The Adult Basic Skills program at Central Oregon Community College is gaining more support courses this fall for students enrolled in Career Technical Education classes.

The program includes English Language Learner classes, preparation for taking the tests to earn a General Educational Development certificate, which is also open to those who simply want to improve their skills, and Integrated Education & Training courses, which support students in a career tech pathway.

Though the program was not meeting federal standards last year and had cut some funding, it is expanding this fall and is now meeting standards.

“If we don’t have a pathway for students to get to a point where they can be successful in a college classroom, then we’re not fulfilling the mission that we have,” said Cindy Lenhart, instructional outreach dean for the college. “And so I see this program as critical to being able to build those pathways into programs.”

The Adult Basic Skills program is offering 13 classes this fall, in the morning, afternoon and evening. They’re spread across several locations. There are additional instructors on staff this year as well. Last spring, the program served around 150 students, and students are still enrolling for this fall, said Lenhart.

The GED certificate preparation course is offered in Madras, Prineville, Redmond, Bend and Warm Springs, which is a new location for the fall. English Language Learner classes are offered in Bend, Redmond and Madras.

The Integrated Education & Training courses have been offered for a few years to students in early childhood education courses, but have expanded this term to students studying to be medical assistants and certified nursing assistants, as well as students studying manufacturing and advanced technology, said Lenhart.

These courses, taught this fall in Bend and Redmond, are intended to support students learning study and job skills to help with the rest of their classes.

“It’s really about coming along and helping students in these classes with whatever they need in order to be successful,” said Lenhart. “So it could be study skills; it could be reading skills; it could be math.”

She said the manufacturing and advanced technology course includes math skills that students can get help with in their support course. The support class for students studying to be medical assistants covers test-taking strategies and specifics of the course like vocabulary and help with assignments, said Lenhart.

“The content of the course is designed to support the reading, writing, communication, speaking, math skills that a student would need,” said Lenhart.

In addition to class-related skills, the courses also teach employability skills, such as the art of job interviewing.

“This is what employers want. They want people who are job ready. And so we do these employability skills that then help when students finish these certificates they can actually go out and get a job and meet those needs,” said Lenhart.

Instructors for both the support courses and the career technical education classes work together to help students pass certification tests.

Earning two certificates at once

Last year, Leslie Estrada Burgos studied for her GED certificate, in a course specifically for those pursuing health care careers, and her Community Health Worker certificate, at the same time. She now works at St. Charles Bend after also completing the college’s phlebotomy certificate.

Her time at COCC went well, she said. Burgos felt supported and was able to earn a diploma, one of her dreams. Though she needed to drive to Bend to attend the GED certificate preparation course, since it was not offered where she lived in Redmond, she said it worked out.

“I used to think that I was going to be falling behind on both since I was doing it at the same time and my daughter having her appointments for her autism, but thankfully, it worked out well since the Community Health Worker class and Health Careers Bridge class were on different days and the Community Health Workers class was in my town,” she wrote in an email.

The community health worker course let her know what college would really be like, and it helped that the GED course was flexible, she said.

“Growing up, I knew I also wanted to find a way to help care for others and by doing that was for me to join the health care field,” Burgos wrote. “I believe there is no other field that helps people as much as health care does, which is why I have decided to take this path and continue my education in becoming a medical assistant and hopefully a nurse one day.”

Ensuring students are successful

Lenhart said the increase in student enrollment is good to see, as well as students comprehending the affordability of community college.

Organizers have put strategies into place to ensure students are passing their classes, passing the GED certificate tests and passing the Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment Systems tests the college gives. Forty-one students passed the GED certificate tests in the 2022-2023 school year, she said.

The Integrated Education & Training courses were expanded this fall in part to make sure students become college ready and are successful, Lenhart said. Organizers are now looking at offering an English Language Learner course in Prineville.

Lenhart plans to spend some time figuring out how to offer support courses to other degrees and certificates, because she knows that students need the extra help.

“What we don’t often recognize is that community colleges, if you look at the data, are more diverse in their population and demographics than any other higher ed institution,” said Lenhart.

Community colleges often serve the most-underserved populations, she said, including rural students, first-generation students and students who have been away from school for a long time and need to return to learn a skill.

“College is a real daunting place. It doesn’t make any sense, and there’s not always a clear answer to it,” said Lenhart. “Not only in our GED prep and our ELL classes, but also in these classes [Integrated Education & Training courses]. It’s really a place for students to ask those questions and help to get some of the resources and the answers to those questions that they need.”

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