The California Adult Education Program Frequently Asked Questions

Existing law establishes the CAEP, under the administration of the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges and the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Under this program, the chancellor and the Superintendent, with the advice of the Executive Director of the State Board of Education, are required to divide the state into adult education regions and approve one adult education consortium in each adult education region, as specified. Existing law requires the chancellor and the Superintendent, with the advice of the executive director, to approve, for each consortium, rules and procedures that adhere to prescribed conditions. Existing law also requires, as a condition for the receipt of an apportionment of funds from this program for a fiscal year, that members of a consortium approve an adult education plan, as specified.

• The Adults in Correctional Facilities program (K-12 Adult Jail Education Program)
• The federal Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (Title II of the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act)
• The federal Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act
• Local Control Funding Formula apportionments received for students who are 19 years of age or older
• Community college apportionments received for providing instruction in courses in the areas listed in subdivision (a) of Section 84913
• State funds for remedial education and job training services for participants in the CalWORKs program

 

Education Code Section 84911 states, “To determine the need for adult education, the chancellor and the Superintendent shall consider, at a minimum, measures related to adult population, employment, immigration, educational attainment, and adult literacy.” Additionally, Section 84908 (2) (A)(ii) states that, “The chancellor and the Superintendent shall determine the amount to be allocated to each consortium pursuant to this paragraph based on that adult education region’s share of the statewide need for adult education.

For a deeper dive into the regional formula, please access the following link https://caladulted.org/Administrators/38

The CAEP allocation process begins in January with the release of the proposed Governor’s Budget. Based on the amount in the proposed budget, the CAEP Office is required by law to release a preliminary budget by February 28 (Section 84909 (b)). Consortia then have until May 2 to submit the Consortium Fiscal Administrative Declaration (CFAD), which declares the annual allocation for each member in their consortium.

Typically, the State Budget is enacted on July 1 (but can be delayed if not passed by the legislature). The chancellor and the Superintendent, with the advice of the executive director, shall approve, within 15 days of enactment of the annual Budget Act, a final schedule of allocations to each consortium of any funds appropriated by the Legislature for the program. (Section 84909 (c)).

Yes. Per EC Section 84913, CAEP funds are restricted to the following seven program areas:

• Elementary and secondary basic skills, including classes required for a high school diploma or high school equivalency certificate;
• Programs for immigrants eligible for educational services in citizenship, English as a second language, and workforce preparation;
• Programs for adults, including older adults, for entry or reentry into the workforce;
• Programs for adults, including older adults, to develop knowledge and skills to assist elementary and secondary school children to succeed academically;
• Programs for adults with disabilities;
• Short term career technical educational programs with high employment potential;
• Programs offering pre-apprenticeship training, in coordination with apprenticeship program(s), as specified.

Funding requirements are posted on the CAEP website 
https://caladulted.org/DownloadFile/1108

Some spending criteria to keep in mind are as follows (but not limited to):

• The community college district, county office, JPA and K-12 district must be a member of a regional consortium.
• The member district must be located within the regional boundaries of the consortia as determined by the Chancellor and the Superintendent, with the advice of the executive director.
• Each regional consortium must have an approved adult education plan that addresses the fiscal year in which the funds will be expended.
• Funds may only be expended within the seven program areas as prescribed in the CAEP education code (Section 84913).
• Each regional consortium must have an approved 3-year consortia plan.
• Expenditure of CAEP Funds must align with the annual plan as approved by the regional consortium for that specific year.
• All members shall participate in expenditure decisions made by the consortium.
• Consortia and members must follow public meeting requirements as listed in the legislative requirements.
• Consortia and members must follow decision-making rules as listed in the legislative requirements.
• Consortia and members must follow all fiscal and student data reporting requirements.

Section 84913 of the Education Code states that "indirect costs" means either of the following: (i) For consortium members that are school districts and county offices of education, the lesser of the member's prior year indirect cost rate, as approved by the department, or no more than five percent of the total funding received from the program. (ii) For community college consortium members, the lesser of the member's prior year negotiated indirect cost rate or no more than five percent of the total funding received from the program.

Yes. CAEP funds can only be used for instructional programs within the seven program areas approved by the California Department of Education (CDE), through its course-approval process for K12/COEs, or by the Chancellor’s Office, through its noncredit course-approval process for community colleges.

Yes. Under EC 84914 (b), for any fiscal year for which the chancellor and the Superintendent allocate an amount of funds to the consortium greater than the amount allocated in the prior fiscal year, the amount of funds to be distributed to a member of that consortium shall be equal to or greater than the amount distributed in the prior fiscal year, unless the consortium makes at least one of the following findings related to the member for which the distribution would be reduced: 

• The member no longer wishes to provide services consistent with the adult education plan. 
• The member cannot provide services that address the needs identified in the adult education plan. 
• The member has been consistently ineffective in providing services that address the needs identified in the adult education plan and reasonable interventions have not resulted in improvements.

The same would hold true in years when allocations are less than the amount allocated in the prior year.  See EC 84914 for more details.

Under EC 84906 (a) (1), as a condition of receipt of an apportionment of funds from this program for a fiscal year, the members of a consortium shall have a consortium-approved three-year adult education plan that addresses a three-year fiscal planning cycle. The plan shall be updated at least once each year (as part of the annual planning process) based on available data pertaining to the requirements of subdivision (b).

NOVA is the fiscal management system the CAEP uses to submit and certify CAEP deliverables (CFAD, 3-Year Plan, Annual Plan, Budget & Work Plan, Program Area Reports and Quarterly Fiscal Reports). The management system is also used as a repository for consortium and member contacts and historical records.

