♫ Jazz music, by Moorpark College Music Program ♫
Rena Petrello: Hello, my name is Rena Petrello. I'm a math professor at Moorpark College.
I will be the moderator for this seminar today this webinar, A Discussion about AB 7O5 (AB 705). May I see the next slide please?
Here's our agenda for today. So we will be talking with Dr. Julius Sokenu, who will introduce our guests and so, let's go ahead and advance to the next slide please?
This is me, I'm your moderator.
And there are a few things that I would like to make sure for housekeeping purposes that you're aware of. Next slide please?
This meeting will be recorded and the archive of this recording will be posted at the Moorpark College web page on the President's update page.
Second, we want to make you aware that this meeting is closed captioned. Just simply click on the "CC" on the Zoom bar below.
And finally, multiple questions were already received by participants in this meeting, through the registration process.
So we hope to share several of them, time permitting, and we'll focus on the major topics as as the time is permitted. Now I'd like to introduce to you. Our next slide please?
Dr. Julius Sokenu who will be introducing our distinguished panelists. Thank you very much.
Dr. Julius Sokenu: Hi everyone and welcome to Moorpark College, I appreciate your not only your presence today, but the fact that there's so many of you
here today to help us continue a robust conversation around AB 7O5 (AB 705).
At Moorpark College in response to the racial and social unrest that the country experienced this past summer, Moorpark College
convened honest conversations aimed at helping us address systemic racism and calling out structures that create barriers for our students to succeed.
We asked ourselves what role do we play in a society that is anti-racist, and a society that invests in equity for all.
We live out our principles, by providing access to high quality education, helping all our students identify and achieve their educational goals,
and we strive to eliminate equity gaps, and in doing so, we empower students from all walks of life to thrive on our campus.
So this summer, we gathered together our students and we conducted a town hall and ask them to tell us about their experiences learning on our campus.
We did the same with our faculty, and our staff, and then various communities across the campus engaged in small community conversations as to what we as a college need to do to be part of a solution to the equity gaps that exist in our country and in our county.
From there came four racial and social justice work groups. Those racial and social justice work groups address the following.
Diversifying the curriculum to include the history, and the culture, and the experiences of our Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and LGBTQ students. We also wanted to make sure we diversify the hiring of our staff, our faculty, and managers.
Our social justice work groups were aimed at providing leadership on racial issues and facilitating social justice through civic engagement.
And then, our social justice work groups we're also working on providing culturally responsive students services, such as Counseling, tutoring, as well as mental health providing.
Today's webinar is actually sponsored by members of our racial and social justice work group, invested in providing leadership on racial issues and facilitating social justice through civic engagement.
What they are doing today and what we're engaging in today is the product of the deliberation of that group.
I want to thank every single member of that group.
Particularly I want to thank Dean Monica Garcia. I do want to go ahead and thank Kristen Robinson, who are both active and making sure that we connect with the office
of Assembly Member Irwin. I also want to thank the members of that community, which includes John Loprieno, Robert Cabral, Cherisse Meichtry, Dina Pielaet,
and I also wanted to spend this opportunity to thank those folks who provide the technical support, so as to make this experience seamless
and those people include Michael Ashton and as well as Dean Matt Calfin. Moorpark College is honored to be able to convene and be a venue for these kinds of opportunities to investigate our community.
Next slide please?
We are honored to have on our campus our very own Assembly Member Jacqui Irwin. A fourth top term assembly member representing the 44th Assembly district in the State Assembly.
She's Chair of the Assembly Military and Veterans Affairs Committee and the Select Committee on Cybersecurity. She sits on committees that oversee agriculture, business, and professions, higher education, and privacy and consumer protection.
She has had more than 60 bills passed, signed by the Governor.
Assembly Member Irwin is invested in higher education, as is invested in creating access for our students and for our community. Next slide please?
We also have with us today, Michele Siqueiros, President of The Campaign for College Opportunity.
She has led historic higher education policy budget and legislative reforms in California. The campaign has secured millions of additional state dollars to expand enrollment and improve outcomes.
The campaign has championed efforts to increase access to Pell grants, to protect Cal Grant funding, to support undocumented students, and to reform community college pathways.
As a college that has been acknowledged by The Campaign for College Opportunity as a champion of higher education, it is my pleasure my honor to introduce and welcome Michele Siqueiros.
Michele Siqueiros: Thank you so much, Dr. Sokenu. I'm really honored to be joining all of you today, especially Assembly Member Jacqui Irwin.
And all of the brilliant community of Moorpark College in discussing one of the most important civil rights issues facing higher education. A true pathway to college
that is able to be reached by all of our students and that begins with the opportunity to access and succeed in college level courses at our community colleges.
Math and English should be on ramps to skills that students need in both life and academia, not a pathway straight out of college or into a dismal sense of self worth,
because of performance on a biased and invalid test. You know me now is the President of The Campaign for College Opportunity but long before I lead this organization, I was the first in my family to go to college.
And college was my ticket out of poverty.
For a long time, I used to feel like I was just lucky, lucky to have had counselors and teachers who believed in me and made sure I took the right classes, signed up for the right test, and help me fill out college applications.
I was lucky to have been able to get a Cal Grant, scholarships, loans that made college possible for me.
I was lucky that once I was in college, my professors and advisors were committed to my graduation. I was lucky to have earned two degrees that positioned me to do good work, work that I love.
But as I tell everybody now, let's all be real luck is not a strategy our students should rely on, and, in fact, the real reason, any one of us, including myself, achieve
great success, is because we've been given the opportunity that we could take advantage of. We have had dream makers, whether it's
our parents, faculty, guidance counselors or other supportive adults, they're the ones that have helped us get where we need to be.
They've helped us make those dreams possible and in many cases they're the reason we were able to cross that graduation stage. Earn that degree.
But those dreams are not possible of students get stuck in remedial education courses,
of which data has shown they fail to really help move students forward, and in particular, disproportionately fail Latinx and Black students.
Those dreams are not possible without making sure that our policies and practices believe in our students' full potential and not whether they can answer a math question, no one even gave them a chance to prepare for on a required assessment test, a question like this one.
If we can put up that slide? Thank you.
I'll let that slide sit there in case we have folks that want to respond and answer in the chat.
College dreams are not possible if the student shows up after facing all of his or her doubts at your campus and cannot find a clear path to reach their dreams.
If they get stuck in remedial education, if they come here to transfer and five years later are still a long way toward that goal.
This is why we shouldn't be asking if our students are college ready. We should be asking if our college is student ready.
That's why strong implementation of AB 7O5 (AB 705), a student centered reform is the civil rights issue for our time.
