Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Open Board of Directors
San Bernardino Community College District
114 S. Del Rosa Drive
San Bernardino, CA 92408
Minutes
Present: Carole Beswick, Ann Bryan, Rachelle Bussell, Ken Coate, Ed Lasak, Neil Macready, John Mirau, Charlie Ng, John Prentice, Bruce Satzger, Kristine Scott, Larry Sharp, Paul Shimoff, Christina Bivona-Tellez, Robert Visconti and Matthew Wilson.
Guests: Paul Granillo and Cedric Williams
Announcements: 1) Members of Inland Action and their guests are encouraged to attend a special meeting on Friday, September 30, 2011 to have a conversation with Robert Weisenmiller, Chair of the California Energy Commission. An invitation has been extended to both IEEP and the Monday Morning Group. The meeting will be held at the same time and location as the regular Tuesday meetings. Please rsvp to Sue Harrison by e-mail at sharrison@www.lavahaze.com . 2) Dr. Al Karnig has announced his retirement from California State University effective at the end of the school year. 3) Bruce Baron has been named primary member for the now combined membership of Community Hospital San Bernardino and St. Bernardine’s.
M/S/P: Minutes of the September 13, 2011 meeting
Paul Shimoff introduced Leslie Rodden, Director, Higher Education and Workforce Development, Alliance for Education.
The Alliance for Education is a partnership with business, labor, government, community and education to align common goals in order to produce an educated and skilled community in San Bernardino County.
Today there is a tremendous and growing need for workers with greater knowledge and technical expertise.
The business and labor community has expressed their deep concern about our nation’s ability to sustain scientific and technological competitiveness in today’s economy.
The goals of the Alliance are:
Education: To strengthen a standards-based, academically rigorous curriculum through relevant hands-on learning opportunities provided by business, labor and community partnerships.
Family Involvement/Family Literacy: To develop accessible learning centers for designated STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) school sites at neighboring community and faith-based to provide literacy and parenting support services.
Economic/Workforce Development: To provide access to STEM related programs and increase high school graduation and matriculation into post-secondary STEM programs.
STEM and the Alliance
The Alliance partners educators, families, and businesses to collaborate and bring innovation, intention and application together for students. These partners collaborate to develop programs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) curricula. Educational programs that brings relevancy to academic studies increase participation in postsecondary education and/or training in addition to helping students prepare for the workforce. The emphasis is on design and problem-solving in “intellectually messy” learning situations and solving problems by applying knowledge to design solutions. This kind of learning promotes innovative thinking generating the scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians who will create the new ideas, new products, and entirely new industries of the 21st century.
The initial findings based on student performance on the California High School Exit Examination (CAHEE) are as follows:
- 95% of STEM enrolled students passed the English Language Arts (ELA) CAHSEE exam as compared to 83% of the total student population
- 93% of STEM enrolled students passed the Mathematics CAHSEE exam as compared to 82% of the total student population
Additionally attendance rates improved for those in STEM while non-participants’ attendance actually decreased.
The Alliance is now in all three regions of the county, actively implementing a system that incorporates the three components, and engages strategies that benefit all educational levels, from pre-school to post-secondary opportunities. Currently there are STEM programs in 11 districts and 19 school sites that impact over 5,000 students. The future will include bringing STEM to the rest of the San Bernardino County expanding partnerships and building leadership capacity.
A Q & A period followed.
Meeting adjourned at 8:30 a.m.