 That transition from high school to college is just very scary. Funds for education are not really easy to come by these days. Would I be able to charcoal being a parent of five children and college? I hadn't used math concepts in years other than to add and subtract. I have some big goals and one of those goals was to come back and be strong in STEM subjects such as math. Our students come to us from all countries of the world, all different ages, all different employment backgrounds, all different sets of goals, and to put them through a single pipeline in terms of assessing their skills, it just did not feel responsive to the culture of our community. Frankly, it didn't feel very humane. There was good research coming out that said that the placement processes that were commonly accepted didn't really work very well. It's pretty clear that if you can place students higher into college level courses initially, they spend less time in remediation, they're more likely to have better momentum, they feel better about their first experiences. The costs of misplacement are huge. Misplacement impacts students emotionally. Students want to move to and through a degree and to a living wage quickly. We just kind of completely re-envisioned the college placement process at Highline on a very comprehensive scale. The way we do placement at Highline has shifted from a transactional approach to one that is educational and participatory for students. With students at the center, we see placement as a start of the educational process for students. They're coming here on our campus to learn and that shouldn't start the minute that they get into a classroom. It starts with placement. Hi, welcome. How are you? First of all, we really try to create a welcoming environment. Here at Highline, we have multiple measures, so students can place into English classes via their high school transcripts, GED scores, their smarter balance. If they've taken it at a different college, their compass tests or any other placement tests, they can bring them to Highline as well. We know, at least at Highline, that if students brush up, about half of them place higher than they would if they didn't brush up. We're making it really clear to students about, here's what happens if you get into a class that is way too easy for you or is way too difficult for you. Often we find that students are more under-placed than they are over-placed. A couple of the changes that have happened in placement at Highline over the past few years is introduction of multiple measures, using high school transcripts replacement, GED transcripts replacement, and having the placement and testing center be the main place that all of that assessment is done. When we moved to more multiple measures like transcript-based placement, like the GED placement, and we're moving to direct and self-placement, the students who are most impacted by that in a positive way are students of color. The issue of social justice is really central to this college. I would argue it's embedded in the community college mission. Given the diversity of the community that we serve, we're starting to have a conversation about intentionally dismantling structures that have increased disparity or have decreased equity. Can we unpack that and try to look at it through a different lens? Working with the placement center and going through the STEM subjects that I'm enrolled in, those courses have given me new insight, new confidence, and a direction of where I want to go professionally in my career. The placement center helped me with both English and math. It was actually more than just advising. They really sat down with me and really did the work with me, the math, anything I needed. They helped me through it. My first year of credit courses worked really well for me, and I'm doing outstanding. I feel very confident. I just started a job into the field that I'm going into, and you know, it's a blessing.