Today I lead The Campaign for College Opportunity, we produce research on the state of higher education, the persistent inequities in higher education by race and ethnicity,
the real cost of college that looks at how long it takes to get through college, and the policy solutions that could address these problems.
We also pursue legislation and budget allocations that will provide more funding for financial aid, for spots in our colleges and universities, for better outcomes for our students, for improve transfer rates from community colleges.
We also mobilize leaders across the state, across party lines, civil rights, business, community leaders, and most important student leaders.
And all of this is centered on focusing on what's best for California and for its students because, quite frankly, what's good for college students is good for our state.
The more students, we get in and through college, the better off our state will be.
So we'll continue to fight for greater funding and access for higher education, for improving transfer, for expanding financial aid,
for expanding the student support services that we know help students succeed, and to demand representation and inclusion of diverse faculty and college leaders.
I want to focus a bit on equity and especially the importance of AB 7O5 (AB 705) in the next slide.
Andres was initially placed four levels below transfer level math despite a high school GPA of 4.0.
The data tells us that his placement would have given him a 12% chance of successfully reaching and completing transfer level math within three years.
Because of AB 7O5 (AB 705), Andres was able to enroll directly into transfer level math and was able to complete that Statistics course in one semester.
You cannot close equity gaps and keep past practices on placement and remedial education in place without giving every student like Andres a real chance. So I'm proud now to turn it over to
Assembly Member Jacqui Irwin, a courageous leader who essentially ensured that this vision for reform that put students first could happen.
Assembly Member Jacqui Irwin: Good afternoon, everybody, and thank you, Michele for your presentation. I'm here to talk about the creation of AB 7O5 (AB 705) and why it was needed.
Just a little background I was talking to, I represent
Ventura County as most of you know, and I was talking to somebody from Oxnard community College and they were explaining to me that when a student gets put in remedial courses there in Oxnard the odds of them taking a single
transfer level course are miniscule, and the reason that, that is so tragic, is these are students, mostly first generation Latino students who made the decision to go to college,
and because of these roadblocks put in front of them, they never even had the opportunity. So when I was presented by The Campaign for College Opportunity and many other advocates with the chance to run
AB 7O5 (AB 705) I grabbed it. We surveyed the problem, next slide please?
And we found out that three out of every four students entering community college enrolled in at least one remedial course in English, Math, or both.
And, as I mentioned before, students in remedial courses are not earning credits and are much less likely to complete their degrees. I'd like to share a part of a video for you to hear some student testimony.
Can you please play the video?
...and members of the committee, my name is Lulu Matute, I am a recent
San Francisco City College graduate and a prospective Cal Berkeley transfer for the upcoming fall semester.
Now, after taking a placement test, I was among 70 plus percent of city college students required to take remedial classes.
New student counseling handed me an infographic that illustrated where I was and what I needed to do to transfer. To summarize the graphic look like a chutes and ladders game board.
I was required to take a series of remedial classes for multiple semesters. This would have a minute or three years before stepping foot inside a transferable college course.
As the first generation high school graduate pursuing higher education, working multiple jobs and facing homelessness in one of the most expensive cities in the country I didn't have the luxury of time.
Thankfully, what I did have was an option, an alternative to remedial sequences and in unconventional pathway.
After spending my first semester in a remedial math class, I decided to diverge from the recommended sequence. I opted out of playing chutes and ladders with my education in my future.
Instead I joined a one year to course Math bridge program focus on statistics. In retrospect,
the Stats pathway was far beyond margins of error and outliers. It was an opportunity for me to learn relevant math, to grow my area of study and to succeed in college.
Regardless of placement test score, there's a high expectation for each and every student walking in that class. This expectation is accompanied with high level support encouraged by the class design.
The overwhelming majority of my cohort was able to successfully complete college level math.
Because I chose this alternative pathway, I was able to complete all transfer requirements from CCSF in exactly two years I started my upper division courses, as I shared this fall.
I think about my classmates from the first remedial course, before discovering this pathway, some of them are currently entangled in a web of remedial courses, most dropped out as the semesters progress, but none of them graduated with me.
I'm grateful to have the opportunity to choose an alternative path to remediation, and today I ask for your support,
in creating multiple pathways for all California Community College students, like myself, thank you kindly.
Assembly Member Irwin: As you've heard from the student in the video, attrition is very high, especially for students placed multiple levels below transfer level coursework. The video is from
on a bill that I authored to provide grant funding on a pilot basis to explore innovative new approaches to basic skills education and that laid the foundation for AB 7O5 (AB 705).
In its current form, developmental education, may be one of the largest impediments to success in California Community Colleges, that is a quote by the Public Policy Institute of California.
In researching this issue, we began to look at some of the pilot program so were showing success and learned
that multiple, using multiple measures for placement increases access to transfer level courses. When paired with the right support, students will still successfully complete transfer level courses at roughly the same rates.
AB 7O5 (AB 705)'s intent.
The first intent is to address disparities and access to and completion of transfer level coursework by incorporating evidence based research.
Use of key student success indicators: high school grades, coursework, and GPA.
Minimize remedial education intended to reserve remedial classes, only for those students who are deemed highly unlikely to succeed at transfer level coursework, and for ESL students maximize the probability that students complete transfer level English within three years.
And here is the AB 7O5 (AB 705)
implementation timeline. I won't go through all the details, but you can see that there were many meetings with different stakeholders and finally in fall of 2019, all colleges were expected to be in full compliance with AB 7O5 (AB 705).
And this is the ESL implementation timeline and you can see that this is a full year later, and, as I mentioned, there were many, many meetings with stakeholders, because we wanted to make sure that this was done correctly.
Next slide please?
So these are, if you look carefully at these charts, this is what shows the success, and the difference that AB 7O5 (AB 705)
has made. So this is we've increased access to transfer level English. The Public Policy Institute of California used data from the Chancellor's Office
to examine access outcomes and racial equity in transfer level English and math at 114 colleges in the system. Even in the first semester, a full implementation we begin to see the numbers change and really
well, we'll go on to the next slide and then this is increased access to transfer level English. Racial and ethnic gaps and access to college composition narrowed dramatically and fall of 2019.
And if you did not read the PPIC report over 50,000 more students had access to transfer level English. Next slide please?
And we see increased success in transfer level English throughput rates for college composition rose more than 20 percentage points, and this is for all racial and ethnic groups and now let's look at math.
So access to math has expanded but there's a lot of variation across colleges and here the number from the PPIC report is 30,000 more students having access to transfer level math. Next slide please?
