WHCCD Risk Management Committee:

The district wide risk management committee approved three Cal OSHA required program plans including the bloodborne pathogens exposure control plan, the hazard communication program and the heat illness prevention plan. The plans have been reviewed by the Chancellor's Executive Cabinet and will be submitted for board of trustees review and approval.

This month the risk management committee will begin reviewing two new Cal OSHA plans; hearing conservation program and fall protection program.  The goal of the committee is to have all required programs and plans in place within the next 12 months.

The new exit and emergency lighting fixtures have been installed at West Hills College Coalinga and the child development center in Coalinga. Installation is almost complete at West Hills College Lemoore.  The new fixtures will be installed at the North District Center as part of the modernization projects.

A new safety training program "The Safe Operation of Utility Carts," is currently being offered for all district staff that use the utility carts (gators, golf carts, John Deere four wheel carts) as part of their job duties.  To date most Coalinga M&O staff have received the training and sessions are being scheduled to accommodate all existing cart users.  Please contact Anne Jorgens at annejorgens@whccd.edu, if you have any questions.

To see what the committee is working on or to review the district’s safety plans, click here.

It has been a busy couple of months for the CDCs.  Coalinga hosted California First 5 for a video shoot.  First 5 California is launching a "Healthy Foods Cookbooks" that will be available soon at Albertson's Foods.  First 5 interviewed children about the foods they like and didn't like and the Coalinga children gave them some wonderful footage for their video clip. To see the video, click here.

Coalinga, Lemoore and Avenal are full to capacity and San Joaquin and Firebaugh continue to work on enrollment.

Teachers have been busy with assessments, parent/teacher conferences and pictures.  It took the photographer three full days to take all of the pictures of all of the children at the Coalinga center (we've really grown).

Saturday, Nov. 22nd is the Coalinga Wham-O-Bass Balloon Festival and the Coalinga Child Development Center's Sunrise Breakfast.  Tickets are now available at the child development center. 

In October and November, CSEA is having our nominating meetings for the next slate of officers.  With a change to our constitution and bylaws, these new officers will serve for two years rather than one.

I want to thank all classified staff who helped get the Coalinga and Lemoore bond measures passed.  Thank you for volunteering your time to make phone calls, walk precincts and helping make sure we got our message out and the bonds passed.

This is the faculty evaluation season, and much of our time has been spent in ensuring the integrity of the process. We definitely look forward to December when the evaluations for the semester will be behind us!

In October, Scott Sutherland, Neomi Daniels and Marty Ennes traveled to Burlingame for the Fall CCA Conference. The focus of the conference was on membership as well as the state budget.

WHCFA has also been meeting with the administration regarding the budget, the impact of student learning outcomes on work load and other issues.

Enrollment Services has been very busy working on the payroll project.   We have also been attending Share Point portal training.

Students in Clint Cowden’s Introduction to Plant Science class had the opportunity to transplant approximately 3500 vegetable starts.  Westside Transplant generously donated the vegetable starts and the use of their one row transplanter.  The students actively participated by riding the trans-planter while others made sure the supplies were available to the crew on the machine.  The irrigation system was completed and the vegetable production began.

Farm of the Future plans to donate the harvested vegetables to local food shelters.

 

Jim Brixey, farm manager; Clint Cowden, ag instructor; and Dale Gordon, heavy equipment operations instructor, are surveying the soil test pit being dug by heavy equipment operations students from the Claremont Custody Center.  The focus of this effort is to define the soil structure and more importantly identify the Boron salt concentration deposits resulting from our irrigation water.  A number of pits are being dug in different areas throughout the orchards. 

 

The soil test pits serve as field labs that offer great opportunities for our Farm of the Future soil and plant science students as well as providing vital information for the management of the orchards.   

For 2008-2009, Grants staff is supporting a record $8,339,643 in grants for this fiscal year providing services to the colleges and west side communities.

The Grants Department would like to welcome two new staff members, Kathy Finster and Dawn Grumbles. These two ladies have joined us to manage all the grant monies and support paperwork for our 30 plus grants including workforce development. Thank goodness for the reinforcements!

The director of grants worked diligently with Sylvia Dorsey-Robinson and Carlos Diniz to submit this year’s State Chancellor’s CalWORKs Program Plan for WHCL and WHCC.  The complexity of the CalWORKs Program Plan is equal to writing a grant proposal thus we were busy meeting the timeline for the two colleges' proposals and the breakdown of the budgets.   

The grants office is ecstatic that Measures C and E passed during this last election.  Imagine Cathy doing the “Passage of Measures C and E Dance.”

(Pedro where are you when there’s action? U-Tube?)   

The Human Resource Department is currently in the process of open enrollment for Pay Flex, previously Flex America. All employees should have received information on this 125 Plan through the portal and via email. The enrollment paperwork is due to the HR department by December 1, 2008. Please feel free to contact the HR department if you have any questions.

Erin Brewer is the new human resource specialist at the district office. She comes to West Hills from Bella Homes where she was the office manager. If you have a chance, stop by and introduce yourself.

The Christmas holiday break will be from Wednesday, Dec. 24 through Thursday, Jan. 1. During this time, the district office and all three locations in Lemoore, Coalinga and Firebaugh will be closed. Regular business hours will resume on Friday, Jan. 2, 2009.

I don't want to say that things are quiet right now in ITS, because it never gets quiet. But it feels quiet because we have no eminent deadlines hanging over us.  Our most pressing project is the payroll implementation which Keith is handling with flying colors. 

The Coalinga wellness center project has started and Jack and Mark are busy keeping things in order there.  With the passage of the bonds, we are designing a video surveillance/card access/security system for all three sites, and looking at replacing aging uninterrupted power supply units and air conditioning in many of our equipment closets. 

