Failure To Plan Is Planning To Fail

The Peralta Community College District does not use strategic planning or strategic goals or AB1725 (the law mandating shared governance with all partners in the district at the table on governance issues). This failure to plan and set strategic goals means the budget is not focused on critical issues like growth and equity. As a community college district we need to determine what our strategic goals are and build a budget based on achieving those goals. We need to constantly be collecting data on our progress and reviewing and adjusting the areas where we are not meeting our goals. Only by adopting this model of strategic planning and continuous improvement can we build the Peralta District our community deserves.

We Need to Take the Following Steps

Peralta has not produced a strategic plan for the District since 2015. Since 2015 four major changes have impacted the Peralta District.

1) Enrollments have declined by 30% since the 2015 Strategic Plan was approved.

2) California has introduced the Student Centered Funding Formula (SCFF) into the California Community College Funding Formula. SCFF calls for 10% of district funding to be based on success in those metrics which include
performance on certificates, degrees, transfer to four year colleges, attaining wage levels based on local living wage standards, and other metrics.

3) The Covid-19 Pandemic.

4) As the pandemic recedes local businesses and companies have a huge increase in the demand for skills the Peralta’s Career Education programs provide.

1) In a 2018 effort to address the addition of the SCFF funding formula, the Peralta District set goals aligned with the Community Colleges Chancellors Office’s Vision for Success. This plan aligned the SCFF metrics with Peralta District Goals to improve the colleges performance on the SCFF metrics. This effort has never been integrated into a new strategic plan.

2) In the Fall of 2021 and continuing into this year the Peralta District began cutting classes and focusing on creating more savings to lessen the impact of the new funding model. The district abandoned the efforts to increase the SCFF metrics and by choosing to cut classes negatively impacted the metrics. This is despite the fact California has continued to fund the college at its 2017/2018 funding level, which is significantly above current enrollments.
This hold harmless funding level is guaranteed through the 2024/2025 funding cycle.

3) Peralta Administration has pulled back from targeting improvement in SCFF metrics with these class cuts and any hope of meeting the new funding metrics. The district’s focus is now reducing costs to build a budget surplus tommeet the coming fiscal cliff.

4) The Peralta District should use the hold harmless excess funds to target improvement of the SCFF metrics and support added classes where this can be done.

5) The Peralta District’s budget should reverse the growing percentage of funds that have moved to the District Office and move them back to the classroom to support student success.

Grow enrollments through increased marketing, focused outreach efforts and expanding new opportunities

1) For the 2022/2023 budget Peralta is allocating $513,000 for print, radio and TV ads. This means only 0.33% of Peralta’s budget at the district and colleges is spent on advertising and promotion of classes at the four colleges. The impact of promotion can easily be seen when local press covered the Peralta is Free Campaign and enrollments increased significantly. Many of our Career Education programs are unique not only to the Peralta District but the entire Bay Area. A good promotional campaign could increase the number of out of district students especially in our Career Education programs.

2) A low percentage of local graduating high school students enroll in the Peralta system. For 2021-2022 only 15.1% of 2000 graduating OUSD students enrolled in the Peralta colleges. Almost 50% did not attend any college. Stronger alignment with our local K-12 school districts would increase
enrollment. Peralta needs to do a better job of reaching out to this population of students.

3) Expand new programs like SB 544 that allows adult education students to enroll free of any tuition in community colleges. The Peralta District should be working closely with our Northern Alameda County Adult Education Collective to expand the number of adult education students enrolled in our colleges. The federal Ability to Benefit Program (ATB) allows adult education students working on their GED or High School Diploma to qualify for financial aid if they are enrolled in certified Career Education Programs and they have successfully completed six units of college level credit. With our large immigrant population this is a community we should be doing a better job of serving and expanded adult education concurrent enrollment and using the Ability to Benefit program would give these students affordable access.