Plumas Charter Program Provides Backlight for Media Career Success
Plumas Charter School AME Pathways
Most students have homework. Plumas Charter School learners have clients.
The Far North school’s Art, Media, and Entertainment (AME) students recently filmed a marketing video for Plumas District Hospital’s Wilderness Medical Conference, where doctors and nurses gather from all over the world to learn about wilderness medicine.
“They were our clients,” says Greg Willis, CTE AME Pathway Coordinator and Instructor. “We had students running around with cameras conducting interviews.”
“You’re not going to be young forever,” Lassen Community College Director of Fire Technology Dan Weaver tells his cadets. “You’re not going to be hiking those hills with a hose pack.”
And while firefighting remains an evergreen pathway for outdoors-minded career-seekers in Northern California, there’s no doubt that the profession’s persistent physical demands take a toll.
“Sooner or later, you’re going to have to say, ‘I want to stay outside, but I don’t want to do fire anymore,’” says Weaver. “It’s good to have something to fall back on.”
Attendees of our NFN Regional meeting had the option to tour programming at nearby Shasta College while in town. Mark Klever, Dean of Business, Agriculture, and Career Technical Education Programs at Shasta College teamed with Mark Endraske, Director of Employer Partnership, to lead a group of workforce and education professionals on an interactive tour.
Congratulations to Butte College for securing a prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) grant! This exciting new award will create educational pathways that boost Northern California’s rural workforce. The Far North Center of Excellence (COE) was pleased to have provided labor market data to support the college’s successful grant application. The name of the grant is “Empowering Rural Careers: Engineering Support Technician Certificate Program for Manufacturing Supply Chain, and Food Process Industries in Northern California,” known locally as Project SwifTECH.
Woodland Community College Hosts Diverse Employer Panel for Business Students
Students filed in for class across campus from their usual classroom Tuesday morning for a work based learning opportunity offered by Liberty Harrison, Business Professor on campus. “Increasing interaction from area employers on campus has been one of our goals this year,” explained Alena Anberg, Director of Employer Engagement for the region, “And partnering with development-minded industry leaders from various sub-sectors helps students see the variety of career pathways available for everyone. Students get to hear first-hand what a typical day is like and learn from our employer partners about real high-wage careers in our region and steps they can take to get there. For this panel, we were able to showcase employers with operations in Colusa County and Yolo County in ag business and risk management and some of our panelists had experience in adjacent industries as well.”
How California can unlock multigenerational economic mobility and success
About 1 in 8 college students in California is a parent. For these students, college isn’t just about attending class and studying; it’s a daily juggling act that also includes managing households, raising children,and working to stay afloat. Moreover, the additional costs of child care, higher food expenses, and other necessities mean that student parents pay an additional $7,500 per child to attend college. Without significant financial aid, they would need to work at least 50 hours per week at minimum wage to cover these costs.
The precarious balancing act is more than a personal challenge — it’s a consequential issue that spans generations and affects all Californians. When student parents thrive, the benefits ripple across communities and generations, creating economic stability for families, closing racial equity gaps, and strengthening California’s workforce and economy. Yet, their determination to balance work, study and parenting goes largely unnoticed because neither colleges nor the state systematically collects data on their demographics, experiences and outcomes.
A fast-growing number of traditionally college-age students are by passing degrees to pursue cheaper and faster alternative credentials. Why are so many choosing this path, and will the journey pay off?
While these kinds of programs have long served adult learners looking to update their job skills or switch careers, research shows students fresh out of high school are flocking to them in greater and greater numbers. Learners ages 18 to 20 completed more certificates at higher ed institutions than any other age group during the 2022–23 academic year, according to an April 2024 report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Nearly 154,000 young learners earned certificates that year—an 11 percent increase over the previous year—among the 670,665 certificate earners across all ages.
California Study Shows Which College Programs Pay Off And Which Don’t
A new report from the College Futures Foundation and the HEA Group identifies the return on investment that undergraduate students can expect to see from thousands of college programs in California.
The good news is that almost 9 out of 10 academic programs in California allow graduates to recoup their educational costs within five years. The bad news is that more than 100 programs yielded no economic ROI, leaving a majority of their graduates earning less than a high school graduate five years after finishing the program.
ROIs differed significantly by field of study, with some programs like economics and nursing showing very strong returns, while others like music and cosmetology produced little to no ROI.
Almost all programs offered at California’s public institutions (97%) showed their graduates earning back the costs of obtaining a credential within five years. Nearly half (48%) allowed this within one year.
A broader, national conversation about non degree pathways towell-paying jobs and a policy shift for the Democratic Party, which once put apremium on students getting bachelor’s degrees and in recent years emphasized proposals to make college more accessible. The comments were also a glimpse into Harris’s higher ed agenda—details of which have been scant. She has touted, on her campaign website,the Biden administration’s efforts to forgive student loans and pledged to make higher education more affordable “so that college can be a ticket to the middle class.”
Now she appears to be advocating for alternative routes to the middle class, which higher ed lobbyists say they don’t see as a threat but rather an opportunity for colleges to keep growing their offerings. Skeptics of non degree credentials, however, have expressed trepidation about her rhetoric and the overall shift it represents. Employer-focused groups welcomed the plan, which comes at a time when more employers are embracing a skills-based hiring approach and Americans over all are increasingly questioning the cost and value of higher education.
AI Professional Learning Community (PLC): Playlab AI & UC Berkeley School of Education
The California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office has collaborated with PlayLab AIand the UC Berkeley School of Education to provide an exciting pilot opportunity for educators to create impactful AI-powered tools to enhance the teaching experience, improve student learning, and complete administrative tasks.
The project is seeking faculty,classified professionals, and administrators who are excited to engage with PlayLab, an AI-powered platform that allows users to create custom bots to provide tailored solutions that will support student needs, enhance educational outcomes, and support administrative efforts. Please forward this information to your campus colleagues to help build awareness of this opportunity.
Information and Interest Form
A three-week AI Professional Learning Community (PLC) will be offered on the following dates and times:Tuesdays, October 15th, 22nd, and 29th from 6:00-8:00pm. The PLC will focus on:
Onboarding and training faculty, classified professionals, and administrators to use PlayLab.
Provide participants with the skills to run their own workshops and onboard others into the platform.
Support educators in creating and deploying AI-driven solutions tailored to their teaching and administrative needs.
Participants will have the opportunity to opt-in for 1:1 support from trained Berkeley students to assist in building PlayLab bots and getting familiar with the platform.
There is no cost to participate in this exciting opportunity! If you are interested, please complete this formbelow to express interest, and you will be contacted with more details about participation.
To support districts and college leaders in student-centered implementation and in the effective use of fiscal resources, the attached and linked resource, known as the Compendium, provides fiscal and program guidance in one central location to facilitate access to information. The funding allocation tables contained in this resource provide comprehensive information about ongoing and new 2024-25 resources.
Updates to the Compendium will be released through the First Principal Apportionment in May 2025 and demarcate any new or updated content. You can find the Compendium and additional budget information on theBudget News page.
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