UC Riverside has submitted the Inland Empire Phase I application. We are awaiting a response from the State.
Read more below
Inland Empire Region
K-16 Education Collaborative
Grant Status Update:
The Inland Empire has been awarded $18 million from a statewide investment of $250 million that will establish K-16 Education Collaboratives to address equity gaps and improve education-to-career pipelines in each region of the state.
The Lead Education Agency and Fiscal Agent for the grant is the University of California, Riverside (UCR).
UCR is in the process of hiring a director to oversee the grant. Once the director is in place, we anticipate that UCR will broadly distribute a request for proposals (RFP) so that regional entities can apply for funds. As soon as GIA becomes aware of the RFP, we will update this page and send announcements through email. If you are not already subscribed to our email list, please do that here.
Congratulations to everyone involved, and thank you for your ongoing collaboration and support.
Since late January 2022, 60-100 partners from across the two county IE region have met on a weekly basis. This group has come together in a shared vision of moving regional collaborative efforts to improve educational outcomes in the region to the next level of ensuring students are provided with clear and thorough pathways to and through school and into viable careers. Each and every one of these partners has been instrumental in the development in the submission of this proposal. Moving forward we will all continue to share responsibility for:
- Building a collaborative that is inclusive of all stakeholders and sub-regions in the Inland Empire, and that includes all regional consortiums and educational collaboratives supporting student success in the region.
- Sharing experiences and best practices for pathways development.
- Ensuring broad and equitable representation of the region’s diverse populations, geographies, and workforce opportunities.
- Increasing the understanding of the IE students by participating in the California College Guidance Initiative (CCGI) and other data sharing initiatives.
The San Bernardino Community College District is serving as the lead agency for the grant application and is responsible for:
- Overall management of the process including financial, administrative and reporting requirements should the grant be funded.
- Execution of sub-awards and contracts.
- Sharing of successes with the funding agency both formally and informally.
Growing Inland Achievement is the convener for the work and building on its role as collective impact collaborative, is responsible for:
- Convening as many stakeholders as possible across the bi-county Inland Empire region in support of pathways for student success and economic opportunity.
- Advocating along with others for an equitable share of funding for the Inland Empire.
- Providing opportunities for ongoing sharing and professional development through weekly meetings and more formal in-person convenings.
- Supporting the ongoing development and scaling of pathways with leveraged resources, technical support and professional development opportunities.
We are pleased to announce that a consensus has been reached on how to move forward with a single Phase I application for the Regional K-16 Collaborative Grant Program. The united application will bring together the best pieces of the two original grants submitted from the Inland Empire CERF region.
University of California, Riverside has agreed to be the Local Education Agency (LEA) for the grant. Pending grant approval, they will hire a K-16 Director to support grant management and fiscal oversight.
Riverside County Office of Education (RCOE) and San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools (SBCSS) have agreed to be co-conveners and collectively assemble the governance groups to approve the use of funds.
The revised Phase I application will be submitted to the State by the extended July 25, 2022 deadline. We will continue to provide updates on the status of the application via email, as well as updates on upcoming meetings.
Inland Empire K-16 Regional Collaborative
Application Synopsis: For the Application Submitted to the Regional K-16 Education Collaboratives Grant Program
May 2022
The IE K-16 Regional Collaborative submitted a proposal for $19.8M to the Foundation for Community Colleges that will support the development and scaling of 10 robust career pathway programs, located across the IE subregions, and aligned to the CERF (Community Economic Resilience Fund) region. Collectively, these career pathway programs will address immediate and emerging needs in the education, healthcare, engineering/computing, and business sectors throughout the Inland Empire. Building on Growing Inland Achievement (GIA)’s collective impact work, this project will deploy a regional framework that incorporates education, community, workforce, and employer engagement to support equitable educational and economic opportunities for students. With San Bernardino Community College District serving as the lead agency and GIA as the convener, the project will use the GIA model of innovation awards to provide sub-awards, distributing approximately 85% of the funds to the region via an RFP process in early Spring 2023 and repeated in 2025. These awards will be leveraged with existing regional funds to provide technical assistance to funded projects and projects in development.
Overarching Goals for the collaborative have been set in response to a series of regional challenges, including: limited living-wage career opportunities; limited post-secondary preparation, persistence, and achievement; low a-g completion rates; a post-secondary attendance rate of under 60%; the lowest three-year community college completion rate in the state at 19%; frequent dropouts and stop-outs without eventual degree attainment; and a lack of meeting the needs of our diverse, low-income and underserved populations. To battle these challenges, strategic goals are:
- Increase the number of effective career pathways in the region.
- Increase the accessibility of these career pathways to ensure persons of color, first-generation, low income, and other individuals most affected by the existing barriers are more broadly represented in the region’s post-secondary opportunities, and careers with sustainable family wages.
- Improve the region’s economic stability with a well-trained workforce, ready and able to fulfill both urgent and emerging employment needs in key industry sectors throughout the region.
Important subgoals make these broad strokes specific:
- Incorporate all four selected Recovery with Equity (RWE) recommendations in each pathway:
- Cultivate Inclusive, Engaging, and Equity-Oriented Learning Environments
- Retain Students through Inclusive Supports
- Support College Preparation and Early Credit
- Provide High-Tech, High Touch Advising
- Ameliorate low educational attainment through pathway programs.
- Increase business and education interagency engagement in pathways partnerships.
- Improve transitions from secondary to post-secondary programs.
- Develop and articulate specific pathway needs for each sector and in each subregion.
Process: To pursue these ends, a number of decision-making and working groups will be put in place by a Steering Committee. This Steering Committee will be established by September 2022 with a final composition of executive leadership from: seven employers, CSUSB, UCR, five community-based organizations, one private college, six PreK-12 Superintendents and/or two county office of education superintendents, five community colleges, and two students. The responsibilities of the Steering Committee, meeting quarterly through 2026, will be to:
- Set goals, programmatic strategy and structure, and oversight of progress toward goals.
- Set pathway direction and allocation of resources, specifically, reviewing pathway proposals and recommendations, and making final decisions regarding which proposals will be funded.
- Provide ongoing monitoring and oversight of Recovery with Equity recommendations.
- Approve required reports to the funder.
- Appoint members and serve as a liaison to the K-16 Interagency Council.
Once formally constituted in September, the Steering Committee will, in turn, appoint the Interagency Council (IC), seated by October 2022, which is to serve as an intermediary agency between the Steering Committee and the Industry Sector Individual Pathway Groups. The Council will be made up of regional experts in pathways development and implementation, including deans, content experts, university admissions officers, as well as representatives of collaboratives with effective pathways already in place. In addition, community-based organization staff and employers who have had experience with pathways will also be essential participants.
The Interagency Council will provide the hands-on expertise needed for the selection and ongoing support of the individual pathway groups. Initial work will include an audit of existing pathways throughout the region and a thorough vetting of industry needs and opportunities for growth within the industry sectors. The IC will develop the Request for Proposals outlining criteria for pathway submissions, including required support for Recovery with Equity (RWE) recommendations, make recommendations for awardees to the Steering Committee, monitor pathway progress toward goals, and ensure technical support assistance is provided.
Designed by the Interagency Council, the Request for Proposals will cover all four industry sectors. The first round of applications will be released in February and awarded in Spring 2023. Proposed pathways may range from those already well-developed and ready for scaling to those in the beginning stages of planning. Selection criteria will ensure that a combination of these is funded. Importantly, every proposed pathway will be evaluated on successfully addressing four Recovery with Equity recommendations designed to ensure successful pathway participation of Black, Latinx, Indigenous, first-generation, low income, and other disenfranchised populations. Applicant groups must also be rich in student, community, and employer input and support these groups’ long-term participation.
The Individual Pathway Groups selected for funding and support will be actively involved in their pathway work, building on existing strengths, assets, and programs locally and across the region, and facing specific industry challenges. In addition, they will be actively engaged with the community and employers and remain focused on the successful inclusion of students through equitable practices. They will also have applied to contract with the California College Guidance Initiative (CCGI) starting in July 2022 and no later than July 1, 2023, and using the transcript-informed tools provided by CCGI, such as CaliforniaColleges.edu, as a part of the California Cradle-to-Career Data System.
An RFP for a second round of funded pathway projects will be rereleased in 2025. By the end of this four-year project, the IE K-16 Collaborative anticipates that the development or scaling of 10 pathway groups will directly involve at least 22 school districts, 10 community colleges, and 4 four-year institutions. At full capacity, this program will serve approximately 12,000 students per year. Further, students will have exposure to pathways programs and college opportunities throughout the CERF region. The IE K-16 Collaborative will touch over 60,000 students and families through activities and outreach opportunities at the school and work sites, media campaigns, and technology available to students.
The Foundation for California Community Colleges will announce awarded proposals on May 20, 2022 May 27, 2022.
GIA hosted a final grant application planning meeting on July 29, 2022.
Watch the meeting recording
A copy of the Inland Empire regional grant application is available to view through the link below.
Take part in Regional K-16 Education Collaborative discussions:
UPCOMING MEETING SCHEDULE
- July 29, 2022 – 9:00 a.m. (PT) – FINAL MEETING
All sessions use the same Zoom meeting registration and link
Recordings and resources from past Inland Empire Regional K-16 Education Collaborative Grant planning meetings can be accessed below.
San Bernardino and Riverside County Schools
All seniors at K-12 schools in the 56 districts spanning San Bernardino and Riverside Counties.
Emphasis on Black, Latinx, Indegenous, and historically underserved student groups.
- Increase Educational Attainment, with specific emphasis on accelerating success for historically marginalized students
- Education Leaders
- K-12 Schools
- Regional & State Nonprofit Organizations
- Philanthropic Organizations
Ida Hermosillo, Director of Network Engagement