about the originalization and the partnership. That's what we're trying to continue to do throughout the state to advance opportunities for workforce training programs. And really grateful to both of these campuses for your leadership in providing these efforts.

And thank you so much to President Gomez and everyone at Pasadena City College for your tremendous leadership and efforts in the aftermath of the wildfires in Altadena and Ethan Canyon. And really, President Gomez, thank you for convening. Senator Perez, myself, a number of leaders there when we had the roundtable in a few months after that.

But also the immediate aftermath when you hosted many different town halls on the campuses and the resource distribution as well. To everyone at pcc, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Couple quick questions really on these firefighting academies.

As we heard, there's an increase in the wildfires in California and the devastating wildfires that we just had in Palisades and Altadena and Ita Canyon. We know that firefighting is something that's very critical to protecting our communities.

And really grateful to both of these programs for everything you do to train our firefighting professionals and keeping our communities safe. Just open question to either of our panelists. What recommendations do you have for us as a Legislature to expand these types of programs, to expand workforce training programs, expand CTE programs?

So I'll put it out to any of our panelists.

So what we have found is firefighter academies are a high cost program, period. But just like nursing, another high cost program, they lead to careers, livable wages and can change the trajectory of those students and their families lives exponentially. But some of the critical resources that need to be invested in order to have more.

Because what we have learned in our conversations in Sacramento and Washington to D.C. is there's not enough first responders and firefighters nationwide. And we also learned that from the Department of Labor. But the high cost includes training facilities.

It includes finding qualified faculty or instructors because they not only have to meet the minimum qualifications of our system, they have to meet the requirements for the state standards. So simplifying that process so we can meet both standards in terms of our system and the fire standards.

In addition to that, people when they see center status, so here's the ask when they see center status, they think of an educational center that offers General education in the California community colleges.

I'm going to go out there and say we are the first educational center for a CTE academy which was the criminal justice academies which we just earned. So we are now going out for educational center status for a fire academy.

So just because you earn a thousand FDSs doesn't mean you have to offer all General education because that's when our neighboring districts see us as competing for full time equivalent students or state apportionment. But educational centers can be career, technical education and workforce training center.

And like I said, I believe Santa Ana College has had the first educational center specific to a CTE program in criminal justice academies, which by the way was a controversial ask. And now our second ed, our next educational center will be the fire academy.

And by the way, educational center status gives us $2.3 million of ongoing state apportionment funding for in perpetuity. So then we can search facilities, give us about five to 10 years, we will have enough money for permanent facilities. We can hire the qualified faculty, we can pay for the high cost equipment.

We can also align and respond to the curriculum and the needs of our local partners.

Thank you so much. President Nery. Please.

I think Dr. Nery covered it very well. I think the one thing to stress is the fact that as already mentioned, we struggle to ensure that we have adequate instructors. And that's primarily because most of our adjuncts are presently fully employed firefighters.

So one of the areas that we'd like to expand in funding opportunities, I know there's a lot of ask, but is to look at adjusting the FAWN to CTU programs to increase that proportion. So that way we have dedicated full time faculty working for the fire technology Department.

For example, at our fire academy we have one paid instructor, our Director. It's all augmented by adjuncts, many of which are on fires. And you know, if there's a big fire or they get held over, as they call it, we don't have the resources to provide for that consistency in training and student success.

Thank you so much for that context regarding the FAWN. Appreciate that comment. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Barbarosa.

I can add to what was said. Those are all valid points. Funding, funding, funding. And to add to that, I think that the funding needs to be examined so that we have a little more freedom with how we spend it.

Last year, our first cohort, we were able to supply each cadet, each graduating cadet with a pair of wildland fire boots. They cost $600 a pair and the foundation last year was able to do that. This year through Perkins, through swp, we're not allowed to give the equipment to the cadet as a gift, as a parting gift.

So the cadets, they understand what type of boots they need, what type of Nomex they need, all of this other stuff. But it becomes very expensive and cost prohibitive even after they graduate. If they could go into a municipality, a wildland fire program and have this gear, they're going to be much better off.

Again, we're breaking ground in Rosemead to develop a public safety sector. Right now a lot of our programs are all over the board within different programs. We're bringing them together. I think that what was said earlier about the equipment, very expensive and especially for wildland fire, very specific equipment.

