 OTAN Outreach and Technical Assistance Network. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. The purpose of this webinar is to share with you the journey of two agencies in the Digital Leadership Academy and some of the benefits and challenges of developing a D-LAC team. The goal of the Digital Leadership Academy is to assist selected agencies in meeting their technology integration, distance learning, and blended learning goals. It is a two-year commitment. We have two D-LAC teams here today that will share their experiences and talk about the challenges in an informal panel discussion. Let's get started. I am Susan Coulter, one of OTAN's D-LAC coaches. I will be interviewing our panel members in an attempt to give you a clear picture of D-LAC and to give you ideas for building your distance learning program. Our first team is from Garden Grove Adult School. We have Melissa Patterson and Alisa Takiyuchi. So do we get some sharers here? Yeah. Next we have Will Netterson and Laura Miranda from Tustin Adult School. I'll let them tell you a little bit about their schools. All right. Thank you, Susan, for that great introduction and welcome everyone to our presentation. And I am the director of Garden Grove Adult Education. And currently we operate out of two locations. Our main campus is near the Civic Center in Garden Grove. And that is where all most of our classes are offered except for a couple are also offered at the satellite campus at Clinton Corner. And this is a family resource center and a preschool. So both are easily attainable via public transportation, areas in the neighborhood people can walk, ride bikes. So both are great locations. Our programs are pretty extensive. We are down probably maybe 50% or greater in our student population, but we are not discouraged. And the students who have continued with us through this distance learning format have remained steady and our attendance has stayed solid and we've actually grown here in the spring semester. So as you can see, we operate now at about 1000 students offering ESL classes, ABE, GED, citizenship, pronunciation, adult high school diploma. We are also unique and that we do have concurrent high school students who attend our campus as well, making up credits while they attend their own comprehensive high school. We do offer vocational ESL classes in conjunction with some of our students who are in CTE pathways. And we do have a robust adults with disabilities program that is supported through the regional center. We have about 14 different languages represented on our campus and we are proud to say we have students anywhere between 18 and 80. Great. Thanks, Melissa. So I'm going to talk to you about our teachers. Right now we have about 25 part time teachers in the various departments, and we are currently have we currently have two full time TOSAs. And we were able to get through our consortium and that's the first that we've had for a very long time and we're extremely lucky for that. We provide classes in the morning in the afternoons and in the evenings. Most of the classes run Monday through Thursday, and then we do offer some classes only on Fridays. Right now, currently, we are in Zoom only we are online only in the future in the very near future we plan to do to go back into in class instruction. So as you talked about garden Grove let's let's dive into testing a little bit so test and adult schools in testing California. We have one main campus that we actually share with our alternative high school hill view high school so our adult at office is the white portable there and then we have roughly seven. Classrooms that are on that campus that we are currently using. Prior to COVID times, we would satellite within our district at a bunch of different elementary schools high schools middle schools, and even local churches that we would use but currently we are just at the test and adult school campus if you don't mind going to the next slide please. So the breakdown of our program. I put this number I wish I had changed it beforehand because it's gone up slightly but we currently are servicing there's roughly about 447 students so we've grown about 100 this 110 this about 100 this spring, which is pretty exciting for us but that's still significantly down from 1920. Our main group that we service are those in looking for English as a second language support. We do have citizenship classes that we offer a be classes, and then we support a diploma and then GED prep or high set prep. We're not a testing agency for GED or high set but we do prep students for that our range range we get to claim that it's 1881 Laila is an 81 year old that you would never believe is 81 years old, working on her English skills which is pretty inspiring. Especially when Laura starts talking about her class offerings but I know that she's an online person. And I was amazed that we saw her sign up and have been in the rooms dedicated trying to work it out so we love celebrating the fact that we do have that diverse range in there but if I was to hone in we find that our 30 to 40 year old is really where the majority of our population is and then we have 12 various languages spoken besides English spoken at the home so that image is just an image of different ways when we dream of going back with larger classrooms being offered in person but a lot of celebration happening there. Okay, great. And so we'll mentioned we are currently serving about 450 students and to serve those students we hire 25 part time teachers. I'm one of those but I am a new instructional coach for testing and so that is a new concept that we are trying out and I think it's working out pretty well for us right now, especially with all of the demands of we owe and co apps. So our program areas are mainly ESL a be in high school diploma and equivalency, we offer morning afternoon and evening classes, and we also offer a Saturday nine to 12 that has a few seats in it right now and we're, we're hoping to grow. Next slide. This is a few pictures of what our classrooms look like will mentioned we have seven physical classrooms on our main campus so the pictures on the left show our attempt to add social distancing. I think it looks pretty well and representative of what most classrooms look like around the country right now. And then on the right hand side is a sample of our video conferencing classrooms through zoom and we're really proud that we have about 20 approximately 20 classes that look like this right now on our campus. Okay, what prompted you to apply for D lack garden growth. Alright, I'll take that one well, I must say that as a new director who started July one. It was at first when it was presented to me I did have some apprehension I was thinking wow as a new director do I really want to take on a two year project. Lisa Takayuchi is well versed in OTAN and what its strengths are and she knew that this program would probably be something that would be beneficial, and she wanted to be a part of the team. And I must say after I looked at what the D lack course was going to offer. I realized this might be a great time to really learn some new skills and to better understand how we could already grow a successful program. In the midst of being faced with a huge pedagogical shift in distance teaching and having to increase our knowledge of