How We’re Rockin’COHSin California

By Janet Coles

It’s not earthquakes rockin’ California these days.

43 public libraries are partnering with the California State Library on a new state-fundedCareer Online High School (COHS)试点计划。该计划在2015年11月正式始于2015年11月，将延长到下一届财政年度（2017年6月30日），通过它，我们希望在高中毕业的道路上设定大约1500名成年人，以及手段更好的生活。

According to the Public Policy Institute of California, the state has a larger share of college graduates than the nation as a whole, but it also has more high school dropouts. The latest available educational attainment data show that nearly 20 percent of California’s population over the age of 19 has not earned a high school diploma or equivalency. Besides the many negative outcomes of this for individuals and their families, there are severe impacts for society as a whole. The California Dropout Research Project at UC Santa Barbara estimates that California loses $46.4 billion over a lifetime for each cohort of Californians who reach age 20 without a high school diploma.

Recognizing that public libraries could play a critical role in alleviating this situation, last spring California State Librarian Greg Lucas and other advocates worked with the Governor and Legislature to fund a statewide pilot program using Gale’sCareer Online High School(COHS) product to offer adults the opportunity to earn, for free, accredited high school diplomas through their local libraries. $1 million in state funding was allocated to the California State Library to develop the program and test it in a variety of libraries statewide.

提前决定要求合作伙伴图书馆独立为通过该计划分配给他们的每项奖学金的匹配奖学金。这是有两个原因所做的：它有效地加倍该计划的资金;更重要的是，它确保了地方将在该计划中拥有所有权。人均当地收入较低的地区图书馆有机会要求减少比赛要求。

Several large加州公共图书馆，包括洛杉矶公共图书馆，萨克拉门托公共图书馆和圣地亚哥公共图书馆已经提供COHSin their communities and were well on the way to graduating their first students. We thought that by partnering with these early adopters and taking advantage of their expertise, we could smooth the way for libraries across the state to participate.

The Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Diego Public Libraries agreed to join our program and help us shepherd the first group of newbies through. We held an application process in September 2015, and accepted 33 new libraries, for a total of 36 in our first cohort. Each of the new libraries was assigned a mentor from the 3 experienced libraries, and then the new libraries were divided into several smaller groups for online training provided by Gale Cengage. The last group of libraries in our first cohort will complete training this month.

AsCOHSis an online program, we felt it was important to make sure our participating libraries would be able to offer laptops and/or wifi hotspots to theirCOHSstudents if needed. We partnered with Califa Group, a nonprofit membership cooperative serving libraries and information organizations in California, and obtained an LSTA grant that would allow us to help libraries purchase computer equipment to support theirCOHSservices. Rollout of this grant was just completed.

The new libraries in ourCOHSprogram represent a diversity of geographies, sizes, and communities across California. We knew it would be a real challenge getting everyone informed, trained, equipped and up and running under the tight timeline that we had. With excellent support from our Gale customer success team (Nick Schultz supporting the state library and Vanessa Craig supporting local libraries), and the assistance ofCOHSveterans from experienced libraries (Candace Mack from LAPL, Cathy Crossthwaite from Sac Public, and Leslie McNabb from San Diego Public), we’re starting to see success. We fully expect that all our libraries will be enrolling students inCOHSbefore the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 2016.

We have a number of cool plans for ourCOHSprogram. We will soon roll out fundraising and best practices toolkits (with support from Gale) and we’re planning a fundraising webinar for early March. We’re thinking about student support and graduation activities, including student blogs, a virtual yearbook, and maybe even a Google Hangout graduation ceremony or two. We’ll also be holding another open application process for our program in March, to bring on some more new libraries and allow existing participants to apply for more seats. Our expectation—and hope—is that we’ll be able to show enough return on investment from this pilot program to garner future support from the governor and legislature.

At the California State Library we’re thrilled to be working on this, because it’s a win-win for everyone concerned: public libraries are brought to the forefront as educational institutions that produce real, positive change for individuals and communities; California adults without a high school diploma now have a safe, supportive, quality means of obtaining one; and state/local governments are doing what they’re meant to do and looking great for supporting it all. We are absolutely rockin’ it here!

Interested California residents can learn more about the program and which libraries will be offering it by visiting theCareer Online High School加利福尼亚州网站.

To learn more about offering adults in your community the opportunity to earn an accredited high school diploma and career certificate at your library, visit theCareer Online High School site.Supreme