And racial and ethnic gaps and access to transfer level classes, transfer level math courses narrowed substantially and fall of 2019.
And then, and then this is the increase access in transfer level math. All racial ethnic group see substantial gains in throughput in corequisite courses relative to traditional remediation.
And this applies to both the B-STEM and SLAM pathways. African American students are still under represented, though, so there is work to be done.
Next slide please?
And this is the comparative throughput analysis for extended opportunity programs and service students
group. EOPS analysis conducted found that students across all ranges of high school performance are one to two times
more likely to complete transfer level English if they start at transfer level, then, if they start at one level below.
And these are really I think this chart is really quite amazing and really shows that we do need to believe that our students have the capability.
And then let's look at the next slide, and this is the throughput analysis for students with disabilities.
The RP group, we found here that students across all ranges of high school performance are one to two times more likely to complete transfer level English if they start at transfer level, then, if they start one level below.
Finally, looking forward, the Chancellor's Office is reviewing corequisite course offerings for effectiveness and we are advocating for additional state resources for supervised tutoring which we have heard from many
schools is highly desired, and that is going to be AB 11 87 or to work very hard to get that additional support through
and then researchers will be evaluating the effects of AB 7O5 (AB 705) on ESL students in similar, up coming, in a similar upcoming report. Thank you very much.
Michele: Thank you so I'm going to also share a few data points, even though
I just want to reiterate like how important it is to remember that these are important data points that should inform our work and yet every data point is a student, a real student like Lulu or Andres, who we shared and talked about earlier.
So I, and I also just want to add because Assembly Member Irwin alluded to this, that it's not just the policy that we must address, it also has to begin with our own beliefs about students.
In particular, if you do not believe that all individuals are created equal and have equal talent to succeed, then we are not leading with equity.
If you do not love your students enough to make yourself uncomfortable about discussing racial inequity and looking at the data in this way, without feeling defensive, you are not leading with equity. If you do not lead with equity all of the good intention you put into AB 7O5 (AB 705)
implementation will still result in divergent outcomes for different student populations.
Thankfully the early date on implementation is incredibly promising and shows us that equity is possible. Racial gaps have narrowed dramatically between fall 2015
and fall 2019, but placement practices continue to vary across campuses up and down California, as you can see in this slide here.
The success of students completing transfer level courses within one year, show incredible results for students by race and ethnicity. In the next slide you can see that, in English, we have doubled the number of Latinx, Asian American, and Black students completing transfer level English.
That bar graph rising up shows you that increase. In the next slide,
we can see this increase in math and we see triple the number of Latinx and Black students succeeding.
And in this other slide in corequisite course models, the gains for Black and Latinx students is also incredibly promising. Assembly Member Jacqui Irwin shared a lot of charts on that.
So the data is important, but our belief and love for the assets that students bring as much more valuable.
I want to talk about all the assets that exist in my community. As a Latina, I come from descendants who built pyramids and used zero and advanced mathematics long before other cultures did.
Our history is rich, even if it's denied or goes untaught in too many US classrooms. In fact, you know, it's powerful when our authors are banned from classrooms and when Chicano Studies as a threat to the Academy.
I hope you each understand the contributions that our community has made and the sacrifices we continue to make, in order for this country to be great.
We harvest, pick, package, cook, and serve the food that fills the bellies of all Americans regardless of race. We build roads, buildings, houses, and clean streets.
We keep gardens nicely manicured and children well cared for, including those children who we love and nurture that are not our own.
We sew clothes, manufacture furniture, put things together in industries across the nation. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to buy or wear or visit a single part of this country that did not have a contribution by a Latino in it.
And thanks to the sacrifices of those who came before us, who worked with their hands and encouraged us to work with our minds, we also teach.
We lead campuses and corporations and tons of small businesses. We run policy advocacy organizations. We are in elected office. We defend the Constitution and have disproportionately died defending this nation in wars abroad.
Every day I celebrate the privilege of having had the opportunity of going to college so I could reach my own dreams.
This is the brilliance, tenacity, and strength of Latinos in the United States and the students in your classroom.
If you learn their stories, you will find that they are remarkable at overcoming challenges, persevere in spite of the many hurdles thrown their way and
the many non believers in their talents. Value this grit, this ethic of hard work, assume the best and know that there is indeed a long list of brilliant people
whose shoulders we stand on and who have inspired us to ensure that more brilliance in our community is celebrated.
Be one of the shoulders those students can later claim to have stood on. Be the hope and inspiration, they need by believing in them and valuing their struggle.
Do that by being strategic and your implementation of AB 7O5 (AB 705) in your campus.
As I shared when I started, luck is not a strategy. My hope for today is that we commit to strong implementation that ends unnecessary remedial courses,
increases supports and college level courses for our students to succeed, and puts racial equity at the center of every Higher ED institution.
My hope is that we all become more courageous and uncomfortable enough to truly lead thoughtful change that improves student outcomes. That's exactly what our students deserve and it's good for the state of California too, thank you.
Rena: Thank you Michele Siqueiros and thank you so much Assembly Member Irwin.
We really appreciate you being here and sharing all this incredible data.
It's so encouraging to see the success so far, where, you know this, our system was so broken and I love that Assembly Member Irwin
was sharing her conversation with a colleague at Oxnard College actually one of my colleagues probably, I used to teach their years ago.
And I would say that, you know, starting out there in 1999 and seeing the great great numbers of
remedial courses we were offering, I think we all thought as a department in the Math Department that we were doing the right thing.
So we needed to fill in the gaps and make sure that students knew everything they, you know, that
is in our curriculum, so that they could succeed in a transfer level course. But what we're seeing from this data is so incredible that,
so many of those students never made it to the transfer
level and perhaps fell away and didn't complete college all together, right, so what we're seeing now is
what 50,000? 30,000 more in math, 50,000 English who are succeeding in their transferable courses. It's absolutely outstanding. So if this webinar, how many, we got over 300 people here with us, if we were all in a big, you know,
a big room and, you know, and, you know, our meals in front of us and listening to you speak, you know, we would all be clinking our glasses saying, "Good job. Thank you so much for all the work that the two of you have done."
And then also we turn to all of the colleges across a California and we say, when we clank our glasses to each other that, "Look at this great work that we have done." Such great work.
For yes, yes. To frame the rest of the session, we will be having a nice question and answer session. I would like to share locally
the impact of AB 7O5 (AB 705) at my college, Moorpark College, share a little bit about my district as well, which Oxnard College and Ventura College are part of.
And so, may I have the next slide please?
So we'll begin with the Moorpark College Math Department. So what we've done. So, we have eliminated courses, three levels below transfer, we've eliminated those.