technology. So with that, I made the decision to jump in and I can say halfway through the first year. I'm not sorry I'm extremely grateful. So Melissa, I think for testing. I am not as new as you but I came in this is my third year as the coordinator for testing. That's the highest level who oversees admin for us is me so I get to work with our teachers. And Laura came to me and said hey let's do this and Melissa I'm going to be honest with you as administrator as well I thought not because I was new but like ooh what's that time constraint. And I think going back to and Laura and I have been in a lot of conversation so Laura before being the instructional coach that she is currently was our lead ESL teacher as well so she and I spent a lot of time reflecting and part of that is the desire to really build in a digital literacy and all that we're doing in our classes. I think Unified is a unique district that we had a bond measure passed for our K-12s so put technology in the hands of every student K-12 but the adult Ed was left out of that and I came from the K-12 world, and it sort of boggled me why we didn't have all those access points what was going on, and realizing that we needed to invest in that because again if we look at the 21st work for skills that you're going to need, digital literacy is one of those so that I think that was the idea for me was let's apply really trying to look at how we get that digital literacy integrated into everything that we're doing on our campus in our classrooms, and for us ESL was our largest population, and for some of us it's a little scary that to touch a device and not sure what it's going to do so it was trying to look at that and bring that forward. So, and I had thought at the time when we were applying, oh COVID's the summer numbers are going down, we'll be good we'll be talking about integrating everything and so that's why we applied it was really trying to look at the digital integration in our class offerings. What challenges did your school go through to adjust to COVID's continual and never ending impact on the new school year. Well, I think, you know, well and I both had very similar experiences coming from the TK 12 side of the house where for years we have been providing technology to our young people. Well on the head when he said now we have adults who are really trying to find their way and the workforce, and we really needed to get technology, not only in the hands of our students but we also needed to improve the technology that our teachers had in order to teach through the distance learning model. And so we were challenged with that, and quickly, fortunately, Garden Grove had started to buy devices under the previous director, but never before in the history of the school, had we been distributing devices to students, and so we took that on as a new challenge and in the midst of really trying to keep our programs operating right because we both talked about how we were facing low enrollment. And then on top of it all as we all know that the way that we get our funding is through testing. And so how are we going to be making this shift in Garden Grove, they had been testing for the previous year so they were set up for that but then we have the limitations of COVID. And how do you bring people to campus when your district tells you that you can't. And, and then of course all the other things like marketing our programs and making sure that people knew we were still here like hello we're still in business and we are ready to support you through this. And Melissa I think something I would add to that is trying to think of registering students. I'm pretty sure if I remember our conversations correctly, Garden Grove was the same point that we were that all of our registration was pretty much paper based that we had these long lines of reg days early reg come celebrate let's have some fun together bring our teaching staff and office staff together. So all this paper pencil base but then registration was like wait a minute we can't have you standing we can't have so many people. So it was even the idea of trying to put registration online and getting our students to understand that as well as our staff to explain this is for us it was learning how to use Google forms to even teaching our own office staff. This is how we go into the Google form results and do a Google sheet all those pieces but teaching our students how to fill out a Google form. For some of them it was the walkthrough on the phone, yes, we can do this together and that encouragement because they all wanted to come down. But again for us in fall it was like don't come except we've got we intestine had approval to bring small groups and for the assessment side of it. So the even that process where we used to be assessing maybe 90 students at one time on one day, had to rethink that that shuffle for us it was also. To figure out who's coming when what do we use so trying to find a resource to get that scheduling component there, because I'll be honest I'm not a tech programmer so trying to use those resources. And then the other step shift for us and testing was we moved so spring in that emergency COVID situation March 17 pit our decision was we're going directly. All online and so for test and adult school, we made the decision to go asynchronous, so our teachers were recording so they had learned about screen castify, giving these lessons we'd put things up and then having to do that shift as well so a lot of changes from the admin point of getting people to move forward so and I know that you will talk more about it as teachers as well but those are those pieces of admin and for testing. We weren't distributing devices so I had a iPad cart and a set of 40 laptops and I'm trying to now get those distributed slowly but surely it's definitely been a challenge for us. One of the things that we learned early on through the DLAC program was tips about marketing your program. And so as a new director, I really wanted to look at what had been done previously. And what we had done before is send out some beautiful color brochures, and it cost us close to about $11,000 to market out that program. And so through DLAC and resources that they provided I was able to look and see and learn what were other programs doing and so what we decided to do is to create a postcard. And we found a limited group of people again learn this through DLAC and what we did is we sent the postcards out to the people who were currently enrolled and then we went back an additional two years. And we are very happy to say that I saved probably over $9,000, which we could put towards a better marketing purchase that again I learned through DLAC which involves social media and technology and a marquee. And instead what we did is we mailed out a postcard and we had it translated into a couple different languages that we could put up onto our social media accounts. And we were very successful with this we had a lot of people come back to us and report that this is how they knew to come back and register. Yeah, thanks most I mean it was that was really a game changer I think for our agency because we were trying to reach out to as many students because we had lost so many from a year ago mark, you know year ago next week. And so from the teachers point of view from that point on from March to