The California Community Colleges are being challenged by the Governor and the legislature to offer more and better career technical degree programs, certificates, and industry-recognized credentials, to help students train for the more than one million middle-skilled jobs that California needs between now and the year 2025. The Legislature, supported by the Governor, enacted the Strong Workforce Program effective July 1, 2016 that provides a clear set of priorities for enhancing career technical education, and includes $200 million of ongoing funding to support this effort.
The Strong Workforce Program is solidly based on regional economies and requires each region to collaborate with workforce development entities, community colleges and four-year universities, economic development organizations, councils and chambers, government, and business/industry to work together to develop a Regional Workforce Development Plan that focuses on evidence-based decision-making and student success, with workforce outcomes aligned with the performance accountability measures of the federal Workforce Innovation & Opportunity Act (WIOA). The goal is to provide a regional approach to address workforce readiness and employment.
The San Diego and Imperial Valley Workforce Development Boards (WDBs) are also required to complete a similar regional plan. Called the Southern Border for WIOA planning purposes, both their plan and the community colleges’ plan must be completed by January 2017. A small group from our region’s community colleges and WDBs have met to review the requirements of both plans and have tentatively agreed to share resources and produce one regional plan with core workforce development strategic priorities based on a shared research base. The plan will be updated annually and good for four years.
As a required partner for us, we are asking you to agree to represent your organization/entity on the Planning Committee and assist us with developing the workplan that will result in a regional workforce development plan that your entity can utilize for workforce program planning and evaluation, and that will provide you with the data you need to make informed choices for the students/clients you serve. We envision the regional plan as a “wagon wheel” with the hub being the core strategic priorities and the spokes being the individual plans that are more specific to each entity.
The first meeting is:
Thursday, September 1, 2016
2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
San Diego Workforce Partnership
3910 University Ave, Suite 400
San Diego CA 92105
Planned goals/outcomes for this meeting include:
1. Clear understanding of need/core elements for a regional Workforce Development Plan.
2. Regional workforce development partners understand their role in supporting this effort, see the value in “what’s in it for me,” and agree to work together to develop the plan.
3. Tentative agreement reached on the workplan/timeline.
4. Dates for two major regional convening meetings scheduled – November and December
R.S.V.P.:
Amber Pierce
619-660-4017
Questions and information:
Mary Wylie
619-957-5540
mary@myworkforceconnection.org