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Meet Program Partners at the Texas Workforce Commission: A Guide to Who We Serve and What We Do

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Meet representatives from three programs at the Texas Workforce Commission: Adult Education and Literacy; TWC Education Outreach Department and the State Monitor Advocate MSFW . Hear about the constituents they serve and how to build a pipeline for referrals through existing provider networks and specialists across the state.

Show Transcript

and I hit the record button also at the conclusion of this session you will be directed to complete a brief survey to evaluate this session please provide your honest feedback so that we can design future sessions finally please be sure to mute yourself and place any questions in the chat box thank you I will now turn the time over to our session presenters who will introduce themselves hello good afternoon my name is rahasia Lopez Montes I am the state monitor advocate for Texas I am nighttime the manager for the education Outreach Department in the Texas Workforce Commission we have multiple programs but I'll be talking to you today about two of them and good afternoon everyone my name is Mahalia leaning on the state director for adult education in literacy here at the Texas Workforce Commission thanks for joining us so I think I will start with an overview of the program that's under my realm of responsibility so I will share my screen with my presentation Sheridan so this is the msf do you program I am assuming everybody knows what I sent mssw correct if someone is unfamiliar with it wants to let me know raise your hand or when you get yourself so we can go over that let me see but it's not doing anything it's not moving to the next life me a moment are you clicking will work show the image of the real program it's a federal funding funded program by Department of Labor and how we start it is through a lot the last came about because in the 1960 show may or may not remember but it was said that kid of civil unrest there were many revolutions during that decade and one of the items or one of the civil unrest will be the agricultural sector this came about because during the prior that can score some 50s there were several reports of the msf. population being mistreated and discriminated against by employment offices across the us one of those ended up with a order by George Richey that order Bishop 1973 Department of Labor Relations until 1980 that those relations turn into place in basic terms is that each Workforce Solutions office a system itself must receive employment service payment services qualitative tempting flea repellent and quantitatively proportionate to stories Carlos and also alleged that there were several civil rights violations and discrimination so are the new Revelations that their stoves first refusing job order stopping at the federal state or local laws in employment offices and they peace officers should devote sufficient resources to investigate Farm labor complaints the reason of that is hugging you in a relationship but not being able to enforce them was insufficient so the complete system is there to be able to enforce the regulations in US establish a monitor compliance and specifically with housing and safety back in those days there was really no regulation about how to house our mssw keep them safe so that's how this new relationship stablished monitoring system basically ocean believe you're familiar with OSHA by Department of Labor that is some some important part of regulations include improving the Interstate Insurance system job centers Across the Nation are supposed to be connected in nation Nationwide underwater by Sir act so these new Revelations you aim to improve the current system and also implemented a system for reporting monitoring and show one of the main objectives of those relations Is to include a state money to Advocate one introduce myself Michigan State money to advocate for the State of Texas and that is because under these Federal Regulations each state has one the purpose of stock position precisely to be able to ensure those relations aren't they signed at that community service on equal terms of course it'd be at the agency also each Workforce Solutions and the focus system Acura services to mssw he also oversees the agricultural recruitment system they are us and the complaints system that position was reported apartment in favor of Rainier findings as well as data and of course they are right we have improved services to a function includes advice to pitch agency review on policy and participate in Regional programs and meeting such as this one it's also function within Texas Workforce Commission so I am part of Texas Workforce Commission by also receive the proper function because there are many definitions of do you guys have one and probably talking about all of that movement in the 60s where we're trying Tres patines the fish insisted that particular population means anyone that does farm work seasonal basis Kirito the definitions quite long I'm sure is very similar to what all of you your program have but it's trying to capture most of the activities related to former incident bring conjunction with farming operations as quite Broad and the picture show these fish farming and logging because they're not that we don't picture those farming activities Varsity cook during Packaging I could be working in. Right now or in the last 12 months. Individual because now we have as you probably already know you must have W inclusion Myron portion definition for us and that is not reasonable reason to be able to return to a permanent residence within the same that's all that it means I know that that word has not been used differently politically referral program is just means that he needs cannot go back home the same day I want to be included also the notion that I'm a simple use in the afternoon or we talkin about our people these are our farmworkers the backbone of our country sometimes you see nocturnes getting personal notion but it's always good to remember that we are dealing with people's with needs and aspirations now for our program again there were several movements in the 60s fart bombs or finding G F R & B sections I'm sure you don't want to get too much detail into that I have a question already no there is nothing sorry so I want to tell Sue to Sheridan Port of Jafar program that it relates to Partners within our program we have our missions is to inform our population of the partners that we have to address the population so this is twice lightstick relates to Outreach workers when they're out in the field they have to include information about our apartment partner programs so that's why I wanted to highlight this part you if we have beer able to share information and we will have better chances of computing or partner programs have been a servant back fusion this light also talks about it's not only