In an ongoing effort to enhance equitable outcomes for students of Los Medanos College, members of the campus community gathered Oct. 19 to discuss how three major plans are working together to fortify learning access and opportunities for students, faculty and staff alike.

While the plans: Student Equity; Student Success and Support Progress (3SP); and Basic Skills Initiative have independent focuses, they overlap in enough areas that LMC President Bob Kratochvil and others felt a presentation of each of them was prudent to show “how each of those plans is integrated.”

The gathering, which took the time slot of the normally scheduled college-wide assembly, included some initial basic information about the plans provided by their respective representatives.

The director of 3SP, Carla Rosas, said the plan’s focus is to “increase California community college access and success by providing students with core matriculation services.”

She added that by mapping-out core services for students, which include counseling and assessment, the college could better help them achieve their educational goals.

The Student Equity Plan, as defined by the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, focuses on “increasing access, course completion, ESL and basic skills completion, degrees, certificates and transfer for all students as measured by success indicators linked to the CCC Student Success Scorecard, and other measures developed in consultation with local colleges.”

“The intent of student equity funding and planning is to ensure equal educational opportunities and to promote student success for all students, regardless of race, gender, disability, or economic circumstances,” wrote Denise Noldon, Interim Vice Chancellor, Student Services and Special Programs Division for the state.

Representing the equity plan, Rosa Armendariz, director of the Transfer Academy, said that by using data accrued from previous semesters, the college can get a better understanding on how it is doing in regards to the benchmarks set by the state.

She said the college can then, in turn, use that data “to inform our decision making” on how to move forward in the planning stage.

Those two plans, 3SP and Student Equity, are set to move to the three college senates (Classified, Academic and Student) next week for approval.

The third item, the Basic Skills Initiative, has already been sent to the state awaiting approval.

That plan, as described by Dean of Liberal Arts Nancy Ybarra, is “focused on faculty and staff development by improving curriculum and instruction support services for students who are in basic skills or ESL.”

Basic skills refer to courses that are non-degree applicable, such as English 70, and maths 12 and 4.

“For some of these plans, it’s been a little bit rushed for us,” said Dean of Student Success Dave Belman during the meeting.

He used that platform to call for a need for a “broader college framework and way of going about planning.” Using this meeting to show how these individual plans coincide with one another is a way he hopes the college will start to work together in a more integrative manner from planning state inception.

If news of a Student Equity Plan being in the works sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Following the Nov. 24 deadline last year for colleges of the state to submit their respective equity plans, all 113 of them were returned for a period of tweaks and revisions, according to former Los Medanos College Associated Students president Gary Walker-Roberts

Kratochvil noted at the end of the meeting that the college was in line with state mandated deadlines for the plans’ submission.

“LMC has demonstrated a deep and long-standing commitment to innovation in the area of equity, diversity and inclusion for our campus community,” he said in an email.

He added that the equity plan “provides an opportunity to strengthen and expand our work.”

Information on the various plans for Los Medanos, including those mentioned above can be found at tinyurl.com/lmcplans.

Jamari Snipes contributed to this story.