To obtain login credentials, the Consortium Primary Contact will invite you as a new user and add you to the consortium contacts or member agency.

Consortia and members report in NOVA. Depending on the CAEP deliverables, the consortium primary contact will complete and support for members’ approval. There are other CAEP deliverables where the members will submit, and the consortium primary contact will certify.

The following CAEP deliverables are submitted in NOVA: CFAD, 3-Year Plan, Annual Plan, Budget & Work Plan, Program Area Reports and Quarterly Fiscal Reports.

The first listed consortium primary contact certifies CAEP deliverables in NOVA.

The following are CAEP Outcomes that align to Vision for Success Goals: 

• Student enrollment 
• Improved literacy skills
• Measure student progress
• High School Diploma or High School Equivalency
• Job Placement
• Wage increase
• Transition to post-secondary
• Transition to adult secondary education
• Degrees, Certificates

Student data from K12 adult schools is reported through CASAS TOPSpro Enterprise (TE). Colleges receiving WIOA Title II funding and some colleges reporting students not captured in the Chancellor’s Office MIS (COMIS) also report student data into TE. An annual export of the CASAS TE CAEP data is provided to the AE Pipeline development team for integration with the community college data set. Student data from community colleges is reported through regular updates to the Chancellor’s Office Management Information System (COMIS) by colleges. 

The data from both data sets is displayed on the Adult Education Pipeline (AEP) dashboard on the LaunchBoard. A unique identifier or derived key is created by using a student’s first name, last name, gender and date of birth in order to track students in both TE and COMIS. A derived key is also required to track students enrolled at more than one agency in TE and enrolled at more than one college or district in COMIS as the same student would have different unique student identifiers assigned at each agency in TE or at each college district in COMIS.

There is not a separate process for reporting data for the Adult Education Pipeline. Data collection occurs through regular agency updates into TOPSpro Enterprise or the college’s regular MIS upload process. Accurate collection of data to input into TE and MIS is vitally important to ensure accurate reporting as this is the data that is input into the Adult Education Pipeline dashboard.

The suite of dashboards on the LaunchBoard are updated once a year usually in late winter or spring of the following academic or program year since there are a number of data sets needed to update all metrics displayed. The Adult Education Pipeline was last updated on May 28, 2021.

CAEP outcomes and reporting periods are aligned with WIOA requirements and are based on a program year which begins July 1st and ends June 30th. Students in summer courses that begin before July 1st are reported for the following program year. Agencies using TOPSpro Enterprise report their data to CASAS quarterly which is then aggregated into an annual data set used for the Adult Education Pipeline on the LaunchBoard. COMIS data reporting follows the regular reporting cycle for the colleges. The 2018-19 academic year would include the following terms: summer 2018, fall 2018, winter 2019 and spring 2019. A number of metrics in the Adult Education Pipeline dashboard may use multiple years data to calculate the count. For example, completion of postsecondary credentials, postsecondary transition, and employment are metrics that require data from the subsequent year to the current program year to complete the count for those metrics.

TOPSpro Enterprise: The federal National Reporting System (NRS) requires that barriers to employment be reported each year, so in TE, barriers to employment are populated each program year. Therefore, agencies need to enter barriers to employment every year.

COMIS: For COMIS data, barriers to employment are identified through specific student data elements.

Community Colleges can code to these using AA02 to code for achieving the high school equivalency (successful completion of the assessment), while the high school diploma is coded as an award using SP02 as it is a college conferred award. Prior to the introduction of the AA03, high school diploma and equivalency was captured by looking at changes to a student education status from not being a high school graduate to being a high school graduate (SB11 Student-Education-Status).

Adults served, also listed as Reportable Individuals, includes the following:

• Students receiving one or more instructional contact hours in a course that is included in the CAEP allowed program areas, from COMIS all noncredit students with one or more instructional contract hours is included.
• Students receiving services but not required to be enrolled in any CAEP program.
  
   

A Participant is a Reportable Individual who has received 12 or more hours of instruction and has a documented enrollment in a CAEP program area.

Yes. Hours are cumulative for the entire program year based on their total enrollment in any combination of CAEP program areas at any institution.

Passage of an exam applies to the Occupational Skills Gain metric in the Adult Education Pipeline. This metric relies on two of the WIOA Measurable Skills Gain criteria – Passage of an exam or achievement of an occupational milestone.

In CAEP transition refers to specific outcomes defined as important indicators of student progress or as elements of a student journey. The most important transition metrics are:

• Transitioned to ASE from ESL/ABE
• ESL, ABE and ASE participants who transition to postsecondary (or CTE Pathway) 

•   ESL, ABE and ASE participants who transition to CTE
•   ESL, ABE and ASE participants who transition to Credit Coursework

The Adult Education Pipeline dashboard includes other metrics in the transition and progress tabs relevant to understanding student journeys that involve transitions. These include:

• Enrolled in Adult Ed after Taking College Credit Course (for those students who transitioned to postsecondary)
• Completed 6+ College Credit Units (for those students who transitioned to postsecondary)
• Community College GPA 2.0 or Higher (for those students who completed 6+ college credit units)
• Students taking transfer level credit math or English courses (in the Progress Tab)

Effective July 1, 2018, no tuition may be charged or collected in the CAEP program areas by either community colleges or K12 adult schools (except for CDE approved CTE programs (under CAEP) at the K12 adult schools or county office that meet education code and teacher credentialing requirements). For more information, please click on this link to access the CAEP fees policy memo Fiscal Year 2018–19 CAEP Program Fees Policy (caladulted.org)

The AB104 legislation Section 84901 (a) specifically states that Adult Education Block Grant Program is to serve adults, and an adult is defined as “a person 18 years of age or older”.