It's not just a municipal fire truck, it's a brush fire truck outfitted with skids and those types of things. So that again, it all relates to funding. But I think easing up on some of the restrictions that funding has us. And if. I appreciate that. Thank you.

If I may add, please, our trustees, the chancellor, we went up to Sacramento multiple times because of the student centered funding formula. At 1.0 we could never get the full funding for our firefighter academies. So there's the 70%, 20% and 10%. So we got the 70% from the FTSS.

However, the 20% is based on AB 540 and Pell and Promise. But most fire stations will subsidize, will not most fire stations. But I might add that many of them are not necessary. They're not AB540, and if they are subsidized, they are not going to qualify for Pell or Promise.

So we automatically in that category lose 20 cents on the dollar. And then the 10%, they get employment immediately after certificate or associate's degree. So academies, it's twofold. Many academies didn't think of the certificate or associate's degree because they were following the curriculum that was advised by the local agencies.

But because we were losing now another 10 cents to the dollar, we have a certificate and now we have the associates and we're looking for the bachelor's degree. But there's certain components like transfer, college level English and math. A firefighter in the academy is not loo

So we automatically lose funding for one of the highest paid jobs right out of a community college.

Thank you for that context. Appreciate that we could take a closer look at the student center funding form. I know that when that was developed, there was a lot of discussions there and it was very robust discussions there. So I really appreciate the context. Thank you.

Also, I'd like to highlight the work and efforts, really kudos and grateful for all your work and efforts here in this space.

We know that firefighting and areas that are growing that lead to solid middle class jobs and and really the professionalization of the mentioned in bachelor degree programs as well, that's something that the work and efforts at Santa College, really the work that's tremendous in our community colleges across the state as they look at these types of opportunities.

So the next question dives into what recommendations do you have for other campuses that are interested in starting a similar type of program?

And from the bachelor's perspective.

Bachelor's perspective or a firefighting academy perspective.

So I think you know for sure on a bachelor's program, it's really about recognizing the context in which you're living and breathing your community and ensuring that the outcome you're creating is an outcome that's required.

So in our OTA program, in our paralegal studies program, in our auto tech program, those are all the requirements that the industry is requesting of us. And as people are moving into that, then it's really letting the faculty take the lead to identify kind of what those, what's the relationship between the educational outcomes and the job requirements.

And then it does take for the bachelor's degree in particular, it's around ensuring that you've got college wide input both from the curriculum side, but also the support for financial aid and in registration and enrollment and the like. So that in and of itself, it's a big lift for a college.

I'm surprised that some of my colleagues are not interested in actually engaging in bachelor's degree conversations across institutions in my other colleges across the state. But at Santa Ana College, we're dedicated to making that opportunity for our community to elevate itself through a bachelor's degree at incredibly low cost. So we believe the hard work is worth it.

And to Dr. Lam's point, we're not going to pursue a bachelor's just to pursue a bachelor's. We found out that the real career opportunity for many of our firefighters that graduated from our academies is to become a fire chief or management, which does require a bachelor's degree. And I'll defer to Bill.

Thank you, Dr. Nery. As mentioned earlier, you know, we train firefighters up from the inception, but their career can last 25-30 years. We want to ensure that we have that next step in training available to them. They have certification programs that we offer that assist them in management and leadership skills.

But to pull everything together in a bachelor's degree will Provide for that professional development to lead our firefighters and chief officer positions, including fire chiefs throughout Southern California.

I think recognizing that those bachelor's degree programs, they are additional cost to the college, both in terms of faculty support, staff support, sometimes there's additional equipment and facilities requirements. Of course we get the apportionment for them, but really the incentive is the difference between the $84 a credit union and the 46.

And so you can't really do much with $38 a credit union to actually expand and grow our bachelor's programs. And if you look at what our Cal State partners get to Fund a bachelor's program, it's significantly more. And so I think that there are opportunities to really dive into kind of how is the.

What does the funding happen from an apportionment perspective so that we can continue to offer these really low cost opportunities to. To students. And thank you so much.

I think that if I were to give any college my firsthand advice on what to prepare for, and you guys mentioned it, make sure you have the qualified faculty to teach this because they're going to get called out. And when they get called out, what are you going to do?

You can't just replace them with another regular faculty Member. It has to be somebody that's qualified to teach. When you go through a wildland fire academy, each week in ours is a different cert. When they graduate, our cadets have 11 certs that qualify them to take a captain's test.

Of course they need the years of experience, but they already have it when they go in. Let's say, for instance, when they go into U.S. forest Service. There are people that have been working for USD for 10 years that don't have the 11 certs that our students come with.

And that's because we have the faculty in place to make sure that these certs are available and that they're signed. But again, whether it's outfitting, because a lot of times due to human resources restraints, a 20 year firefighter may not qualify to teach wildland fire. It's kind of an odd thing.

So you hire them as a subject matter expert or professional experts. They fit the Bill. The only issue is how do you convince somebody that can get twice as much money working overtime for their municipality. It has to be voluntary and it has to be what they want.

Want to do parity with what they can earn over time versus what we're paying. I think that would also help out a lot.

Thank you so much for that context, Dean Barboza. I really appreciate the context there and the challenges of finding consistent, qualified faculty for these high demand professions. Thank you. I really appreciate the leadership and efforts of all our panelists here at Santa Ana College and Pasadena City College.

Thank you for everything you do in the Firefighting Technology and Firefighting Academies to really keep our community safe and to hear about the work and efforts really was very insightful as we continue to make sure that we have the working efforts to grow our career pathways here in California.

So thank you so much again to Santa Ana College and Pasco City College Firefighting Fire Technology programs. Thank you. Now we're going to move on to our final panel. Thank you everyone for your patience. It's been really robust conversations and discussions and presentations.

Our final panel is Programs for Justice Involved Students and our last panel will highlight and showcase options for individuals who are incarcerated or formerly incarcerated. And will the panelists for panel five please join us at the table?

Dr. Monte Perez, President of East Los Angeles College and Dr. Michael Willard, Chair and professor of Liberal Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. Welcome and thank you so much. We'll start with Dr. Monte Perez. Welcome.

Thank you Assemblymember Fong. Appreciate the invitation. It's good to be with my alma mater here at Cal State LA. Dr. Willard, we're joined at the hip East LA College in Cal State LA right next to each other.

We're doing so much together and this is one area that we both East Los Angeles College and Cal State LA have been doing for some time and I've been doing this work as Dr. Willard has for many years.

So Chairman Fong and honorable Members of the Committee, I'm Dr. Monte Perez, interim President of East Los Angeles College and on behalf of the Chancellor and Board of Trustees and more than 200,000 students we serve in Los Angeles, I want to thank you for this opportunity to speak to you. The Los Angeles Community College District.

We currently serve 3000 self reported justice involved youth and offer numerous support services tailored to this population. Of our nine colleges, LACCD has worked diligently to ensure that justice involved youth have access to meaningful educational training.

And in 2022, under your leadership, Mr. Fong, LACCD sponsored AB 2425 with Brian which established the Community College Higher Up From Corrections to Career Pilot program.

This initiative allowed 30 million to help formerly incarcerated and foster youth enroll in community colleges and as a result, thousands of youth statewide now receive a stipend to enroll in a certificate or Associate of Arts degree program at the community college of their choice.

Additionally, LACCD has consistently advocated for increased funding for rising Scholars Network program, which the Governor and Legislature have consistently included in the final budget each year. We are immensely grateful for this support. Every year, thousands of young people in our state enter the justice system.

Many of them come from communities marked by poverty, trauma, unstable housing, disruptive schooling. For many of them, involvement with the justice system is not just the start of their challenges, it it's the continuation of a cycle that began long before their first court appearance. At East Los Angeles College.

We have 22 highly effective programs that significantly benefit justice impacted students. The first is the Addiction Studies Program which is part of our Department of Psychology and Addiction Studies. This program has been in operation for 30 years and offer students a certificate of addiction counseling.

To earn this certificate, students are required to complete 10 courses along with two hands on internship classes totaling of 36 hours. The entire program takes two years to complete and many courses are available online in asynchronous format. Each year we have an average enrollment of 180 students.

Our graduates become substance abuse or substance use disorder counselors and are eligible to take the state certifying exam upon completing their education and internship hours. While enrolled, students can also earn stackable certificates, three classes for prevention specialists, three additional classes for recovery specialists, and four more classes plus two internships in addiction counseling.

These stackable certificates equip students for various roles and livable wage in the substance use disorder field ranging from entry level positions to those of addiction counselors. And every year we're guaranteed employment by LA County to go immediately upon graduation into their employment as addiction use counselors.

Dr. Lisa Vartanian, our program Director, has established relationships with substance abuse and treatment centers. These facilities often reach out to Dr. Vatanian and East Los Angeles College to offer their job openings. In response, she sends the students resumes with their personal recommendation, facilitating a smooth process of hiring.

As a result, 100% of our addiction counselor graduates find employment, with many receiving multiple job offers. Our program is distinctive in that it is one of the few CTE programs offered that does not hold one's prior incarceration as a hindrance or barrier.

Instead, it's a lived experience that is accepted, valued and considered as an asset in this field. Additionally, we provide our students with comprehensive wraparound services including tutoring, educational counseling, job coaching.

We also have an advisory board made up of local employers that meets annually to provide input on our curriculum, our ideas, and assisting us with innovation and changes in the field.

Like many of our other the second program I want to highlight like many of our other community colleges, ELAC has an exceptional Rising Scholars program dedicated to enhancing completion, transfer, wellness and career pathways for justice impacted and formerly incarcerated students.

Through comprehensive academic support, our Partnerships Holistic Services program ensures that our Scholars are equipped to thrive academically, personally and professionally. Rising Scholars students can pursue General education courses leading to degrees or university transfer such to Cal State la, as well as hands on career and technical education courses both in person and virtually for reentry programs.

Participants who are unable to visit our campus, we find ways to support them including traveling to their facility with the program's permission. And this year we've started in addition a program with the California Prison Industry Authority where they're going to be ELAC students upon parole. 150 days prior to parole. They want us to serve statewide 400 students.

So ELAC will start with 40 in the fall of 26, guaranteeing enrollment to ELAC but also guaranteeing them employment, many of whom are going to go into the trades because they are in trade programs currently while they're incarcerated. Throughout our program we have supported dozens of students completing their degrees and and university transfer requirements.

The graduates of ELAC Rising Scholars are represented at local Cal State universities, several UC campuses. Our students have earned transfer degrees in fields such as justice, sociology, social work, highlighting the program's success and potential. And like the previous panels, many of our graduates take on leadership positions in organizations like Homeboy Industries and ARC Anti Recidivism Coalition.

Others have achieved or advanced their careers in substance abuse counseling and secured Director positions in treatment facilities. Some graduates have also begun working full time in jobs with LA County Mental Health.

This school year, several students who completed a program will graduate with with bachelor's degrees in social work and rehabilitation services because we track them as they transfer and go on to the four year. Recently I learned that these graduates are now applying to graduate programs to become licensed clinical social workers, marriage and family therapists and rehabilitation counselors.

With two students planning to go to law school. So you see the trajectory of these formerly incarcerated individuals moving into the very needed fields as indicated by the State Chancellor's Office in these very important health and public health mental health areas.

Our program offers students a continuum of services college exploration partnerships with Project rebound programs at CSUs underground scholars with the University of California, we're actively creating prison to college pathways supporting formerly incarcerated justice impacted students, not only securing employment but becoming leaders and attaining advanced degrees.

In closing, at LACCD and ELAC, we believe that access to high quality education and career training reduces recidivism, increases employability, strengthens our community and the stability of our community. When young people receive relevant academic instruction, develop career skills, earn industry recognized credentials, they gain something the justice system alone cannot provide. Hope, opportunity, a pathway to independence.

Importantly, this is not a moral obligation, it's a smart investment. Every dollar we spend educating justice involved youth yields dividends in reduced incarceration costs, stronger local economies and safer communities.

Providing structured education and training during detention, transition and release ensures that these young people return to the neighborhoods priority prepared to contribute rather than falling back into conditions that led them into a justice impacted system. For this work, programs must be accessible, consistent and align with real workforce needs.

They must be developed in partnership with schools like our dual enrollment programs that we have those programs available for incarcerated youth. Colleges, employers, community organizations, all playing a role in continuum of support. So justice involved youth, speaking of rising scholars in particular, are still learners and they are still our responsibility because they're still our youth.

We believe in rehabilitation, public safety, that every young person's right to succeed, we must invest in education as a core component of the juvenile justice system. Thank you. And I look forward to your questions.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. President. Thank you for highlighting those amazing programs. Next up, we'd like to welcome Dr. Michael Willard, Chair of Liberal Studies for Cal State University, Los Angeles. Welcome.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Chairman Fong and Chief of Staff Kim, for giving me the opportunity to speak today. Higher education means everything to me. My parents were community college teachers at Bakersfield Community College, got my BA from UCLA My wife worked at Pasadena City College, Mount Zach, and I'm a professor at Cal State LA.

So, I try never to forget where I came from. I'm here today to talk about a relatively new area of higher education in person, BA degrees in California prisons. Nationwide, 65% of Americans are impacted by incarceration with a family member or friend who are or were incarcerated, myself included. In 2016. There we go.

In 2016, Cal State LA became the first university to offer a BA degree in prison in person. Currently, Cal State LA offers four BA programs in prisons across the state. At LA County Prison in Lancaster, the California Institutions for Women and Men in Chino, and starting in fall 2026 at the California Rehabilitation Center in San Quentin.

You've been reading a snapshot of the value of these BA programs in the previous slide and the ways that it transforms the lives of students in them, and I would just add that to those statistics. And nationwide, the recidivism rate for people who graduate with a BA while in prison is only 5.7%.

So if you flip that around, that means 94% never go back. If you want to talk about return on investment, I don't know where you might find a better return on investment than that. If I were a gambling person, I would take those odds. I don't believe in luck.

I believe luck is made by hard work and these students work incredibly hard. We offer a liberal arts degree that emphasizes career engagement and workplace readiness through an applied and professional humanities option. Through our center for effective teaching and learning, we have designed the BA degree to be offered at prisons to be career engaged.

It includes competencies and learning outcomes that have been identified by the National Association of Colleges and Employers for a career ready workforce.

Communication skills of writing, speaking and interpersonal listening Critical thinking skills to analyze and compare data and evidence for problem solving for planning and project management, equity and inclusion diversity competencies for ethical business practices and teamwork skills for collaboration that included teams varied areas of expertise to address complex problems that require diverse perspectives, abilities and proficiencies.

These competencies prepare students for a wide range of careers in business, nonprofits, public health and social services, and the arts and entertainment industries. And one of the issues of offering a degree in a prison is you cannot offer all degrees. So liberal studies is a liberal arts degree that provides both basic skills and specific career skills.

It's a generalist degree, but it gives students pathways into many careers. The majority of students in our prison BA Degrees Parole to LA County or Southern California. In addition to these career areas, graduates can continue to develop skills at Cal State LA for jobs that are identified to grow in the region. Our Extension College.

Oops, back to this one. Our Extension College offers certificates in Positive Youth Development, Paralegal Studies and Project Management. These are the credentials and certificates relevant to the students coming out of prison and also Justice Impacted Non Profit Management.

Finally, we support formerly incarcerated students through our annual Prison Graduation Initiative Career and Resource Fair during Second Chance Month in partnership with LA County's Justice Care Opportunities Department. We also have internships with the Anti Recidivism Coalition, Federal Public Defender's Office, Central California District and the others are not listed on the slide.

I apologize, it looks like the slide went off the screen. Sorry about that. And then we also have Student Services through our Project Rebound program. I have a brief video about the program. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

Thank you.

One more time.

Hello? Hello? Hello? Is there anybody out there? Please don't throw me away I would do better I don't deserve a second chance but wish you would let me try again.

Rob is now with your definition of.

I started teaching as a volunteer in 2013 at Lancaster and once I got the support of Cal State LA in 2016, we were chosen to be the first California university to be eligible for Second Chance Pell Grants. And that enabled us to become the first face to Face degree in the state of California.

If you can imagine yourself as one of our students, many of who have served, you Know2030 years in prison. Having someone physically come in to teach you face to face signals so much and is so transformational just from the care, the understanding, the effort that person's putting into your life. It's the human touch.

It's having someone there that lets you know, you know we care about you. You're important. We want you to do well in this class.

Yeah, I was supposed to die in prison. I was sentenced to life without parole and so I wasn't ever supposed to get out. I was in Lancaster Prison for a total of 15 years. I was incarcerated for 25. Having the success that I've had is like another form of light of hope for those that are inside.

And so every day I get to encourage and to affirm people that are inside that they're better than the worst choices that they've ever made in their lives.