June, it was really survival mode. The teachers just really went out and try to communicate with their students as best as they could whether that be calling them, texting them, emailing them, maybe once in a while some of the teachers sent letters, you know, via snail mail. So we really tried hard just to connect with them, and to say hey we're still here for you even though you can't come to our actual school. And then we had to make a plan for curriculum and it was a lot of professional development for the teachers. A lot of teachers actually went to OTAN for the first time and really utilized OTAN webinars and resources to help them because they now became students of technology. They had to learn how to use a lot of technology so that they can actually use it for their students. The teachers also developed a Google classroom from September for the new school year, then we decided to be more uniformed. So all the teachers in all departments created a Google classroom for their students. And the other adjustment was that we had to work our contracted two and a half hours, Monday through Thursday or whatever your contracted hours. And the teachers teach morning and night. So they were teaching online for five hours a day. And there was a big adjustment for that for them just to be focused on the zoom with their students for such a long period of time and what did that look like. And just like Garden Grove, our teachers at TAS had quite an adjustment as well, whether it was teaching hours at home that had to be adjusted to meet student needs for when students could enroll in our programs to learning Google suite and creating a teacher website. Learning how to utilize Burlington English and the side by side book on the e-text version of our side by side book. So all the while we were also rolling out co-ops at a distance. So if you can imagine it was quite a learning curve for all of our teachers and it was an exciting time but it was also challenging to say the least. I know it says here starting co-ops at a distance but it was just even starting co-ops that was a new experience for us all over and then trying to do it in a distance too. That's correct. Yes. Okay, what is your current goal or focus for your project? Well, at LEC for our program, we are working on developing a high flex plan. What we learned through COVID and distance learning is that some of our students want to continue in a distance learning format. This really works well for them with their busy work schedules or family life. Well, we know that some of our students haven't come back because they prefer in person. So we are working on developing what we call high flex so that our teachers can be doing both have students in class and then simultaneously be instructing at a distance. So as you can only imagine the complexities of that, but we have great support and I know that that's going to happen. And then something else that D-LAC really helped us focus in on is our orientation. What is it that we're doing to connect with our students, whether they're going to be attending in person or online? And so Alisa here has really been the mastermind behind that she's done a great job and we just rolled out a brand new orientation program at LEC this spring and right now because we're only in distance learning. This is done via Zoom, but it's really helping our students understand what it will take to be successful at Lincoln Education and then what do we need to do to support you in being successful. So we're being able in this previously what we had, we had a great passive orientation program which was like a video that we sent out to our students to watch. This time they get to come into a Zoom class and interact with Alisa and learn about things and see videos and talk through and we really get to see what means they have and we're very excited to grow that program. And then of course we're going to continue our marketing because just that little bit of success that we have with our postcard we are raring to go and we're just going to continue looking for ways to bring people back and new to our program. And Melissa, could you kind of explain the high flex plan what that involves some people may not be familiar with it. Sure, I can explain that and Alisa feel free to jump in if I'm not covering it totally from the teacher lens. What we've done is we've actually set up in our classrooms we put new technology new laptops into the hands of all of our teachers and we're making sure that they have a new projector and a document camera, and we're setting up conjunction boxes so that our teachers can be zooming at home but then they can also be sharing the screen and seeing what's on the document camera or on the projector. And so it would be totally simultaneous what's happening in the classroom is live for the people sitting in the classroom, and it's also live for those at home. Yeah I think that the idea of the high flex implementation really starts from the student. So once the student goes on to our website website they're going to decide do I want to be an online student or do I want to be an in class student and from there that's where their path begins. And so from that, if they decide to be an in class student, then they would have a completely different orientation, where they would actually come on campus we would give them the campus tour, a little bit like what we had done before in the video, and then, you know, let them know our expectations for them, ask them what their expectations are from us for us, and then that way that the students can feel, you know, and then even going through the years of COVID, how do you, how do I come to school, how do I wait in line to get my temperature, how do I check in with our parent square which is our digital check in to make sure that they don't have any symptoms and if they're temper they don't have a fever. So all that would be explained for in class students and then the online students would continue with me on zoom to go through the information about zoom basics and how to make sure that they have a Gmail account and use just specific computer skills to make sure that they're prepared for when they enter into a zoom class. So I think when we look at testing there's some connections with what garden girl was doing as well. Talking with our leadership team Laura and I tried to come back and really talk with our leadership team and say, what do we want to look at as our goals and in this journey that we're on. And that was the idea of being able to look at orientation and recruitment so Laura was was amazing at the beginning of the year and when we had captured students to be able to assess them we created this video Laura I think it was about five minute five to seven minute video that tried to give an overview of what's being expected of you as a student but I think through our journey and process of learning from from D lack and the tools that we're going to talk about soon. So we want to even fine tune that a little bit more and get more specific and figuring out you know if you're going to be a distance learner. What is the orientation need to be for a distance learner compared to an in person, but then there's the commonalities of both those learners what do we need to make sure every test and adult school student is is needing or should be looking at to