Regional_Career_Pathways_Plan.doc

October 24, 2014

MEMORANDUM FOR:

EDNA PRIMROSE

National Director, Office of Job Corps

LYNN INTREPIDI

Interim National Director, Office of Job Corps

THROUGH:

RALPH DIBATTISTA

Deputy National Director, Office of Job Corps

MARCUS GRAY

Chief, Division of Educational Services

FROM:

BRIAN DAHER

Regional Director, San Francisco Office of Job Corps

SUBJECT:

Regional Career Pathways Plan for PY 2009 and release of Career Technical Training Funds

In accordance with Job Corps Program Information Notice 09-21, Career Technical Training (CTT) Funds for PY 2009, the San Francisco Region submits this Regional Career Pathways Planning Document, Priority Sectors and Occupations, Attachment A and Template for Regional Career Pathways, Attachment B.

In order to complete the attachments, the San Francisco Office of Job Corps convened a conference for regional leaders including Center Directors, academic managers, OA/CTS providers and corporate overseers for our Regional Career Pathways Planning Meeting on March 3-4, 2010. The purpose of this planning meeting was to first reexamine individual center priority industry sectors; look for efficiencies by consolidating offers in a single geographic area; and finally to review the originally submitted equipment funding requests with a fresh eye based on the prioritized industry clusters.

In various presentations, regional staff emphasized that a Standards Based Education and Training approach offers a New Structural & Organizational Framework for Job Corps. In follow-up discussions, the attendees concluded that by developing a comprehensive career pathways plan, the region will be supporting standards based education and training, we will create efficiencies by allowing for the creation of foundations courses by industry sector and we will see improved outcomes both regionally and nationally.

I explained to the participants that this was the time for strategic planning and the Career Pathways exercises were a way to develop a comprehensive investment strategy with the limited resources we are allotted. The Plan will provide a good rationale for career technical training changes and where to devote resources accordingly.

Prior to arriving, centers were charged with studying labor market information based on the career technical training areas currently offered and to compare this data to the career technical training changes they planned to submit.

The San Francisco Region has identified the following top six priority industry sectors (listed in order of prominence and supported by Labor Market Information) by which CTT funds will be allocated based on the Regional Career Pathways Plan.

1. Health Care

2. Construction

3. Finance and Business

4. Hospitality

5. Renewable Resources

6. Automotive Engine Repair During our discussions at the Regional Leadership Planning meeting, we jointly embraced the flexibility that within the established industry sectors, flexibility existed for secondary sectors such as welding, fitting within both advanced manufacturing and construction. This strategy allows centers to narrow their CTT offerings to two or three industry sectors without having an outlier technical training area. It was widely accepted that foundation courses for these flexible secondary offerings would still address the basic principles and tenets of the trade.

As a result of this process, a number of centers determined to delete an existing CTT offering, redistribute the slots to a more popular CTT offering within the industry clusters on which they want to focus or propose a new CTT offering. Below are some examples of centers considering requesting CTT changes that would be necessary in order to optimize priority industry sectors and career pathways.

The table below features construction and health care trade changes discussed.

Emergency Medical Technician

Medical Office Support

Pharmacy Technician

Dental Assistant

The Region sorted centers by geographic area to meet and discuss finding efficiencies by eliminating duplicative CTT offerings. This was the first time Southern California center directors ever sat down together to meet and it was decided they would form a consortium and committed to further meetings. As a geographic area, they decided jointly that Job Corps offerings are too heavy in one sector and too light in another so a plan was made to propose an increase in health offerings and reduce construction offerings with a contingency for sharing resources for health occupations.

As in other regions, a number of issues surfaced which could affect the implementation of individual center career pathways plans.

1) First involves eliminating a trade for a CTT offering with a high dollar equipment or CRA need. Ideally, the equipment of a trade being eliminated would be transferred to the center wishing to add that trade as we did in Maui when we added painting.

2) We observed during our planning meeting another potential barrier which could affect implementation of individual center career pathways plans and that would be our Forest Service centers. The resistance to change is institutionalized and will take many further meetings and discussions.

3) The last issue that would prevent implementation of an individual center career pathways plan would be the continued success of an outlier program such as the Tongue Point Seamanship Program or another program at a center which does not fall into the industry sector the center focuses on.

Taking into consideration of each of these issues and the impact they have on moving to offering priority industry sectors and career pathways for each center. The Regional Office proposes to allocate its PY 2009 CTT funding as shown below:

San Francisco Region Allocation by Priority Industry Sectors: $727,333.00

Sector 2 @ 43.8% -- $318,606.20

Priority Industry Sectors:

OFFICE OF JOB CORPS

SAN FRANCISCO REGION

90 7th STREET, SUITE 12-100

SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103

TEL: (415) 625-2600 FAX: (415) 625-2590

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR