September 2022

I’m doing a bit of recycling with my September submission. Below is a brief article I wrote for the Friends of the Petaluma Library newsletter. There is no good censorship.

LIBRARIES ARE FOR EVERYONE (There is no good censorship)
Any book worth banning is a book worth reading. — Isaac Asimov

I have a few thoughts on our library system’s stand on the right to free expression and open-to-all philosophy. On May 1, 2017, the Sonoma County Library Commission voted on a Statement of Inclusivity reaffirming our core library values. It stated: 

Public libraries have long been known as one of the truly democratic institutions. Public libraries champion First Amendment rights and promote free access to information for all. Public libraries offer services and educational resources that promote inclusion and diversity to all in the community. In light of the uncertainty many feel in our current society, we reaffirm: Sonoma County Library values diversity, empowerment, community, unity, kindness, connection, and equity. Sonoma County Library provides service to all races, all genders, all sexual orientations, all religions, all abilities, all ages, all national or ethnic origins, all languages, all citizenship statuses, all economic statuses, all political affiliations, all people. Sonoma County Library is an inclusive community hub where people intersect and thrive.

Most of us recognize that suppression, ignorance, censorship, and manipulation are the tools of tyrants and con artists. That is why we, as library advocates, support the principles of openness and accountability. We understand that everyone benefits when treated with respect, and ideas and information are freely shared. 

I see Petaluma Library staff affirm that these beliefs are the right of every person, regardless of origin, age, background, or views, as they work with patrons. This freedom of expression embraces speech, press, religion, assembly, and association, and thus the right to receive information without interference from governments or extremist groups and without compromising personal privacy. 

There is no good censorship. Courageous people speak up. Courageous people do something. As the American Library Association notes, the ALA rejects censorship in any form: “Any action that denies the inalienable human rights of individuals only damages the will to resist oppression, strengthens the hand of the oppressor and undermines the cause of justice.”
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When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something. To do something. -  Congressman John Lewis

Don't join the book burners. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book. - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Paul Heavenridge
Sonoma County Library Commissioner - Petaluma

Student Profile

Lorenzo Rivera was part of the High School Equivalency Program (HEP) on the Santa Rosa JC campus. HEP is a Federally funded effort to assist farm workers in completing high school requirements so they can attend college and improve their career opportunities. As Lorenzo finished HEP, he enrolled in English as a Second Language classes. At that time, he also joined the Literacyworks Center program. Lorenzo attended workshops and participated fully, always offering support to other members of the group. He then became a tutor for other HEP students, giving freely of his time and skills. Lorenzo graduated from the SRJC and transferred to Sonoma State University where he majored in math.

Literacyworks staff were invited to attend a celebration honoring thirty HEP graduates. Caps and gowns and smiles were everywhere. It was clear that this group of hardworking individuals were proud of their accomplishments and optimistic about their future. Lorenzo was invited to be a keynote speaker at the event. In his usual upbeat and humorist way he encouraged all the graduates to pursue their dreams and don’t give up. After the festivities I had the opportunity to speak with Lorenzo. It turns out he not only graduated from Sonoma State, but he went on to get his teaching credential. He is now teaching high school math in Santa Rosa. It is important to note that Lorenzo was working full-time the entire time he was going to school so he could support his family. He did follow his dreams.

SUPPORT OUR STUDENTS!

Our low-income students are among the most vulnerable in our community when it comes to suffering during a disaster. Because of the COVID-19 epidemic, many of our students are suffering a loss of income and housing. 

Our staff is offering additional support services to ensure our students stay in school and complete their course of study. We are proud that most have persisted and remained.

Thank you for supporting our students with your donation during this difficult time. You are making a difference in their lives with your gift.

Summer 2022

Well, another challenging SRJC school year has ended. Congrats to all our students who worked so hard and hung in there, completing all their course work. Out of 110 students, 108 successfully stayed in school and finished their 2021-2022 Fall and Spring semesters. We are very proud of their achievements.

LITERACYWORKS FEATURED STUDENT

Maria

I came to the United States from Mexico as a migrant. I am married and have four children: Luisangel, who is twenty-one years old; Manuel, who is eighteen years old and studying at Windsor High School; Julia, who is five years old and studying at Cali Calmecac Language Academy and Juan Pablo, who would have been eleven years old this summer. I am the ninth of a family of eleven. The education I had in my country was only until the sixth grade. Here in the USA, I took a few months of non-credit ESL classes because I wanted to learn the English language, but I stopped taking classes because I had to work. After three years of work, I got the position of assistant manager. A few years later, I took over as manager. In the same year, I lost my hearing on the left side. My hearing loss has been a challenge in my life because now I need to use hearing aids.