I served 28 years and eight months. I had life without the possibility of parole. And 2019, Governor Newsom commuted my sentence. I never thought it was going to happen. Even when they called my name and said, hey, you know, report, you're going home, it hit me like, you know, I'm free.

For me, getting a bachelor's degree means more than just getting a piece of paper. It's important because it has an impact on so many other people the same way that Mike Ryan did.

Currently, 72 people have graduated from our programs. We have another 24 scheduled to graduate in spring. And we have a total of 170 students on a pathway to a Bachelor's degree in four different programs across the state.

And we're really, really dedicated to this work on many levels and we hope to actually expand it in the future. We're just starting. In my mind, a lot of the families and a lot of the students feel the impact and then they pay it forward. You don't have to be down and out because you're here.

You can actually invest in yourself in a different way. And that's what we're trying to do.

Meeting for provide our students with a bachelor's degree in person program is paramount to them getting the tools they need when they reintegrate back into society.

Higher education for incarcerated students is the most cost effective evidence based solution to ending mass incarceration. Nationally, the recidivism rate for anyone that has a bachelor's degree is around 5%. In our program, it's 0%.

Keep believing in yourself, keep dreaming and keep going for it. The one thing that I will reflect upon as a crow cat into the air is the power that I possess to shut out the doubt that whisper let me captivate. You're not a smart nor worthy enough quit now. I'm done quitting. I quit.

I'm no longer held captive by trauma, addiction, mystery, pain. I am a product of the School of Prison pipeline. This is where I get home.

Thank you so much for sharing that powerful video and the transformation of higher education to really transform lives. That's tremendous. And thank you to both of our speakers. I really appreciate the work and efforts at East LA College at Cal State University of Los Angeles to continue uplift and transform lives through career pathway programs.

And so when we look at the type of work that is being done to help our justice impacted youth, it's critical work that East LA College and Cal State University, Louisiana and a number of campuses are doing tremendous work in this space. So some of the questions from the Prior panel as well.

First off, to any of the panelists, as we heard, what are some of the recommendations that you have for the Legislature to expand these types of programs for justice impacted youth, to expand workforce training programs as CTE programs. So ask either one of you to thank you.

Are you sure? I defer to the President.

Okay. Thank you so much. Professor Willard. There are two or three things. One of the things we always face, particularly in the youth impacted incarceration is custody versus education. There's often different philosophies and so education is not necessarily forefront with those individuals that are in charge of custody. So we have an ongoing back and forth.

Would be helpful if we could provide those probation youth impacted or incarcerated caretakers in the case of LA County probation and others training on how they could be part of the solution with regard to tutoring, mentoring and supporting the educational effort. Because they don't see that.

They see themselves only as lock them up, take them out to court without really understanding that we need students in classrooms. We need students to have participation. There's been some good models. So if there's some incentives for those in charge of custody to be in collaboration and partnership.

The good models have been that probation officers and others in custody have received training as community service officers to be proctors, to be tutors, to be mentors to the young people. So that's a huge one.

And if we could break those barriers down that the state Legislature could help provide incentives for that population to do, that would be great. The other is we need more access. And I'm really happy that Cal State LA has been able to access CIW California Institution for Women.

But in our case, we need more incentives for our career technical education programs to outreach to women. The female population is not being as served as great as the male population when it comes to our programs.

And a lot of it has to do with access to CIW and to career technical education programs that we can start right away with. And so if there are incentives there that can focus on women, that'd be great. We need that. The other is on the education side.

And then I'll turn it over to Professor Willard for any additional comments. Is making sure that we have funding and support for faculty. You just don't go and teach an incarcerated youth or incarcerated adult. And I'm really my hand. I applaud Cal State LA and others that have these programs. They need training.

They need to understand their role in training and teaching these individuals. And I have so many stories when I first started this effort how faculty would go in and be very afraid of the incarcerated individuals. And incarcerated individuals have certain semantics and language, if you recall, street, if you want to call it that.

And they would get all excited and upset about street language. And we would have to train them and say, there's no need to get traumatized by that. It's just how they communicated, how they were able to negotiate when they were in the streets. Over time that has happened. But more support and funding to train our faculty.

Within a semester or two, you'd be surprised. The faculty that do often go to these incarcerated, both adult and youth, come back and say, it's the best students I've ever had. You know, they're getting straight A's and it's just wonderful to see. So I think that that's really important.

