New Dual Enrollment Math Bridge Project provides support for Central Valley non-traditional rural students

(APRIL 20, 2023) — A new state-funded math dual enrollment program will “positively impact” approximately 630 non-traditional students at seven rural high schools next fall through four area community colleges that are members of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium.

Under a regional umbrella of equity and inclusion, the Dual Enrollment (DE) Math Bridge will provide equitable access to transfer-level math courses with embedded support for high school students who are disproportionately impacted, and/or are not traditionally college-bound, said Dr. Benjamín Durán, CVHEC executive director.

McKenna Salazar, Tulare-Kings College & Career Collaborative; Orquídea Largo, UC Merced interim associate vice chancellor; Ángel Ramírez, CVHEC; and Dr. Claudia Lourido-Habib, Porterville College president.

“The project provides students with a transfer-level math course with tiered support,” Durán explained.  “Students have the opportunity to earn transferrable college-math credit in all models that satisfy both the California Community College (CCC) and California State University (CSU) General Education Math Requirement.”

The initiative, the second of its kind launched by CVHEC and its partners in the past few months, is funded by a $1,075,340 award by the California Regional K-16 Education Collaboratives Grant Program, a statewide initiative designed to help California’s economy recover from the COVID-19 pandemic while addressing long-standing social and economic inequities in higher education and workforce participation with a $250 million appropriation to the Department of General Services (DGS) in the Budget Act of 2021. Collaboratives were set up in 13 regions throughout the state.

For the Math Bridge funding, two Central Valley K-16 programs – the Fresno-Madera K-16 Collaborative and the Tulare-Kings College & Career Collaborative – collaborated to create the Central San Joaquin Valley K-16 Partnership that combines resources to achieve equity-focused goals in the four-county region where college graduation rates are 50 percent below the state average.

Other partners in the Dual Enrollment Math Bridge Project with CVHEC and the Central San Joaquin Valley K-16 Partnership are College Bridge of Los Angeles (which presented the first Math Bridge program for the region in January using federal funds) and Fresno Pacific University (also a CVHEC member).

The four community college partners are Clovis Community College, Reedley College, West Hills Community College – Lemoore and West Hills Community College – Coalinga.

The participating high schools are Clovis, Clovis East, Riverdale, Sanger and Sanger West with two more high schools slots still available (see below).

Since the K-16 initiative was established, the Fresno-Madera component has also funded CVHEC’s Master’s Upskilling Program that will play a part in the current CVHEC project upskilling high school teachers to teach dual enrollment math and English courses by CVHEC, National University and Fresno Pacific University.

“DE Math Bridge is the culmination of the partners’ efforts to address the identified needs in one, collective project,” Durán said.

The need for the Dual Enrollment Math Bridge Project stems from students’ failure to pass gateway courses in mathematics and /or English as the biggest barrier for students to be successful in staying enrolled and completing their college degrees, Durán said.

The project will establish systemically aligned dual enrollment courses in college level transfer Mathematics that will become a consistent and ongoing part of the course offerings by the participating high schools and colleges, Durán added.

“The dual enrollment courses will be provided at no cost to students, on their high school campus, during the regular school day,” said Dr. Lynn Cevallos, president of College Bridge.  “Also embedded in the courses will be a College Transition Bridge (CT Bridge) curriculum to prepare students for college success.”

Students will have access to either a Statistics and Liberal Art Math (SLAM) or Business, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (BSTEM) option with a level of support determined by their GPA band.

Each DE Math Bridge model will be taught and assessed by a local team consisting of college and high school math instructors with a college math instructor participating in course planning, common assessments and team grading.

The general goals of the DE Math Bridge proposal are:

1) develop and maintain strategic high school/college partnerships to address educational inequities and foster college success,

2) provide an intersegmental Professional Development program to foster continuous improvement,

3) utilize dual enrollment as a strategy to close equity and achievement gaps,

4) develop a sustainability plan,

5) scale DE Math Bridge and develop a sustainable model that can be replicated in other parts of the Central Valley and rural California.

“CVHEC and its partners are committed to undertake this deeper work that can effectively blur the lines between high schools and its colleges in the Central Valley,” Duran said.

High schools interested in participating, contact Ángel Ramírez, CVHEC finance and operations manager: centralvalleyhec@gmail.com or 559.292.0576.

For CVHEC media inquiries: Tom Uribes (tom@uribes.com or 559.348.3278)

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