My son, Juan Pablo, was born in 2011 with spina bifida (a birth defect that occurs when a baby's spine does not form normally). As a result of his condition, JP lived in a Saratoga hospital for almost seven years until the end of his life. My family and I spent every weekend with him. Having a child receiving long-term medical treatment is incredibly difficult, especially when he lives two hours away. Also, because of medical bills and financial difficulty, we lost our house in 2014. After a few years, I went back to school. In the fall of 2016, I was pregnant, taking nine units, working full time, and visiting my son every weekend in the hospital. After having my daughter in the fall two semesters later, I continued taking classes. I completed the highest level of ESL and earned my high school equivalency (GED).

During the time of the pandemic, not everything was bad. Being at home, I was able to take 12 units and other adult classes. I also had to stop working when Covid-19 started because the place where I work closed. As I had more time at home, I began to help in the Windsor Services Alliance Pantry when the pandemic started. I helped 4-6 hours a week, collecting food from the different stores, distributing food to the people of the Windsor community, and cleaning after the delivery of food. Family circumstances now prevent me from helping.

In April 2021, my husband suffered a motorbike accident that paralyzed his left arm and took away his profession. He has had several surgeries since then. I help him with physical therapy every day and change his dressings, etc. Even though this is a tragedy for my family, my desire to become a nurse is stronger than ever.

I am currently taking ten units at SRJC. I want to be a bilingual nurse. I chose this specialty because by being bilingual, you can help more people who need it. I want to complete an Associate Degree in Spanish (AA) and Latin American Studies (AA). Also, I want to finish my prerequisite classes to apply to the Nursing program. My goals for the future are to finish my nursing and AA prerequisite classes and apply to the nursing program to be a pediatric nurse. I feel that I can help other people by being bilingual. Also, I want to support and help people in my community who don't speak English. Likewise, I want to help children with special needs who are like my son, Juan Pablo, who, due to his condition, was in the hospital all his life.

I love to study, and I love learning new things all the time. Thanks to Literacyworks support, I am certain I will be a nurse one day.

As many of you who have followed this newsletter know, the Literacyworks Center provides more than financial support to its students. We meet with every student individually to discuss the challenges they are facing.

This psychological and emotional support and resource referrals assist our students beyond the classroom. We do this through group meetings during the pandemic as Zoom events. We also do individual interviews with each participant. These virtual meetings have been a rich opportunity to listen to this amazing group of individuals as they create their future through education.  

In a 2019 fundraising event called ‘A Hundred People Who Care,’ the theme of our presentation was ‘Changing Lives.’ We were successful in winning $10,000 for our program at that event. What now seems to be an important realization it’s been meeting and coming to know these 110 individuals has changed our lives. The remarkable capacity to deal with stress, struggle, and challenges humbles our staff as we work with these driven students. 

In are individual interviews, we ask about the most significant challenges they face in and out of school. Time and money are the most common responses. Most of our group are taking English as a Second Language; they have young children and work long hours. Another of the questions we ask is what is the most significate motivator in their life. Here the responses vary. Some say their children; others say they love to learn, and others discuss wanting to change their life to improve their children’s opportunities. So, coming to know this group of resilient individuals is humbling for us at Literacyworks.

STUDENT VOICES

Thank you so much for your support. I want to improve my live and get a better job so my children can succeed.
- Elira

During Covid my husband lost his job and went to work to support the family. I almost dropped out of college. Your support kept me going.
- Erica

This is the first scholarship I have ever gotten. You believe in me. Another person trusts me. It is wonderful to have your support.
- Blanca

I have a 14 year old daughter who has become very sick. She requires treatment 4 days a week. I considered ending school. I am close to a Certificate in Early Childhood Education. Because of your support I will continue. My father told me, “You have to dance to the music life gives you.”
- Irais

Literacyworks Center is the best program I have been to. Chris and Rita make a wonderful team. Literacyworks Center is supporting me a lot, not just with the money, for example, when I talk to Chris he always ask me how I’m doing with my classes, how I am, what are my future plans and I know he likes to hear I progress every semester and that motivates me to work hard and keep going with my studies. Your support is essential for all of us and for who whants to continue in school. Thank you!
- Lidia

Thanks, Literacy works Center, Rita and Chris this program is very important to me, because it has given me a lot of financial and emotional support, motivating me to continue studying. With the help they give me. I can buy books that are needed in the class and many other items.
- Dolores

I am very happy to have this help, the program is a blessing for me because with that I can help myself, with making my internet payments or buying books, or whatever I need in the semester! thanks Rita and Chris for supporting all the students, since it is a great help for the scholarship thanks for all the support!! Blessings.
- Tania

COPPERFIELD'S BOOKS & LITERACYWORKS PRESENT: GREG SARRIS

Last month, on Wednesday, May 18, 2022, Copperfield's Books and Literacyworks welcomed friend, Literacyworks Honorary Board Member, and local author Greg Sarris to Montgomery Village to discuss his memoir: Becoming Story.