be successful on our campus, but with that also comes the priority of recruitment. Our numbers are down and trying to look at the various ways you know in inspiration from garden Grove. The idea of not having the brochure but looking at the postcard what can we get out that way social media that those components and how we're recruiting students, getting back into our local community and using our teachers with that as well. And then another conversation has been that screening for support, you know some students when they fill out that registration form. They've been able to complete everything but you're realizing at home there might be somebody there to support them. So when we get to capture them and have them assess. Looking at being able to screen to say, do you use these applications, can you send an email asking those questions where there's not another person around to look at and say can I do that. I don't know if you've had that experience but even at red date registration days for us that that's been typical somebody else can say, yes, I can, but really trying to look at that so we can start gearing. I think we're looking at what's called a workshop model where it'll be a workshop for about maybe bringing a student in for an hour to give them some of these basic skills but really trying to screen to see if they're needed or not. Because we don't want to deter somebody who wants to look at a distance learning class, but we want to make sure they're empowered for it. I think it's also trying to support our teachers being able to say, we screened them we gave them the workshop. And some of these workshop components will be a video that's recorded that our teachers can possibly go back to and be able to show again or send out. In the conversation of technology access and use. You heard me say I started with an iPad card of 40 and 40 laptops is is what I had to try and work with and say do we loan him, but then my classrooms aren't going to have them so we've been fortunate enough. This year coming into we offer as a first time agency to use some of those funds to purchase technology. So we can look at checking this out so we've seen it seen an increase, but no we want to do better at it so that way students can be encouraged to study at home if that's better for them. I think it's a barrier component we've heard a lot of students come back and say, I appreciate being able to be home so I don't have to worry about daycare and I don't worry about transportation. So being able to say what can we do to support that and part of that is that access to technology, but with that as well is the use and supporting our teachers as well so we see it from both the student side and the teacher side in that technology access and use, and then really creating distance learning classes we've done a great job prior to COVID having these in person classes. We pride ourselves on being a small friendly school that that just builds relationships, but how do we keep doing that and offering it here in person, but keeping the distance learning alive because I think that's been a missing component for us. So those are our focus for our goal points in our conversation with leadership. What has been done on your project. Well, I'll start on this. So, like will said, we move to an online registration, and I really want to build on the fact that the word that he uses breaking down barriers, because we realized, wow, how do we tell people and help people with this online So we, it's morphed over time because we started it back in for our fall registration, and it's really become a user friendly people are, it's easier for them to access it through our social media accounts. And then of course the distribution of devices. And once we figured out a way to distribute the devices. And then we had quickly learned the problem about Wow, what do we do when our students stop attending and how do we get those devices back right because each and everyone is so valuable because we all know we have limited resources in this area so finding a plan and I think it's really just been great to see a team of people come together on our site to break down those barriers and work through our goals. So for test and I think it's a lot of fine tuning in all four of these areas we have fine tuned our online orientation form, the process by which we intake students. We have fine tuned the distribution of devices because we have them to low now and to give and to make accessible to both our teachers and our students. We're doing is an ongoing action plan I think for both agencies but I know that we have a little bit of heavy lifting to do there and professional development is also ongoing but we've been fortunate enough since COVID, you know, began that we've been able to access lots of resources through 10 and our partners and nearby schools and people that we've met and collaborated with through D lack. So that's been really the most beneficial part. You know, and I'm just going to add on the professional development for garden broke we are so fortunate to have two doses who really take on that lead role and making that happen and I think what's crucial for our adult education is giving them that sense of feeling like it's okay to take risks, it's good to try new things and really putting those supports in place and we. I'm just so proud of our staff we've gone from people who would have never hardly even opened a laptop, and to now their lessons are on laptops and they're zooming and they're growing more comfortable in living in this digital world and accessing the services of our new curriculum that maybe they would have never accessed because it was they it was in that digital arena so it this has been a great support and learning how to how to provide that for our teachers. Melissa I think I have to, I have to add on it I know Laura was being. But something that we've done in the professional development side is following O 10 model of office hours. I started that pretty quickly in March realizing we need to check in point, we all need to just know that we're surviving this together and working with it, but it was really interesting to find out teacher saying we want it to continue and we in fall started I shouldn't say looked at me through online looking at me was like I'm going to offer some office hours and as we started looking at co apps and just seeing that develop and then our new ESL lead teacher she's offering her hours as well I know Virginia's here on with us but offering those office our time to check in, but it's also the time to share your finds and your strategies and I think that that I know those outside resources have been amazing and inspiring and it's great to go back to, but being able to be reflected with your own team at times, trying something new saying hey I just did this hey I just did that, and being able to compare it know the resources that you have. I think that's been pretty awesome as well so compliment to my leadership team, keeping the office hours going. Well, I'm just going to completely piggyback on what you just said because I am so in debt to our toast says Kathleen and Ray who are in the room, because when this all happened, we were all lost, we just didn't know what to do. And so they took their roles on top of what they were already doing with our consortium and everything, and