opening that information in the field but it's also a minimum service level indicators business some of the items that we report to the Department of Labor labor to show that we are meeting with that I could also meaning. Emma Sartorius are being served in the same proportion by 9 so this is just showing how we calculate especially proportionate right percentage but one of them is how many of our participants in the program are being referred to other partners and development that includes other federal agencies and that's up that's it about general information about a program the key takeaways perhaps for today is that the blueprint was created to original Equitable and non-discriminatory employment services of course to this population I keep saying that the backbone of our state's economy could because it is it's also a nationwide but it's also good to know that is the most vulnerable population in the u.s. so one of the reasons we have so many regulations are so many programs address in these populations because because of that which seems a statistics and data that shows that they're more vulnerable to crime traffic King labor trafficking social Ray coming that is why we are here by 8 to be able to provide additional protections set cards to that population we have those new service level indicators that includes a referral to other federal agencies such as yours we have the complaints system and make sure that those relations are compliant with it's important to mention here because it's winner gets award out that there is a complaint system if there's anything that is not working even if it's within the offices offices has to provide information or if it's related to the job of the job order anything that's connected to their employment we have a system in place to address those complaints and if you hear about that our Workforce Solutions offices can take complaints Dan dimana traffic it to me is embedded Wendell B the back to monitor compliance with all of the above and a portal at the jail and application services do I miss it though so basically that is stained and not show are the NSFW program at I am open for questions I know we're going to have questions after each presentation thank you alright her after I think I'm next let me go ahead and share mine alrighty so I'm I'm here to talk about the education. Services as they are provided through either the Texas Workforce Commission or we have 21 teams that are scattered throughout the state of Texas that provide the same kind of support that we there are like I said multiple friends within the education Outreach department but I'm going to talk to you today about two of those and that's the the jet are the jobs and education for training grants and then the education outreach program so let's start by talking at this jet grants so decorations essentially estate funds and it pays for the purchase of equipment that supports CTE or Career and Technical programs specifically these grants provide it covers the cost of equipment so unfortunately he doesn't cover curriculum it doesn't cover staff we don't pay for tuition towards training programs but we can buy the equipment that supports the programs as long as it's programmed to lie to certifications licenses within a high-demand occupation for the particular region in which the program is set up so mostly we're working with secondary and post-secondary institutions of this includes our Independent School District open enrollment charter schools and the Windham School District as well as public technical State Community and Junior College. Those are the entities who can apply the funding these grants at the window opens once a year it's a highly competitive Grant we have close to 1,200 ISD districts that doesn't include are Charter Schools when did my colleges and they're all kind vying for the same funds in 2023 we provided are we awarded 42 grants in total will be paid out over 11 million dollars in Grants $12 grants to what we call iatse or there are Institutes of higher education and then we had 30 grants were awarded to our school districts and charter school I'm altogether we estimate at roughly a little over 8,000 students will be what we call impacted are there going to be trained during that first year of the grand. Now we only track the number of trainees that we have in that first year like they're in that guy . but we understand that the equipment that's being purchased is being purchased to be set in a program at 4 at many years so the impact we know far exceeds what we can do testing that first here but we're only really tracking app first aid is concerned we only check the data for one year I just want to make sure I say something and then try to make sure that it's not for me okay so that's pretty much what are Grant's look like for for 2020 this year are starting in 2024 jet grants will now have 15 million dollars per year and to distribute in a war than previous years we had roughly about half of that so in this last legislative session what happened over the spring and summer of 23 the legislative folks got together and they voted to increase the amount of funding that is available for this specific program and so we're hoping to be able to award a lot more next year I know you can see that another 2023 Awards we actually awarded more than the traditional half roughly we have about seven and a half million per year but we had some funding left over the TA had given us quite a large kind of money in 2022 and 2023 pretty much concluded what was the left of that funding all right so that's kind that's jet in the quickest shortest possible way that I can describe it but you'll speak website up here t w c. Texas. Gov / jet feel free to hop on to that jet website you can learn everything that you need to know the ins and outs on the program and you'll be able to find out when our submission windows open wait is not open for applications but we're hoping that it will be open very soon so if this is a grant that you think a local school might be interested in applying for you might want to let them know to just keep track of the website because we will be in there and saying when that window the other program I wanted to talk about do I have a list of currently participating ISD use for the different it depends it's a different year to year I know that again we had to 33rd Icees from last year the governor did to a press release and he announced all of the ice things that were included in last year but maybe I could find that information if you want to know who was awarded last year okay so the education Outreach something a little bit different we actually take Workforce experts and we put them out in the field to talk to students from 6th grade through college and essentially what we're doing is we're providing some kind of a service it could be a present a then a workshop we could be training folks on how to navigate our career exploration research Tools 8 we could teach them how to step-by-step