Post-Secondary Change Networks: A Year in Review

Jul 29, 2022 | News, Post-Secondary

Since launching last summer, the Post-Secondary Enrollment and Completion Change Networks have assessed the existing post-secondary pathways, the barriers that exist to and within them, and began testing strategies to address those barriers while prioritizing community voice throughout the process

Over the last year, and utilizing resources received from StriveTogether’s Challenge Grant, partners launched projects to accelerate the elimination of the opportunity gaps that exist in post-secondary pathways for Black, Latinx, and Indigenous youth, including:

  • Scholarships A-Z launched the Undocumented Youth Empowerment Initiative (UYEI) to increase resources available to Undocumented youth to allow them to create their own pathways without limitations with over 50 undocumented youth applying to be a part of the project.
  • Tucson Regional Educators Collaborative (TREC) launched a teacher mentoring Community of Practice where experienced teachers (5 years+) will not only have a leadership opportunity by becoming a mentor, but will also provide newer classroom teachers in their 1st-5th year of teaching with support and guidance.
  • TREC is also working with teachers from three districts to implement an Equitable Grading strategy in math. Through this strategy, teachers shifted their grading approach allowing students to move from compliance to knowledge acquisition.
  • The Instructors of Dual Enrollment Advancing the Learning of Students (IDEALS) conference was held on March 26, 2022, with 29 instructors attending.
  • Joint Technical Education District (JTED) is working to remove barriers for youth, students, and families to access post-secondary experiences to career tracks, utilizing data to evaluate their outreach efforts to reach more students in an equitable way.
  • C2C facilitated community listening sessions to identify the barriers present and what supports are needed for post-secondary pathways. The Change Network partners met to review the findings from these listening sessions, analyze root causes, and discuss collaborative action to address the community feedback. A report compiling these findings will be publicly released in early fall 2022.

C2C will take the learnings and effective strategies identified from these projects to continue the momentum in these Change Networks as we head into a new school year.