But we haven't completely eliminated all of our Elementary Algebra and Intermediate Algebra course offerings, which are, you know, one and two levels below transfer.
One of and you know, this is part of the discussion today, one of our thinking about it was that AB 7O5 (AB 705) was silent to a couple of populations of students that we weren't sure what to what to do.
That is for those students who have disabilities, and students who are returning students, they haven't been in school in many, many years and they need to retake some of these courses, or, you know, start from the beginning, so we kept some of those.
We also created, by the way, I have to say, we took a sledgehammer to our curriculum. I mean we we got rid of courses. We created courses. We changed units on things, it was a tremendous amount of work.
I'm sure many of the people here can relate, it was a lot of work. We did create a College Algebra course for liberal arts, which really cater to the students who are going into Business Calculus. And then I think probably one of my favorite outcomes
of AB 7O5 (AB 705)
is getting to offer this Mathematical Reasoning for Liberal Arts course. It's a non algebra based course. It does not have an algebra prerequisite and it's
I don't, it just helps students, be an empowered citizen and know how to navigate life mathematically and with a great critical thinking component.
So we also created support courses for three separate courses, and those support courses that you've heard in the presentation, some
of our intentions may not know what we mean by a corequisite course and that's just simply instead of requiring they take all these prerequisites before taking
a math or English class we're just going to put them in the transfer level class and remediate them just in time as they go, and those co- requisite support courses
adds an additional one or two hours per week with the instructor as well as, hopefully, a course embedded tutor to practice all the basic skills as we go.
And for that, we have faculty who worked so hard to create workbooks, and videos, and other instructional materials for those support courses. And we wanted to make sure that it was free
to the students. So thanks to equity grant, we were able to make printouts of these workbooks and give it to them. Even during Covid we delivered it to them who couldn't come to campus. So that was pretty great.
You see a picture up there at the top right corner, that is the Moorpark College Math and Science Center, our Tutoring Center. We exploded with students during the time of the AB 7O5 (AB 705)
implementation and that portion of the picture is just a small portion because we had to expand beyond the carol's there to the right because we had so many students in attendance. Next slide please?
One of our
points of pride, is that when we offered a College Algebra course with a corequisite support course, the percentage point was 11 points higher in that support course. So we were pretty happy about that. I mean that's really over, you know, 20% increase there.
Next slide please?
And the Moorpark English Department, we're a bit unusual in that of all the community colleges in California, we are one of I think two
who are already implemented self placement since 1998. And so Moorpark has allowed students to choose their own English course. And we actually have, I believe, currently, we are the, have the record for the highest transfer rate, this year recently.
But the department did cut remedial classes to encourage more students to enroll directly into English Composition.
They also did some after hours tutoring workshops in the Writing Center. There was great professional development, we have some real champions,
faculty members who championed the growth mindset ideas and positive habits of mind, and they also created a corequisite course which is
piloted at this point.
Okay next slide.
So here we are at the question and answer period of this webinar.
I believe we don't need this slide anymore Michael, so we can just go ahead and go to this gallery mode here, where the three of us are shown hopefully.
So...
alright, so let's see. One more layer to what I wanted to share, about...
one more layer I wanted to share, about the Moorpark College experience,
as well as with the district is...
our, you know, we've we've encountered some challenges.
So, while our
district as a whole has seen great, you know, great outcomes now. We have a lot more students in the throughput line, right? We have more students in one year completing English and math and it's tremendous. Within the district,
in math, we have 61.6 more students completing math in one year, in English, we have an 18% increase.
So that's fantastic and I'll say, can we can we point out Oxnard College for a moment, since Assembly Member Irwin mentioned the discussion that in mathematics, they have increased 212% actually.
And in English
61.8%, you know, and so, of course, it all averages to the figures that I shared before. So, you know, hats off to my colleagues over there at Oxnard College, Elissa Caruth, Lilia Ruvalcaba.
Okay, so,
the bad news.
Sorry, I have to do this, but I know we're all talking about it. You know, the experience of a professor teaching College Algebra, for example, I think this is where we're really hurting.
And that is, you know, yes, students who are taking that supplemental co requisite course they're more likely to succeed, and we believe that that course really can help them, but we have a lot of faculty members who are saying, "My students don't know how to add fractions."
Okay, so they're so far behind, you know. We have seen twice in math, twice as in our district twice as many F's and twice as many withdrawals.
So they're giving up and they're giving up faster than maybe they would have been the old model, which of course we don't want them to take two three years to give up, we don't want them to give up at all, right?
English I think it's one and a half times in both of those categories F's and W's.
So what's more, well just about every category of ethnicity has benefited from AB 7O5 (AB 705). You know, we start out at these levels down here and now we're somewhere up here. Everyone has benefited, but they're still gaps.
You know, so, how would you, what is, what is your, what are your thoughts about this and how would you encourage each of us at each of the colleges, who are struggling with these issues?
And I don't know who would like to answer this. Shall I direct my question to maybe...
Assembly Member Irwin: I mean, I can start, and then, you know, I'm sort of a top level legislator and and Michele really will have a lot of the details. We knew that,
that, you know, that this change was going to be difficult, and I have to add that, the effort to
revamp remedial education, get students through more quickly, has been going on for at least the last 20 years and
the efforts that's, and probably even longer than that, and the the efforts in the early 2000s were complete failures. So, the option of doing nothing was not there. We've talked about the students and how much we are failing our students by not allowing,
not allowing them to get through a easier path, but we're also failing the state of California. The average student is in a community college, I think the number right now is six years, and
these are students that are using resources and they're not in the workforce. And so we're we're setting students up for failure, you know. Unfortunately it's inevitable that certain students are going to
struggle and again under the the old way we did remediation that was certainly the case and I want to reiterate that 705 didn't ban remedial coursework,
but they wanted to preserve it for students, that there was a high evidence that they were unlikely to succeed in transfer level classes. And I would hope that,
when I saw that PPIC data was even more incredible than I thought it is, I mean the fact is that a lot more students are getting through, and we do need to make sure that we are dealing with these
the students that are failing, or can't do fractions, or haven't been in school, for a long time, you know, there could be,
you know, this is a work in progress. But the statistics and I'm a numbers person overwhelmingly show that, for the majority of students, this has been a real big benefit. Michele you probably have all the details there.
Michele: I think I would agree with you Assembly Member, and, you know, I I don't think any of us are foolish enough to believe that there's a single
policy reform that's a panacea to all the challenges that face education in our State or in our cities, right?
So absolutely figuring out what works and doing more of that.