navigate through our tools to collect labor market data stuff like it a teacher or a CTE director trying to figure out you know demand occupation information so that they can set up a program that makes sense essentially help them figure out how to find that data sometimes we are participating by doing a one-on-one sessions with Aaron's or participating in career fairs where we're just providing a boost to talk about career exploration and connecting a student's interest skills or abilities to different occupations out there are available in the region in which they currently or around the state of Texas the name of the program I was speaking about before with the jet Grand it's jobs and education for Texans Grant already so some of the topics that these Workforce experts who go out and and talk to students this is just kind of a sampling of some of the topics to cover it could be correct for Asian it could be how do I write a resume it could be I just need to do an assessment to find out how can I turn the things I'm interested in into a job or it might be bringing in local industry leadership or even employers into schools to have discussions with students or provide work-based learning experiences so we kind of run the gamut in the services are the information we can cover but it really depends on what the request is from the school altimate Lee we're trying to bridge the gap between our academic partners and Industry and employers and this could be conversations that are from the bottom up so students and parents all the way up to administrators superintendents or District or region level Administration administrative staff but those to get to make decisions about what academic programming looks like and so we're just trying to help them to make sure that as students are doing career exploration or trying to figure out the Developmental Pathways they want to take that they're doing it with the knowledge of all of the options available Beyond high school not to sit at your desk Collegiate pathway and how do those different Pathways lead to the different occupations or for Sunday could be the same occupations just going through an apprenticeship versus going through college so that's what we do and I wanted to show you where we're located so we do have one team that's my team were located at the Texas Workforce commission's main office in Austin and offensively we cover the entire state but we do have smaller localized teams right now that are in 21 of our 28 Workforce board regions and you can say those are represented by the red dots on the map and essentially these teams replicate what we do and I'm oh sorry so let me see my role I am the manager of Education Outreach team for the Texas Workforce Commission here in Austin my team do we cover the entire State So based on what these 2019 Thor doing to replicate what we started at the state level they get to obviously set way deeper roots and have a much higher impact on what's Happening locally because they are working within their own communities but I did want to show you a little bit about what the numbers look like so how many where is are we in front of in 2023 we had over three hundred thousand Folks at end of session that was facilitated by one of our withholding career coaches this again could be a student parent or teacher counselor it really depends but it's the blue circle that you'll see the majority of our our audience members were the students that dark blue 83% it's bringing up the passwords so we had quite a few obviously attend our sessions but we also this exposure number here is telling us based on social media Impressions based based on Communications that we've had or one-on-one experiences with our audiences how many individuals we were either exposed to or in front of and that's kind of over half a million so we are in front of a lot of people were talking about I like to think important and impactful information for students across the state and here that's the number up here the 14th out the almost 15,000 sessions those are the individual presentations or workshops that were facilitating almost 15,000 events or sessions happened in just one year and another item that we like to bring with us or when we're doing exploration we're not just talking to the students about the different missions that are happening we're bringing with us virtual reality headsets that actually put students inside occupation simulation so they get to see what it would look like to be a surgical tech and assisting the doctor in any surgery or changing oil in a vehicle the kid that you see laying down in the ground he was performing an oil change so there's a lot of really amazing simulations and the majority of the simulations that we have loaded into our headset upper middle school jobs so not necessarily the kind of job you need about through surgery for but it could be a job that some of these students have never considered before and this just gives them kind of a very quick bird's eye view of what it feels like to be in that working Iron Man the one thing I can say about our career coaches that were probably the most comprehensively trained individuals inside of PWC because we understand that we may be in front of students and they might be the only conversation they ever have with a Workforce expert until they're actually in the workforce market and so we want to make sure that if there are services that a student might be eligible for at the job Seeker whether it's our vocation Rehab Services for job Seekers from disabilities whether it's someone who's Foster Youth and they have you know these amazing tuition fee voucher waivers that they're eligible for that they may not know about we have to be informed about all the wraparound services that may be available to an individual based on their specific needs so that we can give them those referrals are those that just a comprehensive wrap-around Services we want to treat each student holistically essentially but are missing what we like to say what we do is help students find the right fit with the right supports or whatever it is that they choose to do be on high school whether it is going to college or being in an apprenticeship or getting right into the world of work so what kind of that's my program I'm also in a nutshell as her issues said but this is our one 800 number it goes to our career hotline it's on its open 24/7 is an automated line anyone can call this a hotline give us a full address and tell us three occupations they're interested in potentially also maybe three universities or colleges and we can send them summer reports that detail the skills needed the places in which are hiring are are where the occupation might be in high demand what kind of education attainment you need to get into this occupation or different Pathways that are available and resend those reports with any kind of supportive documentation so like we have brochures leaflets are informational booklets and will send whatever