Washington state’s combined plan will address the activities that will be undertaken to meet the requirements of Section 233 of WIOA to promote transitions from adult education to postsecondary education and training through career pathways. Under the new combined plan, all Basic Education for Adults providers will use funds made available under section 222(a)(2) for the adult education and literacy required WIOA activities including the four new required national leadership activities to develop or enhance the adult education system across the state. All funded providers will be required to detail the process that will be used to collaborate with all stakeholders and align Basic Education for Adults programming in their 2015-2016 extension and 2017-2022 competitive grant plans with all partners named in the combined state plan. Eligible providers will provide services in alignment with local plans detailing how they will promote concurrent enrollment with Title I programs and activities in order to meet the state adjusted levels of performance and collect data to report on performance indicators. In addition, all providers will describe how they will fulfill one-stop responsibilities in their region. As members of local Workforce Development Boards, local providers will participate in ongoing plan development and implementation of WIOA. The following transition activities are underway in Washington to meet the four newly required state leadership activities requirements of WIOA: following activities have been completed or are underway in support: • The Washington State Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board (WTECB) has established a highly inclusive committee structure to identify key areas of work and implementation planning. Basic Education for Adults is represented on each of the committees with local providers being engaged as needed. The committees are: o Steering Committee: members include WTECB, Business, Labor, all core programs, Chief Local Elected Officials (CLEO), TANF, and the SBCTC. This committee’s work includes creating the WIOA vision and goals, state and local plan development, state policies and guidance to facilitate integrated services development, funding formula guidance, One Stop certification and evaluation criteria, oversight of work plans and timelines, facilitation of communication state-to-state, local-to-state, local-to-local, and among WIOA implementation committees, and state legislative issues. o Committee for Sector Strategies to Close Skill Gaps in the Workplace: members include WTECB, Educational Service Districts (ESD), Business, Labor, all core programs, Washington Workforce Association (WWA), Commerce, CLEO, SBCTC, and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).This committee’s work includes regional designation and governance, data analysis, local workforce development council designations, local board configuration, and sector strategy and industry engagement. o Committee for Performance Accountability and Eligible Training Provider List (ETPL) Committee: members include WTECB, BEdA, DVR, Department of Services for the Blind (DSB), WWA, business, labor, and all core programs. This committee’s work includes alignment of current systems to WIOA for all core programs, establishment of procedures for WIOA performance target setting, alignment of ETPL with WIOA, and the development of performance criteria for Youth and On the Job Training (OJT) programming. o Committee for Education and Career Pathways through Integrated Service Delivery Models: members include WTECB, business, labor, all core programs, all relevant DSHS divisions, Commerce, NASCAP, OSPI, SBCTC, L&I/Apprenticeship, WWA, local and state stakeholders, and other industry partnerships. In addition to Washington’s WIOA committee structure, the following activities are completed or underway to meet the alignment requirement. These activities include: • BEdA system wide, three-day training on developing college and career pathways. This was developed to support WIOA and the state plan requirement to implement college and career readiness pathways for all basic skills students. • Ongoing WIOA face-to-face meetings and Collaborate sessions to update providers on all planning, development, and implementation requirements, strategies, and trainings. These sessions include guest presenters from all core programs. The first of these sessions provided an overview by the WFB, local WDCs, and SBCTC. Providers were given a listing of contacts in their local regions to begin alignment planning and discussions. • SBCTC facilitated work sessions with regional core program partners. Four regional sessions have been completed to date. • WDC facilitated work session on WIOA collaboration at the summer and fall 2015 Council of Basic Skills (CBS) meetings. • Washington’s Governor appointed Adult Basic Education Advisory Council (AEAC) work to identify, develop, and expand the establishment of local shared navigational support systems to students. Washington state implements quality programs and professional development to support all strategically targeted BEdA state initiatives through various means. Professional development needs are strategically determined, developed, and delivered by experts in the content area to meet the WIOA, AEFLA and individual program needs. The BEdA office works closely with the Council for Basic Skills (CBS) to determine areas in which programs need professional development in curriculum and instruction, policy and procedures, and implementation of new