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The Express

The Student News Site of Sacramento City College

The Express

The Student News Site of Sacramento City College

The Express

New grant to help SCC students quickly finish entry-level English courses

Image taken from http://www.dreamstime.com/illustration/grant.html.
Image taken from http://www.dreamstime.com/illustration/grant.html.
Image taken from http://www.dreamstime.com/illustration/grant.html.
Image taken from http://www.dreamstime.com/illustration/grant.html.

A nearly $1.5 million grant may help some City College students to complete basic English courses within a semester.

According to Instructional Services Associate Vice President Julia Jolly, the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office approved the basic skills grant request April 1. City College became one of 43 community colleges to qualify for the fund.

The Basic Skills and Student Outcomes Transformation Program, overseen by Holly Piscopo, consists of $1,493,794 to be spent over the next three years. Piscopo, a City College history professor and faculty coordinator for the Basic Skills Initiative, said she plans to use the money to fund transferable, entry-level educational resources for students in “career and technical education programs.”

“We seek to serve 2,730 students over the three-year implementation period,” Piscopo said. “If we do this well, this will reach every student in pre-allied health, every student in cosmetology.”

Piscopo said she wants to provide classes and tutoring opportunities for students who focus on hands-on work so they can improve reading comprehension and writing abilities for licensing exams. She plans for the Basic Skills grant to funnel transfer-level English and ENGWR 108 into an “accelerated” one-semester time frame.

This accelerated learning mode, according to Piscopo, has already been tested in the Umoja-SBA program, a City College learning community for students of African descent. Umoja success rates were “very high” compared to students who took basic skills classes in a more traditional manner, Piscopo said.

“So we thought it was promising enough to see if we could do the training to scale it up, and that’s what we did,” Piscopo said.
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Around 900 students should “‘feel’ the impact of the grant” during its first year, according to Piscopo. She also said that faculty will be trained for the accelerated English curriculum during this time, while the cosmetology and pre-allied health departments will be redesigned to fit the new criteria.

Training for these new services has been in Piscopo’s mind, she said, since she became involved with the Basic Skills Initiative in 2006. The program has previously helped City College students through embedded tutoring, in which tutors attend classes with students to develop tighter connections with those who need help with basic English coursework.

Jolly said she hopes the Basic Skills grant will help in “smoothing the way and providing support” for students who must take both general education and technical courses.

“I have a strong wish to see the success of our basic skills students,” Jolly said.

The Basic Skills grant should assist students in transferring out of City College more quickly, according to City College Interim President Michael Poindexter.

“Our hope is to see students persist out of the developmental [area] so they can get to the courses they really need to be taking, and that they’re prepared to take those transfer-level courses or certificate courses or degree courses,” Poindexter said.

The Basic Skills grant may take effect as early as July 1 for City College’s next fiscal cycle, according to Jolly.

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