we think is appropriate to send to our callers based on what it is if they're calling us about and those Services those reports that those can be sent for free there's no cost to anybody who he wants to use sure hotline or our services if you want some of us to come out and do workshops maybe do interview prep or mock interviews if it's supposed to need to practice or to help me in my resumes if they can't get to a local Workforce wishing office to get with one of those career counselors we can send a coach out to do the same thing the very bottom there's a URL there's a tiny tinyurl.com that will take you to a list of all of the Publications that we offer are supportive of Career Education and exploration and the email that's in the middle is how you get how you can reach me and my team so if you have questions about our programs if you want invite us to come out you would send it to that particular email is it monitored by all the members of our state-level team so somebody will get back to you quickly and that's the end of my presentation so I'm going to hand it off to Mahalia facilitator that tiny URL link to take folks to a place where they can get contact information for each of those 21 teams that you listed across Texas with the that q r code is should take them to what call a teacher padlet it's an online resource where we kind of just collected all the links to our Publications are online tools and our emails our Communications they can send if they send anything to that Career Information Hotline tell me where they're located if there's a local team I'll connect him with those folks and we're good thank you okay sorry my turn I was having a technical can you dye see my screen and is it up I can say it good afternoon and thank you so much we're going to have enough time and here we are we got plenty of time so that means that just means I have more time to talk I'm going to keep my camera off just because I've been having some technical issues with my internet but I'll pop it back on at the at the end here before we get I'll just let you guys know I do also have a quite a few QR codes available at the end of my PowerPoint so keep your camera handy and you'll be able to capture those those quick a QR codes and then always go back and look at information later at your at your own pace their education and literacy a lot of folks don't realize that the Texas Workforce Commission is actually the administrator the state administrators for what we call Title to adult education in literacy dollars here for our big state of Texas these were formerly with the Texas Education Agency in ta but we just moved over to the tech Workforce Commission in 2013 the reason for that and you'll see it as we kind of get more into the services that we offer in the alignment of our services to post-secondary education and also employment I was one of the reasons why the Texas legislature decided to make the move and move the program over to gwc back in 2013 before we get started out so I Lori in Horatio also mention to all these programs at Twee kind of does and we do a lot a lot of people think about our agency and they think of us unemployment agency and really though the bulk of what we do has to do with actually getting folks employed so where at employment agency and a lot of the services that we provide and the funding that we have comes out through our local Workforce Development boards so I'm curious how many people in the audience actually are very familiar with the work for boards or their local Workforce Solution offices so if you guys could just respond and chat that would be great I found just going out and doing General presentations that a lot of individuals don't really know about the Workforce Solutions offices are really a lot of the services that they provide so it'd be helpful if you guys could just throw and chat are you familiar with it are you familiar with the services that are out there already one thing that makes adult education little bit different is that all of the funding that we get from our federal Partners goes out through a competitive Grant process so these these dollars are not necessarily administered through the local Workforce Development boards or I'm out through the Workforce Solution offices this is actually a competitive grant that the Texas Workforce Commission does about every five years so these are multi-year Grand Suite epicly put one out about every five years I'm it's an 80 million-dollar annual investment that the state makes for the services that I'm going to be talking about today so even though that seems like a lot of money and 80 million dollar certainly seems like a lot of money to put out in the state every single year when you really start to think about some of the big numbers that we have here in Texas being a large very complicated state that we are we have about three million people here in Texas that don't have a high school diploma don't have an equivalent we have about 9 million folks that are second-language Learners and of those nine million about two million say that the there their fluency affects their ability to actually get a job and maintain work so we've got a lot of folks to serve with this 80 million dollars and I can tell you right now it's just never enough we end up serving about 70,000 participants annually but again if you think about those big number weather out there it's just not really enough money to kind of go around so let's talk just a little bit about the program objectives so this is not your grandpa's GED program and I think a lot of people they hear the term adult education in literacy that's what they think is a GED program we also do use as a second language as well and classes for that as well but really back in 2014 the program was redesigned at the federal level how to redesign the purpose in the mission of these funds and specifically Target the funding for this program to increase high school equivalency credentials and diploma credentials for individuals that were eligible entering the program but it was also really about connecting the program to other resources that were already available in the community through some other federal dollars and ultimately getting folks connected to post-secondary patient and getting them on a career Pathway to better wages now some folks that come into our program are employed and they've been employed for a very long time and they're looking to make a skill upgrade to advance their careers and that's fine too but these are the program objectives that we currently have and if you read through them you'll see right away that many of them don't say anything about hey go get your GED it's really all about creating career Pathways for individuals that are low-skilled I'm getting them on a path to improving their skills so that they can either maintain or retain employment question we get asked quite a bit as well who do we serve again going back to you sort of I think the mentality of the path which is so that's the DD program we actually have a very broad eligibility for our program and for our services so we will serve individuals I'm obviously who don't have a high school well, or an equivalent but we will also serve individuals that do have a high school diploma or equivalent again trying to connect them back to post-secondary education as Educators even the secondary level many of you are aware a lot of folks are you know they're graduating from high school and there's an achievement gap between K through 12 and and getting your high school diploma and actually being College ready and sometimes. choose to go into the work place where they may no longer be using his educational and academic skills that they learned in high school for quite some time they try to get reconnected back to college maybe 5-10 years down the road and all of us they don't have the skills that they need to really be on a college level credit-bearing coursework so what happens they fall into developmental head so we also open up and how the opportunity to serve those individuals that may already have a high school diploma and just are not reading writing or math at a 12th grade level so instead of putting them into developmental head we can serve them in adult at and give them a good pathway back to post secondary education and then of course we also serve second-language Learners as well and our second language learner population is very Broad and the spec drum of who we serve in that population can be folks that are coming into our program that may be a literate in their native language to individuals who are internationally trained professionals and have degrees and extensive experience in their home countries and they come here and they don't speak the language so the program that we we sort of offer and design for the second language Learners has to be equally robust in order to be able to the needs of our individuals now I know that you guys are trying to keep bodies in the seats in the goal is really to keep individuals connected to K through 12 get them graduated and that is the way of course support you but we also know that the students that you know especially with this population they're very fluid there migrant they need to be able to move there supporting their families financially there's lots of reasons why may be an alternative educational opportunity makes a lot of sense and you guys are the ones that are on you know boots-on-the-ground working with these individuals so I want to give you enough information today that you feel call empowered to go back and maybe if this is an option that you feel comfortable that we're going to take care of them again we say those that lack you know basic Mastery of a basics and what does that really mean and what it really means to us is you know if they don't have a high school diploma or even if they do but they're testing below with 12.9 on an approved test which we have here in Texas we would consider them base Skilsaw deficient and that can be a test we do Reading Writing and math and language and basically if they come in and they're scoring low in any of those areas they may be eligible for a program obviously they are and they don't have I the secondary school diploma or if it's recognized equivalent in last again those that are non-native English speakers the second question I get about eligibility has to really do with income many of the programs offered by the local Workforce Development board to have some sort of income requirement meaning they are restrictive and really primarily meant to serve visuals who are low-income we do not have an income requirement for adult education and literacy Services it's not something we ask we're really focused on more so folks obtaining that the skills that they need the academic and educational no functioning skills that they need so income and I is not something that we take into account or even collect so I was talking a little bit about the services that we provide and that this isn't your grandad's GED program and what I mean by that is we go way beyond that and I want you guys to feel like you know about all the tools that we have available for students that are entering our program part of our core Services of course has basic skills in then it's that those individuals that are coming in maybe they have a goal that they want to go to college but hey I can't pass my tsia and I'm going to end up in developmental add I need to improve my reading it can be something that it can be digital literacy I can be family literacy I can be Workforce preparation activities really preparing individuals to be ready for work the world today looks a lot different from an employer's perspective than it did even 10 years so things like digital literacy are top-notch of when it comes to employers needs and they've been very communicative with us about that so we handed the literacy curriculum we actually just rolled out a Statewide content standards similar to what you guys are using terms of cheeks we use content standards and we have all of our programs must align to teach all of our students coming in how to be digitally literate high school equivalency and Beyond we do have our high school equivalency program so we'll prepare individuals for right now the DD is the only Texas approved certificate of high school equivalency so we do GED preparation her classes College and Career knowledge we do arginaid remediation again for math reading and writing we have English as a second language we call an English language acquisition activities this is also going include a Civics component all of our English second language activities include Civics education and so I really teaches people about the rights and responsibilities of citizenship we have services for something called we call it intern Ashley trained professional or skilled immigrants so again that the Spectrum for ESL population is very Broad in Texas and so we have to be very responsive to that Katie's is something called an integrated Education and Training integrated Education and Training means that if you want to go to college but you don't feel like you're either academically prepared or from a fluency perspective if you're second language learner you feel like you would struggle just from the English fluency in those classes we do a contextualized curriculum to the workforce training concurrently so that students can succeed Eid in college-level coursework even though they may be Reading Writing math at a 7th or 8th grade level when they actually go into college and we work with the local community colleges to develop curriculum and help the students be successful we do have some corrections education so happening in the state jails and some of State facilities across Texas we focus on post-release Services we want to make sure that individuals and residents coming out of those facilities have a direct connection to adult education activities when they come out so they can finish