The fact that the majority of students are succeeding, and that significant numbers double triple rates of Latinx and Black students who otherwise wouldn't have even had a chance to take a college level course,
is really powerful. So how do we continue to ensure that we do better for all of our students and then also think about, you know, what are other solutions to address
that other challenge, which is that some students do need remedial education? How can we better partner with our K-12 schools, right, and work together? We are very siloed across higher education and K-12, right?
There really incredible partnerships in different regions but that's not
consistent and so yes, this is not going to solve every problem, but the fact that students are absolutely succeeding, that would not have had a chance at all, is really powerful. So we've got to continue to build on that.
Rena: I agree, this is a definitely a great starting place and I know I speak for my college and maybe my district that
we have done a lot of work to build the right structure, but we still have more work to do to do the closing of the gaps and
we will probably need more help with that. I think we need pedagogical help, you know, professional development and that costs money. So I'm just going to put it out there, we could use it.
As a follow up, there was a slide up on the impact of students with disabilities and I believe it was particularly pertaining to English, so it was like
they were one or two times more successful getting through which was great news. That was very encouraging news. Do you have any information about math?
Assembly Member Irwin: I don't have the, I didn't take a look at the math slides or I don't have the math slides. I don't know, Michele do you?
Michele: Yeah, the only one, I brought was the one that, you know, we shared here and we do see I think clearly that that math is harder, right, in terms of achieving greater gains and success and there's definitely
in terms of implementation of the, you know, of AB 7O5 (AB 705) across math departments at community college campuses up and down. It's even more uneven. So I think we're still so, there's still so much more information to be gained and
work to do, across with faculty on math and how do we support, and change, and modify and and build the co requisites that helps students in those courses.
The success rates are really incredible, right, but there's really uneven distribution across math. I'm not sure if that exactly gets to what you were asking.
Rena: Well, that yeah that helps.
Well I can give you an anecdotal story. Just yesterday, one of the hats I wear is I get to be a faculty coordinator for our Math and Science Tutoring Center, and so we had a student
actually, all this week, have been attending the online tutoring center via Zoom, but the tutors who are, and I was hearing the rumblings about this student and he was a part of our students with disabilities program we call ACCESS.
And ultimately, they just said, you know, "Rena, we need your help." So I talked with the student and he was in a math course two levels below transfer and he was so
preoccupied with the idea that he not only had to get through this course, but also the next one, in order to be done with Moorpark College and he couldn't under...he couldn't
receive any tutoring even. It was just he was, "I don't know how I'm going to do, I don't know how I'm going to do it."
And so we ended up talking about a liberal arts math class for him our mathematical reasoning, you know, and that he didn't need any algebra to to take it and here's an option that's one course versus two courses, or if he transferred, it would be three so.
So he actually he calmed down. Fortunately he has an appointment with our counselors on Monday. And, hopefully, but that was very insightful to me that whole conversation and to realize how stuck he was in this pipeline that we have.
Michele: And, you know, I was just a part of Just Equations National Conference to talk about math and how math has really been a driver of
a lot of inequality in education, right? That many times we have very rigid notions of what kind of math every person needs,
in spite of the reality, that a lot of folks aren't going to become engineers or be in the STEM fields, right? So I think what you're speaking to is the reality of,
Well, if there's another path for students, right, not to be tracked in equitably, either by race and ethnicity, which we know our nation has a history of,
but what are the real math skills that students can take? I'm the parent of a community college student who is not a fan of math,
but is thrilled that she's in a Statistics course, right now, because she feels like it's relevant.
She's going to use that they're they're doing social, you know, science analysis with the math. I think all of our students deserve to find where they fit in, right, versus I think oftentimes math education can be a real hurdle that blocks students from almost anything.
Rena: I like the idea of, you know, catering the education it's the whole idea of guided pathways to where they want to go.
So, yes,
for students who are going into math and science, they're going to need to understand that algebra, they're going to need that
those skills in order to do well in, you know, College Algebra, Trigonometry, and the whole Calculus sequence. So that's, you know, we'll talk about STEM next. Okay, but
for those students who don't have any intention of going into those fields, it makes sense to put them in a path that is not necessarily algebra,
the algebra path, but maybe more in the SLAM. We used that before. So SLAM it stands for Statistics and Liberal Arts Math. So,
that's great. So, moving on to STEM, so now, we have collected some questions from people who registered for this seminar. So I already have some of them prepared to to share.
So Shauna Bynum from Napa Valley College asked this question, "We are worried about traditionally underrepresented groups who are opting out of STEM,
STEM majors at a disproportional rate due to AB 7O5 (AB 705). So, are you aware of any data that we that we should find encouraging about that?"
Michele: Well we've shown a little bit of a preview of data of the RP groups report and PPIC's report.
But at least the short answer right now is that there is encouraging data in terms of diversifying the STEM pipeline. I think it's still early, right, we need to do a lot of analysis.
You know, the RP groups report from January, which I encourage everyone to to access, shows that an additional 11,074 students started in that sort of transfer level gateway be STEM math path in the fall, that's a 32% increase from the previous fall.
Enrollment gains were significantly higher for underrepresented students,
based on that analysis, so that included on the oversell 6700 Latinx students that started in that path, which is a double the rate from the year before. And Black students increased it on an even higher rate 59%.
So we are at least, you know, the RP group has found some, you know, exciting, powerful, good data, we should continue to to analyze because I think that's a very legitimate concern. [Rena]: Right.
Assembly Member Irwin: And we also have to remember the issue with STEM fields, to begin with, and that is when when I was
I'm a first generation student too, my parents were immigrants, when I was going to take Calculus I thought, "I can't do this. I'm a girl," and I had a counselor that said, "We're going to put you in that class anyway," and
you know, the first semester I didn't do that well because I thought I couldn't and then my dad and mom said, you know, "What's wrong?" and I said, "Well I'm a girl, I can't do Calculus," and,
and both of them said, "Of course, why couldn't girls do it just as well as boys?" and it became a matter of gaining that confidence that I could do it
and seeing other female role models. I ended up going to UC San Diego and I have a degree in engineering, it's because I thought I couldn't do it, and so now when we're talking about Black or Latinx students,
they need to see more students that look like them. They need to be exposed earlier on in high school. They need to be taking these robotics classes. They need to
understand that this is hard, but they have the ability to do it. So that is, you know, beyond 705 a lot of it is, we need to see the right type of role models for those students, to show them, this is a field that needs diversity,
industry is looking for diversity, and that they can ask for help, and that they are able to do it. So that's a
that's almost a separate part of this STEM issue and the 705 issue, but I would really like to see the numbers that say these kids are dropping out because of 705.
I do think that, no, it is really important that we make sure that the schools are adequately funded, and there's enough tutoring, and there's enough support and co requisites, and enough
staff development, but when all that is in place, I think there's also the bigger issue of let's tell all students that they can actually do this. [Rena]: Well I can
really relate to your story Assembly Member Irwin, when I, you know, I was a math major and a lot of my
in my classes, you know, 30 35 students, there were only five women and I looked around, "One of us does not like the other," you know, "One of the things is not like the other," and
every semester, I would start feeling intimidated and
and, you know, I don't think like, you know, I'm very creative person and they just study math books all the time and I, you know,
at the end of the semester I'm one of the top students in the class, you know, but it took semester, after semester, after semester of me that cycle,
you know, I'm one of the only few women here, for me to finally believe that I could do the math. And so there's so much there, you know, stereotype threat is really a thing. And so
one of my conversations leading up to this seminar, I talked with Lilia Ruvalcaba from Oxnard College she just finished her dissertation,
about this very thing, and she studied actually at the Oxnard College Hispanic Serving Institution
that many students were placing themselves too low and what she found is that they did not have a strong self efficacy, you know, they lacked confidence,
they didn't believe they can do it, and...you can only do it if you can believe you can do it, you know. So, thank you for sharing that.
So I'm checking the chat here because I have a moderator helping me with the new questions.
So a non STEM question that is a frequent theme, and the question answer is, "Where is the social justice for Latino and African American students when AB 7O5 (AB 705) has all but eliminated basic skills, because of the funding models incentives for transfer degrees and certificates?"
Michele: The social justice is exactly in the numbers of two thirds of students who wouldn't have had access to college level courses that now pass them.
There in Andres and Lulu and the thousands of community college students who have now made progress toward a degree or towards transfer who would never have, had it not been for the elimination of remedial courses.
Rena: Thank you.
Okay, so another question from Kate Weissman from Contra Costa.
"We are getting them through the freshman level," freshmen in quotes, "but is there any data on how successful they are in the next level of classes and we don't just mean English to English, math to math, but also maybe math to science, how are they doing there?"
Assembly Member Irwin: I have, Michele, I'm not sure if you've seen that data yet? Obviously this was just a very recent mandate, so I'm not sure how much data has come out for how these students are doing in the second year.
Michele: Yeah the PPIC report which we, I know we shared some data would be the one that I would pull up. Olga Rodriguez who's a researcher there has done a lot of analysis.
Most of it is focused on the course to course, so not what you just asked, and it's so early, right? Implementation is very young still
but we are seeing huge success, not just of the first level course, but the next level course. I don't know, I think it's still premature and I know that there's more research that's coming, to look at, broader, you know, success across
the entire spectrum of of them either transferring or earning that certificate or degree. [Rena]: Right.
That is definitely something to watch for sure.
Another question from the participants here, "Not all of our students intend to transfer, and they desire to learn and improve their skills. Has an AB 7O5 (AB 705)
fundamentally changed the mission of community college in removing that option?"
Michele: It hasn't fully eliminated that option. I think the legislation is pretty clear that if students do need remediation that and the onus is on the college to prove, right, that student can't succeed versus previously it really was that, you know,
not even an option, right, for students, like Lulu to say, "You know what, I don't think I need to be four levels down, college level. I can succeed in the class. I can prove it."
They didn't have the option that Moorpark provided of self placement, right? So,
you know, the option is still there, we know some students will absolutely need it. I think we need to de- I think, clearly the intent and the focus is how do we default students into the best path for them to succeed
and get college credits, because the majority of students do want that. You know, I've been on a lot of college campuses prior to us obviously being locked out of them
unfortunately, and you enter any room of students and you ask students, "How many of you intend to transfer?" and 80 to 90% of the hands go up, if not almost 100%.
You know, I think we should trust and believe students when they tell us they want to transfer, or they want to earn a certificate or a degree.
Certainly, there are students that attend community college for other reasons and there's an opportunity to do that, that's why we have the best community college system in the world.
Rena: Thank you. Good follow up to this question, "Colleges, are facing a dilemma of productivity. We know that many students, need to be remediated just in time,
but in order to do that we need to be able to offer enough of those co requisite support courses.
But this creates funding demands for the colleges to ensure that we have enough faculty members to teach those courses, so the question is, Is there any funding specific to hiring faculty, in the areas that support AB 7O5 (AB 705)?"
Michele: Well, I know we will continue to advance and fight for more funding. I think we are,
we are heartened by the state budget, at least, thus far, and I think we were all bracing for what could have been a pretty devastating budget for higher education.
We continue to fight to ensure that there's federal CARES Act, more CARES Act dollars, right,
to our campuses I think that'll all help. I don't know Rena if you have other thoughts around some of the strategies, given your strong implementation at Moorpark,
around how to structure the faculty. That's really not a domain I spend a lot of time on I do think that campuses have to devise their own sort of, you know, hiring practices to, you know, to adequately fill the course demand at each campus. I doubt that we should be legislating that, right?
Assembly Member Irwin: And the question is also, this is not my realm either, but you have the teachers that have been teaching these remedial classes, a lot of them, which are eliminated,
it certainly seems that that's a workforce that could move up and teach the transfer level courses, but again, I don't know the way things work at the community college.
Don't know if you could answer that. [Rena]: It's a, yeah it's complicated, right? So at small schools, they don't have enough space to offer this support course or,
you know, if you're giving a faculty member, you know, a faculty member will have a certain number of units that they teach to meet their load.
Before AB 7O5 (AB 705), they could just teach, you know, like say four English Composition classes, you know, that would make their load. So four different groups of say 30 students, whatever the CAP is would be
met, their needs will be met, but now their load would be maybe three of those plus two support courses with them, and so in an interest in productivity we're maybe not,
you know, per faculty member we're serving less students, if that makes sense.
But yes, yeah I mean you're right. Zero sum game, you know, if you cut the remedial classes, we might have more faculty members do the hours so. So I know that's it,
and then, of course, the decision is local. One of the questions which I didn't, I
had prepared on another piece of paper, but I thought I wouldn't need to ask it, but I think I should ask it now is that, some colleges feel like
it's been kind of an uphill battle in advocating for things like this, because of AB 7O5 (AB 705). Perhaps there hasn't been enough buy in or understanding of AB 7O5 (AB 705) by the administration. And so when it comes to hiring prioritization and things like that,
it's been a struggle. So do you have any words of wisdom for faculty who feel this way?
How can we support them with their administration?
Michele: I think it's important for them to share those concerns, right, I mean, I see the there's a lot of activity in the Q&A and there's really a lot of important legitimate,
you know, concerns that are being raised and I think, you know, having a strong group on your campus to be able to raise those concerns and then also to learn from each other, a lot of times we don't, we just don't have enough time, right, there's so many demands on faculty already.
But really how do we share information about what some of the other campuses are doing that are strong implemented and that are seeing really strong data successes,
I think that's something that's always really helpful to us, because we we're not just engaged in the passing of the policy,
I think like the Assembly Member we're looking at what are the what is the independent research data showing us about, implementation what's working, what's not, what could be made better,
what follow up should be had both either at the policy level or at the local implementation site, that can't happen without faculty engagement, right, and
informing of those of those issues. As we can advocate for more funding for more professional development, which I think helps, right, for
this to be strong, but I think really figuring out how to continue to support and build on the successes. And your peers, are the best example for that, right, versus versus me sharing thoughts, so
like I feel like I'm in major learning mode too, alongside all of you, right, in terms of what's working and it does give me a lot of excitement because
just the numbers are such clear evidence of major success, right? But we gotta dig behind the numbers like what is making that happen at every different campus, right?
Rena: Another.
Assembly Member Irwin: Other the other funding thing that we really need to look at which we have not fully funded is making sure that we can get more full time faculty on the campuses. And that's something that, you know, on every level, we are not funding at a great enough level
in the legislature.
Rena: Thank you for that. I support that. Thank you. As a follow up outside the idea of hiring faculty, colleges are needing more help with support staff
and counselors are majorly impacted at this time and tutors, thank you for putting forward some legislature, hopefully that will help us have more tutors both drop in and, course embedded tutors,
but any ideas of, you know, what the state is doing to meet the needs for these other categories of people and resources?
Assembly Member Irwin: This is, you know, we are not funding, we've heard this before we're not funding education at a high enough level, and it is, it's from support staff to full time, to the special programs to help students succeed, so
that is an ongoing issue and what we really need to do is to make sure that we hear from the teachers, the professors,
you know, what are the, what are the priorities. Obviously not everything is going to be funded in one budget, because there are constraints and so many
there's so much pull on that budget. There's so many needs and not enough money to go around. So it's really good for us, if clearly, as a faculty group are able to advocate for what your highest priorities are.
Rena: I'm certain that if we could hear the voices of the people in this room, we would hear, "Yes. Hire more faculty. Yes, give us more resources to these other things."
Alright, so I have a couple more questions here. So, "What do we do with the students who lack the literacy skills to navigate college? Where is their support?"
Michele: I guess I think that's similar to the first question, right, we attempted to answer around, you know, math and fractions, right, there
again, AB 7O5 (AB 705) is not the panacea for everything, and I think the numbers indicate that for a good number of students, right, they are more likely to succeed
because of implementation of AB 7O5 (AB 705). I do think we need additional support and resources and connection with K-12 to really support
greater student, you know, readiness and also just college preparation and exposure to some of the basic skills, right, that all adults to function in our state need.
Rena: Thank you. Another question, "Doesn't AB 7O5 (AB 705) exacerbate the problem of students who have been unsuccessful after multiple tries, and are then locked out of trying again?"
Assembly Member Irwin: I'm not sure, how are they locked out of trying again?
Rena: I'm not clear it's not immediately clear to me, maybe we can get some more details on that question. So we'll go ahead and wait on that.
Oh because they can only try a class three times and then they're locked out.
So we have a student who would try the transfer level class, fail. Try class the same class, fail. Try the class, fail. Locked out. What do we do?
Assembly Member Irwin: Yeah is that part of...
Rena: Oh sorry.
Assembly Member Irwin: No, no, no, no, I'm not sure how to ans- I'm not sure where the three times and you're out
comes from. Is that a Moorpark
College? [Rena]: No, no that's at least the California Community College system.
In the last maybe, 8 10 years, I think it was implemented, yeah. One work around I'll just say students
can't take the exact same course at the same college, so if it's called, you know, they could take it somewhere else, they can hop over to another campus somewhere and probably keep taking the class but.
Assembly Member Irwin: But if they are if they've taken let's say three remedial classes, they don't have any transfer level,
they don't have any, they're not obtaining any credits either. So there's sort of I mean, these are definitely problems that need to be
worked out and additional support needs to be put in place, but the answer isn't making them continue to do non credit courses and having them in community college, for you know, much longer than they need to be.
Rena: Fair enough.
Next question with AB 7O5 (AB 705), "A high school student with a 2.3 grade point average but has only completed Algebra 1 can enroll and, of course, that presumes a knowledge in Algebra 2, isn't there a disconnect?"
I mean there's nothing that stops them. They've taken Algebra 1 in high school, they have not taken Algebra 2, and... the content of Algebra 2 would be what they would need in order to to be successful in College Algebra.
So they go from Algebra 2 jump to College Algebra,
and no one stops them.
So any thoughts on that?
Assembly Member Irwin: I'm afraid that's not my, I'm not a Math professor that's not my area of expertise.
Rena: Yeah and I just think that that's where a lot of the math professors are are feeling the pole in that
we want to make sure they're successful in College Algebra, you know, and without those skills they can't advance into many STEM fields.
So if we can't offer, you know, the courses below transfer level or were discouraged from offering them,
where are they going to get that knowledge? But maybe it comes back to, you aren't banning remedial courses, you know, in this bill you're just highly recommending we don't put the majority of the students through the remedial program, so.
So I think we have to be more creative about how we meet those students needs. That may be that for that case we keep the remedial courses in place.
Another question from our current audience, "Despite the good intentions, the one size fits all approach of AB 7O5 (AB 705) stops students progress which is demoralizing. How does this not stall students overall?"
Michele: I, you know, I think we're just going to have to disagree on that. I don't understand how we can look at the data and still say that.
I just I don't understand when you see that two thirds of students are succeeding, who would have never gotten the chance, how you can say that.
Rena: Okay, another question is, "Is there any impeding legislation that would strengthen the connect between community colleges and K through 12?" It's a great question.
And if not, would you consider creating,
some legislation?
Assembly Member Irwin: I think with the community colleges, you know, obviously, there has been some legislation that allows high school students to take community
college courses so certainly you're starting to develop a relationship that way. The community colleges are all, you know, they're they're all
really independent college systems, and I think that it is really up to the community college and the high schools to strengthen those relationships and
talk about, you know, make sure to reach out to the high schools and see
what is needed to make sure that their students are successful. So when you're talking about the student that only took algebra, for instance,
know at that point, maybe there's bridge programs. Maybe there's other programs that that can be discussed with the high schools that are most likely feeding into
the community college. There's really only so much you can legislate.
You know, we do the very high level. We look at the data. We see that this benefits the vast majority of students.
But a lot of the implementation was decided by, you know, the Chancellor's Office and a lot of those nuts and bolts things we certainly can't do. We can't
legislate relationships with the high schools, but I do know that that there are high schools that have very strong relationships with the
with the local community college and it really probably to takes reaching out by, you know, the teachers, or the professors, or the administration to really,
you know, point out what the importance of that is and we have a
bill right now that is going to be looking it's a longitudinal data bill. California has never even looked at tracking students all the way through and figuring out what's,
you know, what are the indicators for student success almost every other state has a data system like that so.
That's something that will really answer, you know, a lot more questions because we're going to be looking at students K all the way through college, what is it that
allows certain students to be more successful. And maybe something like that is the impetus for the high school, the local high school systems reaching out and making sure that they have a relationship with the community college.
Rena: I'll speak on behalf of the English Department at my college, they had until a few years ago they had
something called transitions. They'd meet on a Saturday they'd invite, you know, various English
teachers from the high schools, and then they'd eat together, you know, at some point, there was actually a stipend which, which of course increase in
the attendance significantly. You feed them, you give them food, and then they can, you know, and it counts towards their credit, because they have to, you know, fulfill some hours of, you know, professional development, outside of class so it's a very, very positive situation, but again, it costs money.
Okay, I have, I think...
we have two more questions and we're going to leave it on on a hopeful note, but let's begin with this second to last question here, "What would you say to faculty who want to get their colleagues to greater embrace AB 7O5 (AB 705)?"
I mean we could all send them an email with the link to the Zoom webinar, I think that would be pretty encouraging but.
Assembly Member Irwin: You know, what I think was really interesting about this whole process and the way this just the way this initially worked was we were, you know, we had these conversations with
the Campaign with all these civil rights groups about, you know, how do we really deal with
this issue that we're failing so many students and we were able to get it was I think $60 million in the budget
with AB 7 70 (AB 770). And colleges were allowed to, they applied for grants and they needed to use one of six high impact practices.
But what we saw was the colleges that were immediately the most successful had these champions on their campus and that were
really thrilled about it. The demographics of their students were no different than the demographics of any of your students but they had people that were really
over the top excited about trying to change the paradigm. So,
you know, and as you see, as you look at implementation there's a plenty of schools that are are doing the implementation, because they have made, maybe it's driven by the administration or they took, you know, there's been a lot of outreach and a lot of
work by the Chancellor's Office and I think that, that just needs to continue. You need to find those enthusiastic people to become,
you know, the preachers on campus, but finally you just have to show the data, because we can say it, we can look at
yes, we have filled, you know, this students still isn't there we can't fix every single student, but when you look at the pure numbers and you're talking about
70,000 students that are in a different place under AB 7O5 (AB 705), then without it, then we need to start being honest with ourself and say, you know, "Let's make this work for our campus," because there are many other campuses
that have made it work also and it just takes that one person and just take somebody looking at the data, it takes somebody saying, "Let's
just take a chance, because what we were doing before didn't work." So,
the person that's asking that question, yeah show 'em, they don't need to sit through the whole hour and a half of this, but show 'em the data. Show 'em the data and see how can we get more enthusiasm. How maybe we can do some more, you know,
professional development, what can we do, go to the administration and get their help, and let's just try to figure out how to fix the part that's not working yet... [Rena]: Right. [Assembly Member Irwin]: ...but embrace the part that is.
Rena: Right and that's the part that's not working as we are losing some students that are withdrawing and are getting F's. So we really have to increase our efforts there and
as you said, we're going to need more professional development for that. So and I will state this one question that just came up.
"Lulu's testimony was great is there a way we can highlight these success stories more widely?" And you don't need to answer it, I just wanted to put it out there that we want to see more success stories, because that also provides hope.
And we're really nearing the end of time here, so. So the last question here, "We can all agree that the intent of AB 7O5 (AB 705) was great. What are the takeaways for overwhelmed faculty that provides hope?" What are you hopeful about?
Assembly Member Irwin: You know, what I'm hopeful about, what gives me the most hope, besides the data, is that I look at the number of participants on this call, and I know that there are a lot of
people that are somewhat skeptical, but still willing to engage and try to make a difference. And you know, during this time, right now, during Covid,
just about everybody is completely overwhelmed, but I would say, professors and teachers are among the people that have had the groups that have had the most stress. So there is, you know, a light at the end of the tunnel.
We're going to get through this Covid part. We're going to get through the 7O5 (705) part and hopefully we will continue to have
advocates for students, like everybody that's on the call.
Rena: Michele do you have any parting words of hope for us?
Michele: Yeah I, you know, I think it's it's always been clear that, you know, the path to success for California for our economy, for education, especially for education of
underrepresented, Latinx, Black, Indigenous, Asian American students runs through community colleges.
And so what gives me hope is the incredible leadership and innovation. You know, AB 7O5 (AB 705) wasn't birthed at some downtown office that the Campaign for College Opportunity runs it was birthed by faculty
of the system, who knew that remedial courses were not working and wanted to do something about it. And I think we were
blessed players in this space, the Assembly Member and us and all the advocates that joined,
in order to push the kind of change that allows us to see the thousands of students that are now succeeding because of this legislation.
So that gives me hope, and I do think that there's a lot of success stories and best practices from your own faculty up and down the state that can continue to inspire us to really
approach this work with an asset based, you know, frame of our students can succeed, that we can continue to demand funding and the support to ensure that faculty can make the success possible.
So all of that gives me a lot of hope, but nothing more than just looking at the data and talking to students like Lulu and Andres and seeing how it has directly impacted their lives.
Rena: Thank you. Thank you Assembly Member Jacqui Irwin. Thank you Michele Siqueiros. Thank you for your support, thank you for your leadership.
We value you so greatly. Thank you for this time. There's one more slide just to put up all the organizations that have
been a part of this webinar. Of course we have the California State Assembly which Assembly Member Jacqui Irwin represents.
We have Michele Siqueiros, who is the President of The Campaign for College Opportunity, and of course, I'm from Moorpark College.
This recording will be posted probably in the next couple of weeks. We're going to clean up the
captioning to make sure it's accurate, and when it is posted it will be on the Moorpark College webpage under the "President's Updates." Again, thank you all for coming. One more plug, we heard some music, at the very beginning, and that was thanks to our Moorpark College Music Program.
Thank you again.