programming including reading strategies, IEL Civics program implementation, College and Career Readiness Standards, employability skills, and comprehensive guided pathways. The SBCTC agency also works across the various departments (WorkForce, Developmental Education, Research, Academic Transfer, Student Services, and eLearning) to determine and develop various professional development opportunities that are implemented to move targeted WIOA statewide initiatives forward. During the assessment of individual trainings participants are identify areas of further professional development needs. Once the need has been determined, SBCTC employs a variety of resources to develop and deliver the trainings. National organization such as LINCs and College and Career Readiness and Success Center at American Institute for Research (AIR); CLASP; and SBCTC’s Assessment, Teaching and Learning (ATL) Unit; Student Success Center, Guided Career Pathways Initiative , and eLearning departments. All State Leadership activities align with the required and permissible activities in SEC. 223.a.1 and 2 of WIOA. Federal leadership dollars are granted to providers in support of professional and program development initiatives that include: • Team teacher training for all programming (ABE, ELA, HS 21+, On-Ramp to I-BEST, IEL Civics, and I-BEST) to support career pathways integrated employment and training activities; • Contextualized instruction training centered on the CCR Standards, integrated employability skills, and reading strategies; • Technology in flipped classroom instruction to integrate technology and employability skills development at all levels; • LINCS Adult Numeracy Training to integrate math instruction into ELA pathways and to increase numeracy instructional skills of faculty in order to meet the College and Career Readiness Standard, the new NRS Level descriptors, and to increase outcomes across the system in mathematics; • Innovation in IEL Civics supporting the development of co-enrolled integrated employment and training activities (I-BEST) as well as math at all levels; • Reading Apprenticeship Training to prepare students for college-level instruction; and • Contextualized integrated employability skills training.
2. The provision of technical assistance to eligible providers of adult education and literacy activities receiving funds under this title, include: a) The development and dissemination of instructional and programmatic practices based on the most rigorous or scientifically valid research available and appropriate, in reading, writing, speaking, mathematics, English language acquisition programs, distance education, and staff training. Current initiatives include: o Washington’s adoption in October of 2014 of the College and Career Readiness (CCR) Standards as the basis for all instruction. 2014-17 will focus on training to transition from the Washington State Adult Learning Standards to CCR Standards with full implementation in 2017 with system wide professional development provided. o Integrated Digital English Acceleration (I-DEA), which is a hybrid instructional model based on the flipped classroom, providing problem solving activities in technology rich environments. Each student is provided with a laptop computer and 24/7 access to learning. Curriculum including language acquisition, rights and responsibilities of citizens and workforce training is thus available around the clock for ELA levels 1-3. Unlike traditional approaches in which students must learn English before pursuing job-training, I-DEA teaches English in tandem with college and career skills. This program has a highly intensive, quarterly staff training and implementation component in addition to on-going program support from SBCTC. I-DEA will be fully implemented in all programs by June 2016. o Reading Apprenticeship training and implementation, which will continue in Washington State as a strategic instructional model throughout Adult Basic Education and college programming, incorporating the essential components of reading specific to adult learners’ needs. o LINCS Adult Numeracy Training, which will be conducted throughout 2014-15 in support of mathematics instruction for increased rigor of programing in order to prepare students for college and career pathways. o Technology and the flipped classroom model training which will begin in 2015 to enhance faculty skills in the use of instructional technology for distance education and student skill development in solving problems in technology rich environments.
b) Assistance in the use of technology, including for staff training, to eligible providers, especially the use of technology to improve system efficiencies o To enhance system efficiencies, Washington conducts trainings through the Blackboard Collaborate system and also offers training to assist staff in the use of Collaborate. o SBCTC also offers training in the online management system, CANVAS for faculty and staff wanting to enhance instruction with technology in the classroom. o A major focus in the next two years is on increasing instruction in problem solving in technology rich environments. Initiatives currently under way that support this work include: o Project I-DEA (Integrated Digital English Acceleration), a three-year pilot program with support from the Gates Foundation that will transform ELA instruction using a flipped classroom model and 50% online instruction o System-wide training on implementing the flipped classroom model significantly increasing access to online learning opportunities.