The implementation of the portal has given us a challenge in putting together a process to handle creating and eliminating technology access for new hires and no-longer hires as well as students.  We continue to modify/refine the process each time we work through it.  We will be replacing all of our district routers over the Christmas holiday break. We will send notice of any anticipated down time as we get closer to starting the project.  Happy Thanksgiving and don't forget to take time to count your blessings.

Marketing is busy on the Coalinga and Lemoore annual reports and with supporting the colleges on their Measure C and Measure E efforts.  We are also planning the advertising budget for the remainder of the year given the state’s budget issues and the district’s budget freeze.  Our next big project will be the Jan. issue of Dialogue and our program review.

Spring semester radio and MySpace campaigns are underway.

The portal has risen to the top of our daily to-do lists.  If you have good possibilities for picture of the week for either student or staff sites, please send them our way.  If you have events planned, please don’t forget to take pictures (or invite us so we can).

When unemployment goes up and the economic outlook is unstable, many look to community college for assistance. During these uneasy economic times, coordination among municipal agencies, employers and organizations responsible for economic and work force development activities remains important.  All are looking for ways to collaborate with our colleges to help equip our community residents with the skills they need to survive and thrive in difficult economic times.

Employers and educators alike understand that the success of individuals is often linked to their ability to apply math, reading and English skills to the job.   We know that the distinct correlation between education level and the ability to get and keep a job is strong.

Ask a potential truck driving student to calculate a math problem and you may get a nervous stare.  Ask that same student to calculate the gross weight of a load and they will quickly compute the weight because it is math that they use as a part of the job…it’s learned in the context of truck driver skills, is hands on and it makes sense to them.  It is a necessary course for those wanting to be successful in the manufacturing, agricultral, truck driving, logistics or industrial maintance programs.

We know that many of our students work in entry-level jobs and often hold more than one job to meet expenses. Building their basic academic skills is critical for our students to achieve their goals of getting a better-paying career. With the addition of the Career Advance Academy (CAA) grant, West Hills is also offering new contextualized classes in addition to Trade Math. AOJ 58 Behind the Badge is currently being offered at Mendota High School. Many of the students are planning on taking more college courses while in high school and some are planning on enrolling in the AOJ program at WHC Coalinga.    Kudos to Troy Holsonbake for the development of this course! Kudos to Bob Davis for teaching this first offering!

Two new introductory child development courses are focused on personal life skills, reading and writing in a child development context.  The classes also focus on issues concerning personal life skills, problem solving in and out of the classroom, managing stress, working with others, fundamental child development concepts and careers in child development.  The classes also stress children’s health and safety, providing proper nutrition, building self-esteem, curriculum and play and the development of positive learning environments used in the child development profession.  These courses not only focus on the academic basic skills needed for college success but the industry-recommended skill sets needed for entry-level employment.  Kudos to Anna Lisa Little for the development of this new course!  Kudos to Kathy Watts, Genie Pratt and Tammy Thompson for teaching the first offering of these classes!

These classes, along with the redesign of our psych tech program, are part of our efforts with Career Advancement Academy, a pilot demonstration project that is exploring new meaningful ways to offer career technical education while building needed academic skills.  

Recently, state EDD monitors visited the WHCCD Healthcare programs (psych tech, RN, C.N.A) offered at our our two colleges.   The monitor had the opportunity to talk directly with students and faculty.  They found our students fully engaged, learning and enthusiastic about their education.  Students shared their personal stories - without programs like ours, their future would be bleak.   Faculty shared our progressive and proactive remediation and tutoring plans and procedures that ensure that all students reach their full academic potential and provide additional contextual tutoring to help them succeed.   Additionally, both students and faculty talked about how students benefit from our partnerships with workforce and employers.  Kudos to the entire psych tech team!

It quickly became evident to our EDD visitor that West Hills College support systems are unique and truly student centered.

Another example of exceptional student centered initiatives is our EDD veteran’s grant. Currently, through activities at WHC Lemoore and the Coalinga One Stop, we are assisting veterans seeking employment and/or educational opportunities.  Through the grant, we are able to provide case management and supportive services to 26 veterans who will have additional help to ensure their success in training programs like trucking, culinary, corrections, heavy equipment and psych tech.   Kudos to Robert Pimental, April Townsend, Gary Sedgwick and Susie Briones for their hard work in supporting our vets!  

The Westside Institute of Technology has finished its first year of providing higher education and career training to the residents in the communities of Firebaugh, Mendota, San Joaquin, Tranquillity and surrounding rural cities. During its first year, WIT trained more than 200 students for careers in truck driving, warehousing and manufacturing – with a significant percentage finding employment upon completion.   Along with West Hills College, WIT is a vital partner with the Central Valley Career Advancement Academies in providing applied basic skills related to the trade within the specific occupational training.

 An annual report for WIT has been published that provides detail on the variety of programs offered by WIT and the partnership activities that have made it a model of success.   A copy of the annual report will soon be available on our district Web site.

Robotics at WHCL – On Nov. 8th, 12 teams comprised of over 50 students from six local high schools and one middle school teams came to participate in our robotics competitions.  The two teams for Coalinga Middle School, the Coalingans and Heavy Metal – won first place.  Second place went to C.A.R.T. high school and University Charter School!   Kudos to David Castillo, Gerry Escalante and Leonard Bass for working with the local schools to organize this event!  And very special kudos to the Coalinga middle school students for beating out the high school students!

 FYI:  There is a Contextualized Basic Skills workshop at Bass Lake, November 12-14, 2008.   If you are interested please see your dean at your campus.   The workshop will begin with dinner and a keynote speech on Wednesday evening, November 12, from Tina Bloomer, Workforce Education Policy Associate for the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges and staff lead for Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST).