Student Equity Plan

2019-2020 Equity Plan Executive Summary
2017-2019 Integrated Plan: BSI, SE, and SSSP (.pdf)
Student Equity Plan 2017- 2018 Executive Summary (.pdf)
Student Equity Plan 2015 - 2016 (.pdf)

The El Camino College (ECC) Student Equity Plan (SEP) was designed to advance the college’s mission of providing excellent comprehensive educational programs and services that promote student learning and success in collaboration with our diverse communities. By addressing the needs student groups that have been historically underserved, we are embracing and pursuing that mission. We aim to provide diverse student groups with the tools and opportunities they need to achieve their goals.

The Student Equity Plan serves to provide basic skills completion, degree and certificate completion, career and technical education and transfer opportunities for all our students. This plan helps us provide the necessary tools to ensure all our diverse students have the same opportunity to achieve their goals.

The initial equity planning process involved many college stakeholders. The Office of Institutional Research and Planning collected and analyzed student success data, and disaggregated those data by ethnicity, gender, disability status, and economic disadvantage status, as well as for foster youth and veterans, to identify the areas of greatest need. Our Student Equity advisory team included research analysts, the Vice President of Academic Affairs, faculty members, deans, classified managers, staff, and students. Prior to drafting the original plan, team members attended the University of Southern California (USC) Center for Urban Education (CUE) Institute to learn about the supported research methods for analyzing student and identifying disproportionately impacted student groups. In 2016, the Student Equity (SE) Director collaborated with Student Success and Support Program (SSSP) and Basic Skills Initiative (BSI) leads to offer a retreat called the “Seeds of Change,” which brought together faculty, staff, and administrators to discuss ways to improve collaboration among SE, SSSP, and BSI activities. Participants included campus leaders from both counseling and academic programs, as well as those from several categorical programs. After the retreat, the Seeds of Change Initiative was created to further develop collaboration plans and take action on retreat ideas. We aimed to incorporate a more cohesive plan that aligns with the goals of the programs as well as El Camino College’s Master Plan. During these bi-monthly meetings, campus leaders from counseling, academic programs, categorical programs such as Foster and Kinship Care, the Veterans Office, MESA, Puente, and Project Success. After examining our equity data, we proposed new pedagogical approaches for current programs that would help bridge our existing equity gaps.

To work toward our equity goals, we have utilized several existing and new programs at ECC, including: First Year Experience (FYE); MESA; the Reading Success Center; the Math Tutoring Center; the Knowledgeable, Engaged, and Aspiring Students (KEAS) Program; Student Equity Re-Envisioned (SER); Guardian Scholars; the Asian American Pacific Islander Initiative (AAPI); the Student Development Office’s Student Empowerment Series; Puente; and Project Success.

These programs provide services that target economically disadvantaged students, specific racial and ethnic cohorts, foster youth, and basic skills students, among others. Student Equity provided support in the form of personnel, counselors, tutoring, and book and computer loans. We used equity funds to offer new services, such as the Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS), which are led by student peer mentors/tutors. This program has shown promise as a tool to improve student outcomes, especially in disproportionately impacted groups, and we continue to grow and improve upon the support provided. To complement the equity-supported services that target students, we have also provided professional development on relevant topics, including equity and cultural awareness for administrators, faculty, staff and students.

 

Target Groups

In our initial Student Equity Plan, we identified groups that were disproportionately impacted according to five student success measures and then selected target groups for our equity initiatives. We found African American students to be disproportionately impacted in all five areas, and we selected foster youth, Latino students, Pacific Islander students, and students with identified disabilities as target groups in three of the five areas. The table below shows all of the target student groups for each success measure.

Success Measure	Target Student Group
Access	Veterans, Identified Disability, African-American
Course Completion	Foster Youth, African-American, Pacific Islander, Latino
Basic Skills Completion - English	Pacific Islander, African-American, Native American/Alaska Native, Identified Disability
Basic Skills Completion - ESL	Latino, Female
Basic Skills Completion - Math	Foster Youth, African-American, Pacific Islander, Identified Disability
Degree and Certificate Completion	African-American, Latino
Transfer	Foster Youth,Identified Disability, Latino, Pacific Islander, Economic Disadvantage, African American

 

Goals

After selecting our target student groups, we developed five goals for improving student outcomes and narrowing equity gaps. Please refer to the 2015-2016 Student Equity Plan to view the baselines data and metrics used to identify the goals below. We continue to monitor activities to determine their effectiveness, as well as, track milestones for progress and quality of plan implementation. Please refer to the 2017-2019 Integrated Plan: Part II – Program Goals and Planning; Section 1A for details of progress made toward achieving these goals. In addition, see the Student Equity Data webpage for updated student equity data.

A. Access

Increase access by five percent within the first four years of this plan for African American students, and students who identify as veterans.

B. Course Completion

Increase course completion by five percent within the first four years of this plan for students who are African American, Pacific Islander and for students who identify as foster youth.

Increase course completion rate for Latinos by 2.5% in four years, as we try to improve the number of courses lost.

C. ESL and Basic Skills Completion

Increase basic skills pathway completion by ten percent within the first four years of this plan for students who are African American and Pacific Islander in English and math and identified disability students. Increase basic skills ESL completion rates for Latinos and females by ten percent in four years.

D. Degree and Certificate Completion

Increase degree and certificate completion by ten percent within the first four years of this plan for students who are Latino and African American.

E. Transfer

Increase transfer rates by five percent within the first four years of this plan for students who are African American, Latino, Pacific Islander, Foster Youth, identified disability students and for students who are economically disadvantaged.

 

Activities

To determine the interventions needed to address our equity gaps, we explored existing programs and services that served our target groups, as well as activities that were currently under development through SSSP and BSI. We conducted a gap analysis to identify services that that were not supported, as well as services that were shown to be effective and could be expanded. Based on that gap analysis, we have added new activities to our plan, which address the following objectives:

• Increase student mentoring/tutoring/advising and student engagement (e.g., Peer Assisted Study Session Mentors and Supplemental Instruction Coaches).
• Strengthen cohort learning models (e.g., our learning communities in KEAS, the Puente Project, AAPI’s linked learning communities, accelerated pathways in Basic Accelerated Math, and Math Academies).
• Provide leadership opportunities for students that allow them to give constructive feedback to ECC’s Student Equity Advisory team (e.g. the Student Equity Council).
• Increase opportunities for ongoing, cohesive professional learning opportunities for faculty, staff and students, while targeting courses with large equity gaps (e.g., Student Equity Council’s Student Empowerment Series).
• Collect, analyze, and disseminate data on success indicators for at-risk student groups.
• Create programs to support students in generating educational plans and goals (e.g. MESA).
• Expand cultural awareness, through culturally responsive pedagogy, incorporating instructional best practices for working with impacted student populations.

We worked to improve and strengthen existing activities, as well as those under development. Our objectives and related activities aligned with those in other college plans. For example, to forward the common goal of developing culturally responsive teaching and learning professional development opportunities, we collaborated on conducting Intergroup Dialogue workshops and developed Student Equity Re-envisioned (SER), a community of faculty and staff that focuses on best practices to address disproportionate impact and student equity.

 

Resources

The Student Equity Plan joined SSSP and BSI Advisory team to better collaborate activities and resources. These resources were distributed among the five success indicators, other college or district-wide initiatives, and benefits. Yearly expenditures are shown in the table below.

Success Indicators	2014-2015	2015-2016	2016-2017
Access		17,822	33,958
Course Completion	146,317	255,402	259,654
Basic Skills Completion	243,503	567,908	619,810
Degree and Certificate Completion		22,418	42,526
Transfer	57,653	82,697	196,088
Other College or District-Wide Initiatives	248,830	420,736	706,652
Benefits	88,635	239,517	309,986
Total	784,938	1,606,498	2,168,674

Resources

Chancellor's Office - Integrated Planning Webpage
 Chancellor's Office - 2017-19 Integrated Plan Template: BSI, SE, and SSSP
Chancellor's Office - 2016 - 2017 Expenditures Memo
Chancellor's Office - BSI, SE, SSSP Integration Memo
Chancellor's Office - Integrated Planning Webinar

 

Contacts

For further information on ECC’s Student Equity Plan, please contact Idania Reyes at 310-660-3593 ext. 3243.