her GED finish whatever technical and they were working on the whole goal with our Corrections education program is to reduce recidivism here in the state we do employer gatesman we do workplace literacy activities will we will go on site with an employer and actually Taylor our curriculum and Taylor are coursework to meet the employer's needs many employers here in Texas like I said digital literacy has become something just in the last you know 5 to 10 years it's very important as an employee has a large population of folks maybe they're rolling out a brand new in oh fancy Contraption there at the employer and they're moving all their HR systems to a digital system or something and then need someone to come in and help to try in their Workforce we can do that as well so it can be a very tailored approach to how we serve employers and then last but certainly not least is all about career Pathways every time a person comes into our program we are assessing from the very beginning and then essentially building a career pathway for that individual every person that comes to us has a different set of circumstances but ultimately what we want to do is try to determine what are the skills that potentials whether that's again a high school equivalency or maybe Beyond like a post-secondary credential industry-based certification what is it that individual need to be successful and get connected to work so these are a lot of services that we do provide so again you know just kind of think about what potentially if you have a student that sometimes are just ready you know they just like I'm ready to get on with my don't Haven more more parents coming to me saying hey I have a 17 year old they just they cannot go to school anymore they're either getting bullied they've got social anxiety that got all these things that are going on and it just no longer seems like a fit for their future can you offer an individual so these are some of the services that we offer and now I want to talk just a little bit about going to kind of be on the services and really what we can do for an individual that may be one of the primary reasons they can't connect to services is because of the very fluid nature of their their circumstances of course you know I've been talking more than just a heist Oklahoma but I also want to talk about some of the Statewide virtual options that we have available for a student's so back actually this past summer we launched a Statewide virtual providers sometimes with a migrant population they're moving around and they want to be able to maintain school but becomes very difficult we do have these two 100% online virtual options available and with both the University of does an Texas Tech University they actually have to pass for individuals one is a credit class they come in to get an assessment of pull their transcripts and if they only like a couple of credits and they're shy I have a high school diploma they will put them on a high school diploma pass if the students coming into as may be there an older student they they're lacking quite a few credits and it makes more sense to put them on a path for a g e d I'll put them on a path for a g e d but both of those options are available so I'm going to give you guys just a little bit of time and so you can click these QR codes on each of these institutions has their own enrollment prop and their own page and and how you can access them reach out to them get connected to Services they both only serve 18 year and up individual so that's one thing to kind of keep in if you're considering either one of these as an option for your students I can see questions rolling in I'm going to try to get to the in here so we have time to answer and if you need go back I'm happy to go back for this QR codes one of the bigger things that we've rolled out over the actually started at the beginning of the pandemic really that's when we really got serious about it is I'm sure things changed drastically in in your areas as well we have to consider other options for how we were delivering our instruction so we have always had synchronous and asynchronous instructional options in the state but it was very on the local level back in when covid first started and we got thrown into a whole new world we had to figure out how to move 50,000 students from it in person classrooms to Virtual learning faces and so systematically since the beginning of covid-19 just creating the space with all of our programs so now across the state all of the programs that we have offer both synchronous and asynchronous instructional Opera options they'll do hybrid and flex learning meaning that the student can be both in person as well as getting some self-paced online asynchronous learning as well it helps to just create more time in a short amount of time for the students so they are working during the day and they need options for night time we have those options available something we're doing right now is a we have funding actually through the Texas Education Agency and thank you to our Texas legislators for approving a free GED voucher program an interesting thing for me is always been the fact that our federal dollars that are meant to say Fort piano high school equivalency attainment cannot pay for 4 hours for them to go and sit for their test is one of the restrictions on our federal dollars I'm so ta being a great partner that they are as a provided us with funding each year to support our students and being able to have access to free GED vouchers on they do have to be 21 and up that's not my rules what's the Texas legislature decided that but we do have free GED doctors available for students I'm if cost is an issue all of our models and this is kind of the way that we do things if you think about that you want to know a little more about what the student's perspective in the kind of what is the pathway that the student gets on when they come into our program we obviously do recruitment I we work with ta to recruit folks that are you know maybe they've taken a GED test and they passed but they've got uniform so we work with other state agencies to do recruitment for our program as well as like the Coordinating Board again we want students not falling into falling into developmental Ed here in Texas are one of the ways that we can do that as work to create referral system to adult education we do a holistic assessment when they come in to us we do College and Career preparation a while we have them we offer them that integrated Education and Training Program so if they want something more than a high full equivalency or they need more than a basic skills left and they actually want to earn it industry-recognized credentials or an industry-based certification or licensure we're going to help them not only with the cost associated I was also just make sure that they are prepared to do the job associated with those credentials and that is a very Separate Peace as Lori can tell you I'm getting a credential