really put it upon themselves to get the teachers organized, and to say hey we're here for you to support you however whatever that means. And, you know, neither one of them are, or all that tech savvy either I mean they were learning with us and but they were saying hey, we're learning, and we know that you're learning to and we're all kind of in it and they really made the teachers feel like you're not alone. We're here for you, and I don't know if I can help you myself but I'll find somebody who can help you and so I think that's what the teachers really appreciated the most, especially at the beginning, you know those first few months before the school year last year so I really do want to just let Ray and Kathleen know that I really do appreciate it. Part of your work in DLAC has been on the ideal one on one course. We actually experienced online learning as a student, and this course took them step by step through the planning and implementation of their distance learning plan. In the final project they developed and submitted their blended and distance learning implementation plan. The administrative and the instructional issues that are so important for establishing a successful blended and distance learning program. I'll let them tell you about their experience and what they have learned from the course. I get to speak for the team but again team chime in as you want as well but all of our reflections when we've talked about ideal one on one was first of all I'm going to be honest with you. I think all of us were a little apprehensive of you know what is that time commitment going to be what is it that they're really looking at, but as we started to get into the course we realize there's so many strong benefits from it. And it started with the idea that that surveying of needs and really walking you through this process of looking at what does your agency need to be successful in the digital scheme of things whether it's in a distance learning or blended learning. If you look to the right you'll you'll see an idea of one of the surveys or one of the thought mapping type item sorry I've just blinked on the word I apologize for that but just to put your thoughts in and survey you know what about this if I look at the readiness component. How is it going to be that I've got technology ready I've got my teachers ready what skills do they need. So those surveys are intermixed throughout the ideal course and then it's the focus of the components really to look at orientation to look at recruitment to look at teacher training to look at assessment. So those those areas are really having you look at that instead of trying to say, oh we're trying to take it all at one large jumper view. It was breaking it apart to be able to come back to the larger goal, the, the idea of the digital plan that we're going to implement and then, looking at thinking of how do we support our teachers and our students and then that monitoring of progress I think I've hit. Melissa and I had talked about the there's a specific chapter for an administrator to fill out to really think about what is our way of supporting our teams to be successful to see the success of our students and our teachers and being able to bring a distance learning or blended learning program onto the campus and really for me it was a reflective component to say yeah I do need to make sure I'm addressing that. The other side of that and the reason that we have besides just the sample of the work itself you'll see the comments on the side is destiny leads the ideal one on one course for us and she's not even in the state of California. But she just reflectively looks at it reads it over and gives us some of her thoughts some of her feedback that has been I know for Laura and I as we've talked to the team. Oh, yeah we didn't think of this let's let's refine this or I've also appreciated destiny has said, here's other resources I see exactly what you're saying. Here's what other schools and other agencies have done, and not just specific to us in California but looking at the greater good of schools throughout the nation and what can we do to implement so that's been the benefits I think we've seen as a team. Anyone else want to contribute I don't want to. I think you hit on all the components of it and I think it's great that we show them that's kind of what an assignment looks like and so you don't have to feel like you're, you know, overwhelmed with major essays or documentation but it's really a very reflective of what we we get to hear someone speak we read something and then we come together as our own independent teams and kind of talk it through and complete these and then to have that objective feedback is just extremely valuable. When we first started it was it did seem kind of little overwhelming we had all these assignments to do and things, but she really made us feel doesn't really made us feel like these are for us, you know, there's it's not for her it's not for the other agencies. So if we want to write in sentences we want to write in bullets if we want to do a little paragraphs, whatever we felt benefited us. I thought that really helped me kind of relax and go okay you know she's not checking our grammar she's not checking you know our content things it's really what's going to benefit us in our agency and she's there to guide us to say hey again reflective and look at it this way or, and don't reinvent the wheel. I read other agencies are doing this to check in with them. And that was really helpful. I think we just had great comments someone put in the chat box about, and they've been through the DLAC course and now they go back repeatedly for the resources that were provided so that's, I feel like we're going to do that. Yeah, I think that's very encouraging I'd notice Marcy just put that comment and because will and I spent, we would do weekly check ins to make sure that we were holding each other accountable for turning in the assignments on time. Right, and so now it's so nice. It's so nice that now we have that bank there that we can refer to. So when we feel at those times where we might be losing our way we can just go back to the curriculum so yeah. And Marcy was, she's from Corona Norco, and she and Kevin and Christina, they were in the program last year so it's last year's DLAC group. So, and she may have some insights when we, when we get finished, maybe get her input. Yeah, yes sorry I'm just here like, I don't want to be like the secret ghost like just putting stuff in the chat worker, I'm not lurking. No I love hearing like what new groups are doing and how you guys are innovating there's always stuff to learn from each other so I'm here gathering good ideas thank you. I was fortunate enough to see the projects that the, that Corona Norco Corona did. And I mean that really just encouraged me to like apply for the next cohort so I was really encouraged by that. Great. How do you feel about the DLAC program. What's been beneficial I think we've answered this but let's go on. Well, if you've been through the program then you know this guy. This is Dr. Paul Porter, and he is just part of the support system that we were given during this entire process and Dr. Porter made us work hard. We took quite a few inventories to develop just better leadership skills better understanding of who we are as