In this new day of "maximum flexibility" for California adult schools, what do adult school leaders percieve as the most important qualities of information systems? What posture are adult school leaders taking toward the initiation of change in their organizations? In September 2009 we asked you these questions. We'd like to share with you the results of our survey.

Go to http://www.bostonreed.com/partners/survey-results.cfm.

It is a season to reassess long-standing practices and make way for new. So say a majority of adult school leaders. Check it out.

Greetings Adult Education Administrator/Staff,

Boston Reed College would like to request that you participate in a quick survey about program management systems for adult education.

Please follow this link to a short survey to help us understand how we can serve you, your staff and your students better!

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB229MSGSKJT2

We would like to have all results in by Wednesday, September 23, 2009.

Thank you for your participation!

Best regards,

A~
Alice Chegia

Boston Reed College

SVP, Partner Care

direct- 707-307-5062

mobile- 510-520-1068

On August 3, 2009, California State Superintendent of Schools Jack O'Connell announced that CDE will now accept electronic signatures in attendance accounting systems.

O'Connell's notice is available at http://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/sf/aa/electronicattenltr.asp,The notice outlines the requirements local education agencies must meet in order to take advantage of the new permission.

It appears that Boston Reed's adult education management system CDI would meet these requirements.

Imagine the savings in money, time, and trees your school might experience by eliminating the print-bubble-sign-scan routine. This is definitely worth exploring!

Last fall and winter, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing convened an advisory panel to review the requirements for Adult Education and Career/Technical Education teaching credentials. CTC now has a survey available to collect the panel's recommendations. The online survey is open until May 8, 2009.

To find the survey, go the the CTC Adult Education page, and then click the link, Stakeholder feedback--Changes to Adult Education Credential Requirements.

Issues related to getting new teachers into our adult schools and ROPs might be the last thing on many school leaders' minds in this season when most schools are working through staffing reducitons. Nevertheless, with an eye to a better day, I would encourage adult and career educators to participate in the survey.

On January 15, 2009, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing's Committee on Accreditation approved Boston Reed's Leadership Development Program. The program meets CTC's "Tier 2" Administrative Credential requirments through  a two-year coaching relationship with an experienced and trained mentor.

The seed for Boston Reed's program was sown about a year and a half ago. In a conversation about professional development among adult school leaders, someone observed, "Every one of us sat through our administraive credentialing programs with a roomfull of elementary school educators," and the relevance for career adult educators was spotty.

We expect our Leadership Development Program, with effective adult educators as mentors implementing a genuine Individualized Development Plan process, will be responsive to the needs new adult school adminstrators face. ...Not just jumpiing through the hoops for the credential.

See the CTC press release naming Boston Reed's program.

Learn more about Boston Reed's Leadership Development Program.

"How did you leearn about us?"

When your students and customers answer this question, they give you valuable feedback to help you assess the impact of your various advertising efforts.

Schools and colleges using Boston Reed's data system CDI ("Comprehensive Data Infrastructure") now have a means for collectiing this key information. New features allow schools to ask enrollees this question on the registration page when students are doing online registration. The school can completely customize the list of answers that students may select from.

Once this "learned about" information is collected, we give you a tool for reporting it out for any date range you choose. We also include the 'Learned About' responses in the form of a filter in the Contact Tool for direct email marketing. So you can, for example, send a targeted email specifically to those students who learned about you from a radio ad campaign you ran and signed up for the first time between August 20 and September 15.

(And, if you haven't been to the Contact Tools window lately, you will find that it now has a built-in HTML editor to help you send out emails with eye-appeal!)

To see documentaqtion for using these "Learned About" features, go to the CDI Help Table of Contents. In the section, "Doing Business on the Web," see article number 9, The "Learned About" Report.

If you are not using Boston Reed's data system now, on our website you can get an Introduction to CDI.

Like almost everything in CDI, these ideas came from administrators like you who use the applicaton. We always listen to our customers to discover what features would make your life easier and make your programs more manageable.

As the article indicates, there's no such thing as a dead-end job in healthcare!' This article on the 'Explore Health Careers' Site gives excellent examples of career ladders in healthcare.

Additionally, "Advancing in Health and Health Care Careers - Rung by Rung" is a good resource for employers looking for examples of how to initiate a work-based learning environment to allow incumbant workers to pursue career ladder programs.

Jobs to Careers is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in collaboration with the Hitachi Foundation and the United States Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration and with technical assistance provided by Jobs for the Future.

While all industries are projected to show major shortages of college-educated workers in California by 2020; the shortage has already hit the health care sector. And it's not just nursing. "Allied health" practitioners make up 60% of the health workforce with technical occupations such as medical assistants, pharmacy technicians, respiratory therapists and the like.

The Golden State will soon be hit by the 'double whammy' of California's aging population and workforce, with a generation of highly skilled Baby Boomers retiring from the industry. Despite having a projected growth in population in the coming years, the study found that California lags behind the rest of the nation in providing an adequate health care workforce.   The first study of it's kind in a decade, the Executive Summary of the report outlines the factors driving the demand of the allied healthcare workforce as well as illustrates the factors limiting the supply. The full report defines the allied healthcare workforce, the projected growth in California, limiting supply and demand factors and an analysis of nursing as it relates to the role with allied healthcare.

Stakeholders across the state overwhelmingly cited limited educational capacity in allied health education programs as the greatest factor restricting workforce supply. The study also offers policy recommendations both specific to health care training programs and to overall educational performance.

The research was funded by Kaiser Permanente and the California Wellness Foundation and conducted by Health Workforce Solutions, LLC. The study was sponsored by the Campaign for College Opportunity.  

At the orientations that I present at, I get asked 'why do we need to take CPR for the Healthcare Provider.' Well, here's as good an example as any as to why it's so important. This is a testament to true life application of skills learned in class. Kudo's to Boston Reed College Instructor Beverly Boehm for her stellar instruction to Carolyn and the other students at South San Francisco Adult School's Clinical Medical Assistant class.

The story ran in the San Mateo Daily Journal.