is one thing being go to take that knowledge and take that information and be able to apply it in a workplace is a completely different thing and for that reason all of our students have access to Career Navigators alligators are there to help to support them get connected to our local Workforce Partners so that they can look for employment do job placement support and services all the things in our career Navigators do a great job will be there our students connected to I'm all the services that are available to them so one of the things about having a Statewide competitive Grant process is our goal is to get the money out into every community so we really want to focus on getting the funding out to the local communities through that process so right now we have every County in Texas has some sort of Grant funds attached to it now does every County have an in-person class probably not we have a lot of very rule areas here in Texas and in those rule areas it makes it very difficult how to have a live body or even a site to really do classes but we do have again asynchronous options across the state for anyone that may be interested so right now we a total of 34 actual physical grants that we have but we have over 100 providers across the state that are performing all of those services that I was talking about earlier now if you're curious who's doing work in your neck of the woods you can certainly take a shot of this little qr-code it's going to lead you to our Al provider directory when you type in either you zip code you can type in your county you can type in a city when it pulled up the directory the organization at the very top is going to be the one that we fund through TWC and those are the ones that I've been talking about today in terms of services in the funding that's available imma give you just a second if you want to take a picture of that qr-code I think that maybe my last line but if you just want to learn more after today I know you guys are probably getting pounded with a ton of information today and it's a great opportunity to learn more about what we do here at PWC but if you got to come back to it here qr-code that's going to leave you leave you back for adult education in literacy website and they're from there you can launch to both our provider directory you can also see our strategic plan you can see all sorts of things release to our program and I know I see quite a few questions coming in so I'm think I'm going to Jacob I'm going to go ahead and stop sharing and then we can go do some questions if you want I will take you right now there was a couple of comments regarding limited knowledge of Workforce their help after these three presentations what is changed but the first question I am coming across yours do you offer GED prep classes in Spanish I do actually we do offer GED prep classes in Spanish and we will actually they can take the Spanish t e d and utilize our voucher program for the Spanish DVD thank you during this presentation yes they will all be uploaded to the tmip conference site once everything has been finalized we will have all presentations posted there are the virtual courses available I do not believe that they are actually it's a good question I don't think that we specifically have like through Texas Tech University and through the University of Texas I do not believe they have a Spanish option however what I would encourage you to do is to contact your local Al provider in your area from the directory because many times in the local area they do have online a synchronous options of threw that local provider the students can connect to we have about 34 different approved vendors that we use for our asynchronous distance education so there's kind of a little bit of something for everybody that are local providers can choose when it comes to curriculum alright thank you next question in Laredo we have Workforce Solutions for South Texas are you affiliated with this organization yeah so all of the Workforce Solutions in your area are administered and kind of ran by the Texas Workforce Commission so they they kind of report to us that's a nice way of kind of pudding and but we are kind of responsible for the administration of all the local programs that are coming out of the Workforce Solution offices thank you and I'd like to thank Monday Lena or posting get think she converted a lot of Yorkie barcodes and put the actual links into the chat as well someone did ask towards the end there can you go back to the previous slide please I'm not sure if that was just your life backslide or if there was something else they were wanting to see him and Jacob you said that you were going to share the resources out okay your PowerPoint will be posted up on the conference page it was the second to last slide you mind posting the sharing again and put turn that back up es let me do that and I saw a question about kind of who has the dollars at least for the adult education and literacy Grant's it's a little it's kind of everywhere in terms of who but we do have grants with Educational Service Centers that got isd's community colleges nonprofit organization we even have a couple of our Workforce boards that have our grants so since it is a competitive process they have to apply for the funding and then it goes through an evaluation of course and then ultimately you know it's the best application wins so across the state we have all sorts of different types of entities that actually have the grant funds okay thank you any final questions for our three that was really trying to type as fast as I could but and I'll try to keep it in there so I know from an ESV perspective having tried to connect with Workforce before trying to explain that if there are individuals who have worked until Prairie or seasonal agricultural before if there is a way to connect so I don't know if you just have any recommendations on how we can better do that because I think that that is a little something that is not I mean absolutely even though I know we can work and collaborate together but it has been a little challenged and I might just be because it's some service centers there's really only one of us and we're trying to get out to all the different offices thank you and did you all I may have a follow-up question in terms of like you said you've reached out to the Workforce Solutions offices their website specifically were you looking to connect on four students it's been it's been awhile and it actually was more on the identification and recruitment side no not so much services that I which is why I'm so thankful for this presentation and all the info shared because I do think that. There's a lot of really great information but the sort of more so the as I said identification and recruitment side of things it's been awhile so just a opportunity to sort of restart those lines of communication. Y'all would be a great resource to tell us how you think we could better do that one thing I would say is so we at least into the adult center station literacy funding we do something it's called a pearl you know we love our acronyms and Angie it so it stands for participants individual record layout and one sayings in in terms of him part of our assessment so when we're in taking in students come in and they're interested in our services they have to fill out this Pearl and one of the questions that we ask is are they a seasonal migrant a person so we're collecting that so coming into this presentation I took a look to see in terms of our Statewide data we have about 1,600 cross the state that are currently enrolled in a l services so it may be an opportunity sometimes a  and y'all know this just from working is like if you don't know what questions to ask then it's kind of like you you know you can't get where you need to need to get so that maybe one thing to specifically ask and I'll tell you it's not just a did you catch and let me tell you guys the programs that are currently collecting that status right so they're collecting this as part of the intake process you have adult education do you have a Wagner pies or what is the program that you guys learned about first it's part of the you know the migrant Seasons a little Farm Workers as part of wagner-peyser and then you have Title 1 wioa Title 1 and that is the program its Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act has has four titles so Title One title to title 38 and title for title for is vocation Rehabilitation so all of those titles are collecting the same information from participants when they come into the program so one of the questions I think I'm worth asking would be can they look at that specific element and give you guys referrals for that specific element because they're already collecting age they're collecting. So that it should be a pretty you know what I mean I want to say easy easy thing but at least if you go in there and you're saying hey you know if you have you're collecting this information already maybe you could share that with us and then you know you guys could reach out to see if someone's interested in and connecting with you Lori did you have something else I saw you dancing around everything and if I don't move I can get my sensor to come back on it was dark in here the lights on thank you guys for the presentation thank you from Texas Workforce Commission do not forget once you end your session hear a brief survey will pop up to valuate this session and please please please fill that out our next set of sessions we are on break until 2:30 and our next sessions are starting 2:30 to 3:45 so thank you guys again thank you Texas Workforce Commission for your time and for all of your great information have a great afternoon guys if we have one more question the Nora thank you I have a question for you know you mentioned that you have the Conn is dinosaurs on playing players within you know the Labour exchange and protection of the workers rights so I have a question you know do you monitor you know the h-2a Visa and you know their workers rights I'm just asking because when you know one one time that we did a community outreach you know I'm always serious in our area and we waste awareness of the program and will you do mention about another referral one person said I brought them just you know what this age to babysit just work and when I mentioned will they can do this every time she said no there they need to be available for me anytime when I meet them I was like oh my God you know this is slavery or what do you guys want on point k start will go through our complaints system so it is important that's why I underlined it because h-2a workers are they are workers in the United it's like any other worker in the United States the same rights no different the average workers are trained to explain that to them to the h-2a workers but sometimes we just don't state representative to file a complaint that will allow us to actually go out in the field even perform field checks to see if the employer has is in violation of any of the rules including a program so if we see that it's in violation of the broom and discontinue their employer from getting the benefits or access to h-2a program do you provide any trainees that night I saw the you win a prize during the year that you provide any training to those workers so they can do you know the rides or what was it that what they can you know dude now know we don't provide trainings to their workers unfortunately we don't have access to provide information to outreach or they coming into our Workforce Solutions office has not reached at the workplace regulations do I reach at their housing facilities take most of h-2a have a separate housing facilities we can access those or any other Gathering location so sometimes it will be a little reluctant for us to go out there but we can go at the other two options and just provide information to basically all of that is if I need to file a complaint they can go at any for Workforce Solutions offices and we will take that complaint and take it away to go now that I have a few more minutes I did not mention my presentation. The music finish enough msfw the Labour Exchange Commission is basically speaking workers and we'd match those in our Labour exchange the definition of hemisphere do you now November last year changed excluding student for the program before I was mainly trying to be separate from all the programs related to students with now includes students all the data and honey was talking about it's also included in our intake whether they are or not students so that could be useful. it can be a mess of Douglas and students of the Central Time students at the same time to seasonal that we talked about during non-school months they could work on the farms we captured that. I know we're out there and also on the other question regarding sharing better ask you probably already know it's hard to find it when I think the firemen are you so we have an Outreach team I know you guys also have a resources and sharing data both ways will certainly help us as well to reach out to the parents will we reach out to the parents and we can the same time provide information to them for their case which out of your students and vice-versa the students get information through you offer program than they can also discuss that with their parents I can be the one in the same we can have a student that is Young there's work in the field so we just need to figure out a way where we can share that that I'm better serve the community sorry for the long answer thank you sorry I was being any final questions of once again power points will be posted on the tmip conference page at the end of the conference so next session starting at 2:30 thank you guys again for your time and for all the value information and thank you for Tissa pins for all the wonderful questions and interactions are have a great afternoon

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