leaders and how to work collaboratively with the staff that we are given. And during this process, like I said we took a lot of inventories that really challenged our thinking challenged our mindset and he actually walked the walk with us so when you hit a trouble spot. You know him and he would instantly get back to you with some feedback and help you with whatever trouble shooting you needed at the time so the support that we got from not only destiny during the ideal program but also the support and knowledge that Dr. Porter shared with us was invaluable. It's been a great collaboration and I think I'm sitting here today just being with test and adult school it's been great to develop that that collegial professional friendship and knowing that someone who's just 20 minutes down the road, being able to think through those things and the guidance of Susan as our coach with these two Orange County teams has just been great, but there's also that collaboration beyond getting to sit in the DLAC courses and hear what people are saying and we go in the breakout rooms there's just a real sense of everybody is just wanting to see the best and hope for the best for all of your programs. And then the reflection questions on practice, really are the things that resonate and help me, especially as the administrator and new administrator on this just really reflecting on the practices and, and how we can keep moving forward. I think that the ideas that have come from this whole process has really resonated with all of us in that there is no judgment it's like a judgment free zone, whatever we put out there just to put out there because because this is so different from everybody because of the pandemic. We really had to rethink all of our goals and our programs to fit right now instead of maybe in the future. And I think with the help with Susan as our coach and Dr Porter to really help us build these strengths within ourselves, and then to help us acknowledge how we were able for our team leader, you know for our teams at our own agencies, really helped. And again just a touch point that you know we were really lucky enough to have a place where other agencies are putting in the same ideas going, we do the exact or that exactly happened to us or we're doing the exact same thing let's talk about it. And so the ideas are just really free flowing and that was really nice. The structure of the program has its modular so you really can go back to module one or chapter one and go back to the beginning and say what is your big picture what are you looking at, and then you go back to orientation and screening and and you go through those different steps again now, three months from now one year from now. Oops, and you're able to go back and look at those ideas that you had and maybe change them or say oh I totally forgot about that so that's been really helpful for us. I think when you think of self assessment I heard Laura talk about the inventories that we did, which is a part of that component of self assessment but even in those modules there were discussion board points and sometimes we think oh discussion board is just to put your thought or an exchange but it really became a reflective component on each of those areas of focus for the modules that you got to think about your own program, how you would operate if you were an administrator or if you were a teacher. What did you do or how do you see that and then reflect with others and to be able to go back and forth so it let you put it out your thought process and then that idea of professional development so you've heard about the ideal course itself but brought in at different times when we've met an approach to even looking at being able to support leadership, tough conversations, building the leadership of those around you, a collaborative team, all those pieces and really encouraging us as a team to bring that back to our own sites to empower the rest of our staff with us in this journey. So, again, lots of different things come to mind when you think about the benefits of DLAC. What are your next steps to meeting your goals. So I think for Garden Grove, we are going to continue with our recruitment and our marketing. I'm going to go through the orientation and really kind of reflect back on what I've done so far and, and the changes that I need to make to move forward, and in addition to create the orientation for in class students. So we're continuing with tech support. What does that mean for us how are we going to get it. Who is it going to come from, and then for our students to, will we continue with device checkouts. Will we be able to expand upon that. Will we be able to do other things with our textbooks. So we are always going to be moving forward into how can we best support our students to make them as successful as possible. So I think that the world school recruitment is big for us, you know, if we want to school we have to have students come in so how are we going to recruit to get people in and with that recruitment comes the idea of marketing. How do I let students know that we're back in person and, and as well, having distance learning for those that want to continue on so it's, it's that sense of being able to recruit with an understanding of what our program can offer. So students are coming in being able to screen them. We've gone through a process of putting up this screener that that has basic questions for us, but continuing to say alright where do we take that you heard me talk about the workshop. And then that idea of the orientation is sometimes just that workshop need to be a part of the orientation. Can we determine that ahead of time and adding a half hour meet to an hour meet of orientation workshop components. I think that we're going to still be refining as we look at it. And then it's still the idea of technology integration. I love to say that we've been successful online. And I want to say that clearly we've been successful, but we know we want to go go a little bit deeper, you know, have our students really being able to develop their learning and their, their use of technology. We have students also with supporting teachers and building their tech integration skills as well. And then again the access point, allowing students the opportunity to check out devices, like Elisa was saying for Grand Grove that we want to continue to build that we've been fortunate to receive funds to start checking that out a little bit more. So building that as well so those are those next steps for testing. Have you been the supported during the program. As you can see these are the many faces and the many supporters of each of us in the DLAC program. And while Susan is our specific coach there are several coaches and they are all in the program and they're sharing and we know that we can reach out to them and we at times are in breakout rooms with different individuals that are being coached by some of these. And of course, Penny and Netta. Boy, they just do a great job, opening up every session. They organize they're really sort of the backbone of every time we come together and have our meetings. And then Anthony of course he works very hard behind the scenes and keeps us organized as well as Marjorie so it we just every angle if there's someone you need help with you know that each of these individuals are there for us. And since have you made to be part of DLAC. So I think you heard me discuss the concern of coming into DLAC and and I deal 101 and whoa what what is this going to be like but it really to be honest with you is there there are set days that the OTAN is set up for the DLAC to meet that we come in and meet together there have been half days I understand it shifted a little bit from what DLAC was prior because of COVID times, then there's been a couple of check in days as well. And then for Laura and I as a team, it really was that accountability measure to say you know what, we do want to invest so it was once a week to yes get the assignments done so we know we were on time. But I think it was a great blue sky session if I can call it that I'm seeing all the blue in front of us but you know what are these ideas that we want to see for our school and being able to process through them. So sometimes it had to be oh I've told we've totally talked longer than that but it's typically was that once a week check in I don't know if anyone else felt that way but I hearing the chuckle it sounds like yeah, it's those moments but that once a week check in I would be honest and even if it's not through DLAC specifically for anybody here's like I'm not sure if I want DLAC or those of you that have been a part of the DLAC still that need for check in to be reflective and blue sky to dream. Great. Okay, we want to thank everyone for joining us today. I do want to put in the evaluation link, but let's open it up for questions. Please feel free to use your mic. Join in, ask your link up. No questions. No comments. I got a question. Okay, just Kathleen Peterson. How long is the is the is the commitment for for is it always a cohort one year or is it more than that. Two years. Okay, years. The project will be finished in the spring of 2022. So the first year is basically going through the pro the ideal program, getting to know Dr Porter and helping us, you know with our leaderships and then the second part and then kind of recognizing the goals, what is it that we want to do. And then the second year is more like the implementation of the goals. And so now it's like all the thoughts that we've had how are we actually going to put them into into action. Good. Thanks for the question Kathleen. You're welcome. I didn't really know. I think for that even. I know the project is two years but I think it's setting up a new normal is where I hope that we are reflective on on that blended learning plan or distance learning plan, really having that dialogue constantly. I know it always sat in the back of my mind or we would talk about it, but we would let other fires burn that we needed to put out first. But if we can just hearing from test inside of it, that integration of it. I'm excited to see what that future is for our school as well. I think what I really appreciate about it is it's it's hard sometimes even though you want to designate time to really sit down and reflect on your program and and how do you really want it to grow and I think it's sort of given us permission since it's almost it is a requirement right, it just gives us that permission like this is priceless time when Lisa and I sit down together and work through, whether it was the idea 101 or whether it is just looking at what our project is going to be and then also to when we have those days and things together. It's just so rich and you can you come away. I don't know it's just such a good feeling after everyone you're you're it's kind of you're rejuvenated and it's like yeah there there is this time and purpose so I really appreciate that that's what the D-Lock program has done. I think it's also built that sense of networking to because you think just comparing that 20 minutes away from each other you know now all right when they're back in person how do I get to see them. But there's even programs further past us that have those similarities outside of our own county and even in northern California they're like, Oh, I wonder and hearing about past D-Lock projects for the cohorts before us because I think we're the third cohort and hearing what they've done is like, Oh, I do want to look at them as well and and see what's going on so you you've got a network to to reach out to and really tap into. And I'm very impressed the way Tustin and Garden Grow have come together as one. I mean they have been working side by side. We've been needing to work on this presentation and they are one. They're not two separate schools, they are collaborating and oh we did this and oh yeah that was important. So it's it's a great sense of networking. I liked it better when we could go face to face so Marcy. I mean you got to know everyone. And by the end of two years. I knew that we had to stop to get soda for Kevin and the little things that you don't even think about. But you know, if you had a problem you asked somebody, you know, hey, what did you guys do about that. What's your school doing. And it's just amazing the network and these people become your friends for life. Well, and Susan I appreciate that you talk about the connection because even comparison wise Garden Grove is significantly larger than us. Just the district itself covers a larger land amount of land but just the size but even that there's not been an intimidation of it, but more that that mutual dialogue and conversation which it's just really been empowering to understand how we can ask these questions of people, because sometimes you wonder as a small agency. Can we help support somebody else because we know those large agencies seeing Laura shaker head we know those large agencies can support us we can see this this and this from it, but how do we we get back together I think that's pretty awesome. I mean, if I, I have a question. I don't really know if there's an answer but I was trying to encourage one of my friends that's an admin at a pretty small adult school. And she just was like to apply for D like I was like it was so great for us it was it was a game changing and it really. I feel like it taught us the template or the skills and to grow in other ways to. So now we know that from the ideal one oh one like we know we need to assess where we're at before we start anything. We need to have a plant not just jump in so. What advice or what would you say to to a school. I don't know your history I came in just a tiny bit late but I feel like what would you say to a school that says, we don't have the funding or we're too small or we can't. We can't assign someone to this project right now they don't have enough hours or we don't like they don't have the bandwidth whether it be like funding or staffing, or whatever what what how. And Susan you've been through this a little bit you might have the better answer I when my friend said that I was like well just look into it is like the most it's money well spent but in the end I didn't know what really to say. So, Marcy I think I'll take it from the small school perspective and then maybe Susan you can add and and again garden grow as well and Laura please contribute as well but I think the conversation with Laura was understanding okay I need to as an administrator understand that I'm going to allocate time to Laura to build in this, and at the time she was in our lead position that's why it felt like I could do