1. College Access Summit REGIONAL STRATEGY SESSION ON ACCESS TO POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION COMMUNITY COLLEGE PARTNERS Resources Working Group Report February 23, 2011 Merewyn Lyons, Orange County Public Schools, representing the K-12 partners Susan Kelley, Valencia Community College, representing the college partners

2. Created as a result of the 2010 Summit. Supports Consortium members in institutional and inter-institutional partnership efforts to secure funding from external resources in support of the expressed goals and agreed upon programs of the Consortium. Resources Working Group

3. Resources Working Group Members 2010-11 Brevard County Schools – Robin Ward Lake County Schools – Liz Hobert Orange County Public Schools – Jeannie Floyd and Merewyn Lyons Osceola District Schools – Zina Shubert Sumter County Schools – Christi McKinney Seminole County Schools – Jamee Minnetto Volusia County Schools – Richard Jones and Bruce Ransom Brevard Community College – Kay Pruitt Lake-Sumter Community College – Barbara Perry Seminole State College – Angela Albert, Carol Hawkins, Concetta Duren Valencia Community College – Beverlee Andrews, Liz Gombash, Susan Kelley UCF - Michael Cooney, Rebekah McCloud, Patricia Pates, Ange Peterson, Debra Reinhart, Craig Tidwell Workforce Central Florida – Nirmala Ramlakhan, Charles Reader

4. Goals Increase competitiveness of Consortium-related proposals, so that Central Florida receives its fair share of available dollars. Ensure that partners are aware of and consider funding opportunities that can support the Consortium’s goals. Create a seamless grant development process, enabling timely response to funding opportunities that can support the Consortium’s goals. Create greater awareness of the capacity of the partners to improve results that matter to our community, helping to build the region’s educational brand.

5. 2010-11 Activities –Members shared grant opportunities through six group meetings and through identified points of contact for each partner. Letters of support for members’ grant proposals were facilitated. –Created a dedicated listserv to enhance future communications. –Established liaisons to and from the Data Working Group. –Identified areas to be addressed in an emerging Memorandum of Understanding to guide joint grant development and management.

6. 2010-11 Activities –We took the first steps toward developing a proactive grants schedule that, whenever possible, will allow time for development of quality, competitive, collaboratively-developed proposals. –Those first steps were: In-depth review of Race to the Top plans of K-12 partners to identify opportunities to support meeting those goals. Review of strategic plans and priorities of partners to identify shared needs and goals among the partners, providing a guide to the purposes for which grant funds might be sought.

7. Identifying Shared Goals and Needs –A two-step process was used: “Horizontal integration” –K-12 partners and college partners met as sub-groups to review strategic plans and priorities and identify shared needs and goals among the partners within each of those sectors. “Vertical integration” –Community/state colleges, feeder K-12 districts, and UCF representatives met in county groups to review the shared needs and goals and identify those that align from one level of education to the next.

8. What did we find? At the community and state college level, all partners have priorities or goals in four areas: –Build Pathways –Provide Quality Learning Experiences at the State College/Community College Level –Contribute to Regional Economic and Workforce Development Goals –Provide Infrastructure to Support Access and Learning Goals

9. Build Pathways Improve access and address issues that restrict access. Improve retention and boost student success as they move through academic programs. Close achievement gaps that relate to access, retention, and completion. Provide students with access to the upper division and/or the workforce. Recognize the importance of student advising, and seek to strengthen those resources.

10. Provide Quality Learning Experiences at the State College/Community College Level Improve curricular alignment with K-12, within the college, and with UCF’s upper division. Improve developmental education outcomes, especially in mathematics. Close learning achieving gaps, especially in mathematics. Identify and measure student learning outcomes, including academic and other outcomes (service learning, for example). Strengthen learning in STEM, as a central part of each student’s pathway. Strengthen efforts to produce the future STEM teacher workforce in Central FL. Strengthen STEM faculty development opportunities that lead to improved student performance.

11. Contribute to Regional Economic and Workforce Development GoalsContribute to Regional Economic and Workforce Development GoalsContribute to Regional Economic and Workforce Development GoalsContribute to Regional Economic and Workforce Development Goals Create an understanding of and links to regional and sector strategies. Move beyond targeted occupations and reach into the future to occupations that do not yet appear on that list. Examples are in fields such as bio-tech and health care, which are growing and deliberately being grown in our communities. Establish a clear alignment of our educational programs with economic development plans. Provide access to those currently in the workforce, rather than concentrating only on students currently in K-12.

12. Provide Infrastructure to Support Access and Learning Goals Strengthen data systems, analysis and reporting capabilities. Expand existing campuses and/or add campus locations. Strengthen distance learning and learning technologies. Support staffing levels commensurate with the growth of the student population and learning goals. Address issues of program scale and sustainability, considering how to provide program access for students who want to enroll in programs that colleges cannot offer on all campuses due to financial constraints.

13. What did we find? All K-12 partners share priorities or goals in seven areas: –Access and Equity Access to and preparation for higher level coursework (Pre-AP and AP, IB, dual enrollment, etc.) –Increased student achievement Increased rigor Closing the achievement gap among subgroups (ELL, ESE, racial, ethnic, low income, etc.) –Highly Effective Teachers High quality professional development (pre- and in-service) –Preparation for post-secondary education and work – 21 st Century skills.

14. What did we find? (K-12 level, shared priority and goal areas, continued) –Family and Community Involvement. Including families, business and industry, institutions of higher education, nonprofits and governmental agencies Collaboration –Maximizing and allocating local, state, and federal resources aligned with strategic plans. –Increasing the graduation rate.

15. Vertical integration –Each county group identified areas of “vertical integration,” in which the K-12 and higher educations access and completion goals and priorities are aligned. –None of the priorities/goals was found to be at “cross purposes” with others. –We found a great deal of common focus on STEM studies (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), equity in educational attainment, teacher/faculty development, and completion. –Substantial alignment of goals and priorities exists among the plans of partners serving each county, facilitating the use of grant funds to support the students’ paths to, through, and beyond our institutions.

16. What do we need from you? Help us to identify areas of focus. –The Group needs guidance from the Consortium on the priorities for external grant support for efforts that cross institutional lines in support of the Consortium’s mission. Help us to remove barriers. –In the months ahead, the Group will request help in identifying and removing barriers to pursuing and receiving grants for partnership efforts (e.g. data sharing, contractual matters, allocating staff time for grant development).

17. Race to the Top The plans for Race to the Top provide a good example of shared priorities within an expansive agenda. We will close with a ten-minute overview of the school districts’ RTT plans, which provide rich opportunity for joint work, both “horizontally” among K-12 partners, and “vertically” among K- 12 and higher education partners.