The other one, and I'll finish with this, is transition after they leave the institution to go on further for their advanced degrees. So if we had support systems, whether it be funding or access points for them to move on from their baccalaureate to go on to advanced degrees.

Now one of the areas, many of these incarcerated youth and adults can't take certain jobs because they're prohibited to take those jobs because of their records. So an area that we need to expand is entrepreneurship. Many of these young people and adults want to start businesses and they don't.

Their records won't prohibit them from running and owning and developing businesses. And many of these individuals, men and women, are very innovative. They got great ideas and now they're channeled to constructive enterprises. So entrepreneurship opportunity, business development, kind of training for them would be really helpful too. So those are some of my ideas.

Thank you so much, Dr. Bullard.

Thank you for the question and thank you for the answers and to acknowledge our community college partners have been in the prison education space for, for much longer than the Cal State's. We're just the last two years for the BA degree. We're building on the work you've been doing for decades. So thank you for that.

And just to pick up on, I'll make three points, pick up on two of yours. Nationwide. In 49 other states besides California, every year, seven to 22 women get a BA degree in prison. Last year, Cal State LA, at California Institution for Women, 24 women received their BA degree.

The reason for that is that the prison, the assumption is that many of the women coming out have children and they need to be supported being mothers and that they don't need education to be able to support their children. So supporting women justice involved formerly incarcerated and getting degrees on the inside is very important.

I've run a faculty learning community for the professors teaching on the inside every Friday for the last three years. And we get together and talk about the special needs of students in that classroom. And this is to pick up on your second point. More support to train professors for the special needs of this student group is important.

And what I've seen is amazing too. Transformation goes both ways. Teachers, the professors, what they have to pay attention to on the inside. And all assumptions that they make about students cannot be assumptions. They have to make things explicit. Like students go through K through 12 is spotty. They may not.

And they may have had their AA degree online. And then we ask them to work in groups, and that's very new for them. Whereas normal students on the outside going through K through 12, you just internalize it.

Professors didn't think about that until they were teaching on the inside, and they had to think about how do we do group work, which is a professional skill. And they became transformed and they became better teachers on the outside. So that's the second point.

For the third point, our program through the Prison Graduation Initiative office, and we have four degrees at four prisons across the state. And we think of it as a pathway. Prison, college, reentry, the workplace, and those are stepping stones, you might say.

But the connections between the stepping stones is what I think stays of California could support more a lot of times. So just on the issue of reentry, and then workforce students will need more credentialing and certification. Workforce Pell is starting in 2026.

And if the state could coordinate the pieces of the pathway to find ways to facilitate a smoother step by step along those pathways, that would be very, very useful. We heard today on the previous panels about partnerships, workforce, apprenticeships.

I don't have all the terminology, I apologize, but internships or partnerships with sponsoring agencies and higher education, community College or the CSUs provide the credentialing and certification for continuing professional development after the BA degree. Again, some of these students have never been in the workplace.

They're going to have a BA degree, but they still will need professional development. I mean, we all need continuing education and lifelong learning, for sure, and these students need it more. So those would be the things that I would emphasize.

Thank you so much for those insights. It's tremendous insights there in terms of the opportunities for justice impacted students and how we can continue to better serve justice impacted students. And I think the work and efforts continue to support and train faculty as well. And I think the transformation both ways that's very, very powerful.

And I also want to uplift the work that last year, Summer David Alvarez, who chairs the budget Subcommitee on Education Finance, very honored to participate in the hearing. And we had a hearing at Donovan in the San Diego area.

And just really being there in the space there to share that space and to learn best practices and how we could continue to effectuate these types of programs is so important and critical going forward as well. So really appreciate your comments there. The other follow up question I had is similar to the prior panel as well.

What types of recommendations do you have for other campuses, whether it's community college or CSU campus that are interested in starting a similar type of program?

Well, I'll speak to the community colleges. I think a lot of us. The Rising Scholar program I think is really growing statewide and has continued funding. But it does take full wraparound services with regard, not just instruction academics, but student services. And your student support services and your instructional components have to be wedded.

It can't be two separate things. It has to be together. And I think you spoke to that Professor Willard. Wraparound services that are important. The other thing I think Professor Willard brought up is to be very aware that reentry, they just need licenses, they got to get Social Security cards.