some of that with her leadership hours. And that I think the conversation ahead of time for Lauren I was and I'm Susan I hope you don't get upset as I say this but it was like. Alright Laura we're going we're going to apply we're going to see what's being offered but if we either one of us feel overwhelmed as a small agency, I as administrator I'm going to come back to the DLAC team and say hey we took a bite bigger than we thought. I think Laura, we, we, at one point both looked at each other and said, yeah this is actually manageable and do doable. I think some of it is taking the steps but understanding that you are going to allocate some time to it. So I had to be able to understand in Laura's leadership role as the lead teacher. Here you notice there's not a large amount of other teachers with us so we started small. I regret that now I think Virginia is still here with us she's one of our lead, another lead teacher I wish I had brought more teachers on. But again, I do get the side of the budget but I think it's the small step, and I think DLAC empowered us to say even as a small agency, your small steps are going to make leaps and bounds difference for your students. So it's the encouragement of the small step. I think as you encourage, just apply or do, that's what I would say. Just wanted to add Marcy that we applied when we only had CAPE funding. Okay, so we didn't even have a guarantee of we owe a funding at the time that we applied. So we were really nervous. We were nervous about the time commitment. We were nervous about, you know, how we were going to allocate hours, all those things and also being a very small school in a big ocean of big agencies, right. But we were never made to feel like oh you're just that tiny little school, you know, in Orange County, we found other schools that in Northern Cal other areas that are just as small as us that are doing the exact same thing that we are. So just I would go back to your front and say you will find someone that is a mirror image of you. You get support from everyone like, you know, how we found our garden growth best friends over here, but you also get support from smaller agencies as well. And Marcy if you're a friend or anybody who's out there, a friend needs to talk to a fellow administrator of a small adult school. Please, please give us a call. We'll talk and be realistic with them because I think we all understand it's small groups do mighty things though so. Yeah, that's definitely it'll be for round four. And I want to answer Margaret's question about collaborating together as a group, the entire DLAC team, not just these two groups, but every, I think it's about every month, we all get together, and everyone kind of reports to the rest of the group what they're done and what they're doing and, and how things are going. And there's a lot of input there, as far as you know we did this and oh, okay, maybe I'll try that. So, there is a lot of collaboration there. And these two teams, these two agencies, they happen to be the ones I'm responsible for so I'm their coach for both of them and so we've kind of been working together so. We got to touch up on that too I think that we were just very fortunate that geographically we're very close because it's a hit or miss where your teams are coming from, depending on who applies and who is who is accepted. So just to have them geographically close to us we have a lot of similarities that we can relate to as far as maybe populations of our students are and you know things like that maybe. So that I think that helped us to really be able to collaborate well on some on some aspects. Okay, do we have any more questions. No Ray, it's not the DLAC for OTAN for adult ed is the Digital Leadership Academy, where DLAC is representing your district language to separate entities, one is a digital aspect the other is trying to look at your English language learner. And OTAN has kind of changed over the years it used to be TMAC, which was Technology Integration Academy, and then we went to online, which was OTAC Online Teaching Academy, and now we've gone to DLAC because it's a combination of both TMAC and OTAC. So it's something new, but it's the Digital Leadership Academy. And for those that are not familiar with you know what what it is the whole project or the whole program is, it's basically really just taking an account of your program and saying, how is it that you want to integrate technology into your programs. And what does it what does that mean and who's who's going to be involved. And it really helps you to break it down into little pieces. And you know who needs to be involved with this, how much money is it going to take where the funds going to come from. How will you work with the teachers or in your staff in your agency, and they really help you step by step to go through, not only just the digital part of it like these are our goals but then how do you become a leader to make an impact on your program to help the other staff members to jump on board with you on this. Yeah, can you use it for a WASC. I think it. Yeah, you could write. I mean if you did a project, as far as your, your WASC that could be written in. So, yeah, that's a good question. And our sip. It has to be our WASC year and definitely I believe quite a bit of what we've learned in the ideal one on one and then through the lack will definitely guide the writing of our WASC document. I'm not sure if Marcy with your team or your agency went through this but for Melissa and I, for Melissa and I, when we first started, and we started reading chapter one and I mean we literally had a list of about 15 goals that we wanted to get rid of, you know, the very short term goals are things that we needed to get done right away we couldn't see the next year we didn't understand like where this implementation of a pilot in the future because we needed to get a lot of other things done first. So then as, so even though they may not be part of our DLAC project, we got a lot of things off of our list, check, check, check, check the orientation and the screening and things. And those weren't even on our radar at the beginning and they became part of our list. So, and I'm not sure if Marcy if that happened with you guys or if you had, you knew what your one goal was going to be and, and I think the goals changed also from the time that we applied to the time we got accepted. Those goals also changed because we knew we're going to go into a new school year, not going back to school. And so that was a big game changer for us all, you know as well. Yeah, absolutely for us our goals totally morphed. They changed. We were able to accomplish a few like side goals. And we really adapted our goal as we went around, went along and isn't that kind of what the improvement cycle is about kind of you test out and then you adjust that aim a little bit as you need to. And then as far as WASC goes we just finished WASC and we were there first virtual or online visit which was kind of crazy if you guys need any, any help. The action items is increased digital literacy and technology in our school and so absolutely you have an action item that's kind of vague and focused on increasing digital growth and then it's really great because you can talk about D lack a ton. Yeah, that's smart to make it very vague cover a lot of ground.