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Lassen Community College

A Two-Pronged Program That Helps Students Complete Their Basic Education and Prepares Them for Entry into the Workforce

The Challenge

In Lassen County, higher percentages of young adults are unemployed and on probation. These young adults lack basic education and have little to no vocational employment skills, a combination that proves frustrating to employers and is a concern for a community with a shortage of qualified employees. The Lassen County AB86 Consortium needed to come up a way of serving this population by teaching them basic workforce skills to become functioning members of the community.

The Solution

To get these young adults back on track, the consortium created Lassen County Steps to Success, a two-pronged program that helps students complete their basic education and prepares them for entry into the workforce. First, the program allows students to make up high school credit and offers two classes that prepare them to take a high school equivalency exam. Second, it offers accelerated training in job-readiness and basic workplace skills through the Pathway Entry and Pathway to Employment certificate programs, which last no longer than 10 weeks. These two short-term certificate programs successfully transition students into an entry-level position while creating a “bridge” to other career paths. It is in this way that the Lassen County Steps to Success Program creates a smooth transition between pathways to prepare young adults for the workforce.

The program includes multiple entry and exit points that allow students an easy transition from adult education to community college or to a career. A student could jump into the employment pool after completing the high school equivalency, go to the second step in the career pathway or return at a future time to pursue a college education.

AB86 provided an opportunity to redesign the region’s educational system and curriculum to improve adult education noncredit courses that better prepare students for postsecondary education and/or the transition into the workforce.

Outcomes

Lassen County Steps to Success creates a smooth transition between pathways to prepare young adults for the workforce. Two of the certificate programs, Pathway Entry Certificate and Pathway to Employment, provide a short-term (10 weeks and 8 weeks) accelerated training program that focuses on job readiness and basic workplace skills.These two short-term certificate programs transition the student successfully into an entry-level workforce position while at the same time creating a “bridge” to access other career paths.

Lassen County Steps to Success provides ongoing support for student success. AB86 provided an opportunity to redesign the educational system and curriculum to improve the adult education noncredit courses.