SUPPORT OUR STUDENTS!

Our low-income students are among the most vulnerable in our community when it comes to suffering during a disaster. Because of the COVID-19 epidemic, many of our students are suffering a loss of income and housing. Also, SRJC has been closed since the first of April when online classes began.

Our staff is offering additional support services to ensure our students stay in school and complete their course of study. We are proud that most have persisted and remained.

Thank you for supporting our students with your donation during this difficult time. You are making a difference in their lives with your gift.

Spring 2022

Literacyworks Newsletter: Spring 2022 Edition

Literacyworks Center Student Profile (Alumni Edition)
Leticia Garcia Arango

Leticia with Joe Bruin, UCLA mascot.

From Leticia:
Literacyworks helped me create a community during my time at SRJC. As a first-generation, low-income Latina student, navigating college and finding a support system was difficult. I was lucky enough to find Literacyworks. It was an amazing resource to help me out through my time in community college. I was able to find like-minded individuals who have similar obstacles and goals as me. Literacyworks also allowed me to relieve stress as the scholarship allowed me to focus more time on my studies. I successfully was able to transfer from SRJC in 2019 to UCLA. Now I am a recent graduate from UCLA and received a B.A. in Sociology. As a recent graduate, I am currently working at the EOPS/ CalWORKs at the SRJC. I am fortunate enough to continue my passion for helping college students throughout their academic journey. I am forever grateful for the support and resources Literacyworks provided for me during my educational journey. I truly owe my success to Literacyworks and all the support systems I found at SRJC.

Literacyworks Center Conducting One-to-One Interviews with All Students

The Literacyworks Program requires a one-to-one interview with each student every semester. This 2022 Spring semester, we have 110 students enrolled in our program to interview. Chris and Rita would meet face to face in the library during normal, non-pandemic times, but that is not possible since the SRJC campus is restricting on-campus activities. Instead, staff will conduct the interviews remotely, either by phone or Zoom. The purpose of the interview is to support students' success in college and better understand the challenges they face. We take the interview information to keep our database current, identify potential issues that may affect educational performance, and chronicle our students' stories. This is all to help support our students in meeting their academic goals. We also strive to assist them, where we can, with their life challenges.

Health Literacy and COVID Awareness

Health literacy is the ability to access, process, and understand basic health information. When it comes to the next COVID outbreak, understanding how to protect yourself is essential in making good health decisions. Literacyworks is dedicated to providing our students and the community with understandable, plain language, up-to-date COVID information. When the next wave hits, our students will have access to this information and will be able to display good COVID preventative health techniques.

Numerous studies have shown the widespread lack of health literacy is a significant public health challenge. Lack of health literacy can negatively affect health outcomes and increases the risk of morbidity and mortality for a substantial portion of the U.S. population.

During this pandemic, Americans went to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) for assistance navigating their way through the COVID-19 pandemic. Many found they could not understand the CDC's complex vocabulary and instructions for coronavirus safety procedures.

According to Joseph Dexter, a fellow at Dartmouth's Neukom Institute for Computational Science and senior author of the study, "During a pandemic, it is vital that potentially lifesaving guidance be accessible to all audiences." the language the CDC used to inform the public was at an 11th-grade reading level— three levels higher than promised.

"The differences between eighth-grade and 11th-grade reading levels are crucial. Writing at a higher grade level can place greater demands on the reader and cause people to miss key information," says Dexter. (Note: Literacyworks attempts to provide plain language information written around the 6th-7th grade reading level).

According to the study, exceeding readability standards may have a more significant effect on vulnerable communities with lower health literacy, potentially worsening the impact of the pandemic.

Populations that have been disproportionately afflicted by the pandemic, such as those: 1) with poor access to education and healthcare; 2) facing cultural barriers; 3) those with limited English proficiency, and 4) who have cognitive disabilities, tend to suffer from inadequate knowledge around their health.

People with low health literacy often have difficulties identifying trustworthy health information sources and are more likely to fall for unproven treatments, phony experts, and medical conspiracy theories.  

Literacyworks is committed to helping good health practices by providing plain language health information on our website, such as our Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resources page at https://www.literacyworkscenter.org/covid-19

COPPERFIELD'S BOOKS & LITERACYWORKS PRESENT: GREG SARRIS

Event date: Wednesday, May 18, 2022 - 6:00 pm
Featured Book: Becoming Story: A Journey Among Seasons, Places, Trees, and Ancestors
Event Location: 
Copperfield's Books Montgomery Village
775 Village Court
Santa Rosa

Copperfield's Books and Literacyworks welcomes friend, Literacyworks Honorary Board Member, and local author Greg Sarris to Montgomery Village to discuss his memoir: Becoming Story.

In Becoming Story Greg asks: What does it mean to be truly connected to the place you call home--to walk where innumerable generations of your ancestors have walked? And what does it mean when you dedicate your life to making that connection even deeper? 

The discussion will be followed by a Q&A and a book signing. This is a free event. Masks required for in-store events. Go to Copperfield's website for free tickets:  https://www.copperfieldsbooks.com/event/copperfields-books-literacyworks-present-greg-sarris

SUPPORT OUR STUDENTS!

Our low-income students are among the most vulnerable in our community when it comes to suffering during a disaster. Because of the COVID-19 epidemic, many of our students are suffering a loss of income and housing. Also, SRJC has been closed since the first of April when online classes began.

Our staff is offering additional support services to ensure our students stay in school and complete their course of study. We are proud that most have persisted and remained.

Thank you for supporting our students with your donation during this difficult time. You are making a difference in their lives with your gift.

September/October 2021

WHY CHOOSE LITERACY AS A PROFESSION?

"It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference." – Tom Brokaw

I've been asked in the past why I chose the profession I'm in. Never an easy question to answer. I have a master's degree (in Counseling and Education). As a high school graduate, I was offered a full ride to the General Motors Institute. That path would have provided a life-long, lucrative career in the automotive industry. I was one of a handful of original employees at Autodesk. I try not to think of the lucrative stock I would've had :( I've had a successful psychotherapy practice as a Marriage and Family Therapist. I've been a Community College counselor and an international school counselor in Kuwait.

So why did I choose to work with low-literacy adults and their families? It wasn't for the money or the prestige. I passed those up by resigning from my previous jobs. It wasn't for a forty-hour week or good pension benefits. Ever try to run a nonprofit on a forty work week? Hah! Again, I let that go with my other jobs.

So, why did I end up running a literacy nonprofit for the past 20 plus years? In reflection, I've felt a deep sense of making a difference and of joy in assisting low-literacy, often low-income, adults achieve the literacy skills that give them a positive path forward. This path may be to a better job, a college certificate/degree, a better health outcome, a more stable financial plan, or a better community, politically engaged member. And also, I was always moved to see their children wanting to be educated and go to college because they were proud of their mom or dad's example.

To riff on our Literacyworks Center motto: Literacy is changing lives. Literacy creates real lifelong change. That's why I choose a profession in literacy education.

Paul

6 FACTS ABOUT LITERACY IN AMERICA

AND ONE MYTH

1.      As of 2011, America was the only free-market OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) country where the current generation was less educated than the previous one. (Council for Advancement of Adult Literacy. "Reach Higher, America Overcoming Crisis in The U.S. Workforce." National Commission on Adult Literacy.)

2.      Nearly 85% of the juveniles who face trial in the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate, proving a close relationship between illiteracy and crime. More than 60% of all inmates are functionally illiterate. (Blankenship, John. "Functional illiteracy continues to grow, but there is help.") 

3.     It is estimated between $106–$238 billion in health care costs a year are linked to low adult literacy skills. Adults with limited health literacy are hospitalized and use emergency services significantly higher than those with higher skills. (Vernon, J. A., Trujillo, A., Rosenbaum, S. & DeBuono, B. (2007, October). Low health literacy: Implications for national health policy. Health Sciences Research Commons). 

4.      43 million adults in the United States can't read above a third-grade level. That means that 1 in 7 people have literacy issues. If you're surprised, you're not alone. 79% of adults said they don't know an adult with this issue. (Adult Literacy in the United States. 2019, July).

5. The U.S. has—by far—the world's largest immigrant population, holding about one-in-five of the world's immigrants. Among immigrants ages 5 and older in 2018, only half (53%) are proficient English speakers. This severely limits their access to jobs, college, and citizenship and increases their vulnerability to living in poverty. Pew Research estimates that between 2015 and 2065, immigrants and their descendants are projected to increase the U.S. population by 103 million people.

6. There are countless reasons why people attend literacy programs.

• They attended low-quality schools/poorly funded schools.

• They dropped out of school because of events out of their control. Such events as needed to become the primary earner for the family, for example.

• They struggled with undiagnosed learning impairments.

• They fell behind early and never caught up. "Sixty-six percent of all U.S. fourth-graders scored 'below proficient on the 2013 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) reading test." 

MYTH: "We have more important issues to worry about, like health care, unemployment, the economy, or who our next president will be."

Fact: People with low literacy skills are four times more likely to have poor health (two times higher than the national average). Refer to the health costs above.

Fact: Adults with low literacy levels are twice as likely to be unemployed. How do you fix it? If half of the dropouts from the class of 2008 had graduated, there would be an additional 30,000 new jobs! Imagine if that happened every year.

Fact: Americans with low literacy levels are less likely to be politically engaged or understand what is going on in politics. Do you want to get things done? Give people the tools to really understand the importance of the political process, and we all might be a little less frustrated after every fourth November.

THE CENTER IS CHANGING LIVES AND THE NEED IS GREAT

 SOME PROGRAMS PROVIDE JUST A BAND-AID, BUT THE CENTER CREATES REAL LIFELONG CHANGE 

As we reflect on the past six years of the Literacyworks Center program, several students stand out for their persistence and achievement.  Here are a few of their stories.

A mother trying to complete her GED after having a difficult time in high school achieved her goal. After five years, she is preparing to be transferred to a pharmacy program. 

Another student entered the program taking English as Second Language classes.  He quickly improved his English skill and began taking credit classes with an emphasis on science.  He graduated from SRJC and transferred to UC Santa Crus, majoring in physics.  He completed his first year taking classes remotely due to the pandemic.  Now he is in his senior year taking classes in person.  He will graduate next Spring.

A young mother of two demonstrated confidence and determination in the very first Literacyworks Center workshop she attended.

She came to the United States at an early age speaking no English.  She describes how she realized that if she wanted to get ahead and create a comfortable life for herself and her family, she would have to learn English and did.  College classes were challenging, but she worked extremely hard.  Now, after five years in the Center's program, she is applying to nursing school.  We are confident she will get there.

 A young man struggled in high school, almost not making it to graduation.  He found his way to SRJC and the Literacyworks program.  He attended part-time while working to support himself.

He progressively took on a leadership role on campus in the student service area, which allowed him to help other students find value in education and the college community. He graduated from the JC two years ago and transferred to UC Berkeley with a full scholarship. He graduated with honors while attending remotely.   His goal is to get a Ph.D. in Sociology and give back to the Santa Rosa Latinx community. 

Literacyworks Center has awarded over 1100 adult literacy scholarships to students in the program in the first six years.

Each individual's story is one of persistence, hard work, and determination.  It has been a great honor to serve this remarkable group of people as they strive to achieve their goals.   

THE ASK

So, we have stated our case of why literacy matters and, by extension, why our students deserve your continued financial support. 

It takes $3,000 a year to enable a Center student to reach their goals and stay in school for a full academic year. We do whatever it takes to help our adults succeed in college, but we can't do it without you. Your gift of any amount creates meaningful change for our students, families, and their communities. All of our adults are low-income, low-literacy members of our community and are the first in their family to go to college. Many are parents. Their perseverance in reaching their educational goals encourages their children to excel in school and follow their example to attend college. 

We can’t succeed without your help. Please donate to Literacyworks.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” – Dr. Seuss

June 2021

August 2001 – August 2021

 Literacyworks has been the go-to nonprofit for literacy and online curriculum development. In August, we'll celebrate our 20 year birthday. We have a long history with educational resource development and online delivery of multimedia literacy material, allowing access to resources for literacy programs in California and nationally. Below are some of our current and past projects. A complete list can be found at https://www.literacyworks.org/projects.

Our Science & Numeracy Special Collection included our interactive projects with National Science Foundation, Centers for Ocean Science Educational Excellence (COSEE) and NOAA on field expeditions with disciplinary thrusts, e.g., biology (zooplankton & bacteria), chemistry (trace metals), physics (ocean circulation) for K-12 schools. The site also provided links to Internet sites useful for teaching and learning about science and numeracy.

Literacyworks Professional Development provides professional development opportunities to ABE and ESL professionals. We improve adult education and literacy instruction through training, research, and best practices by establishing high-quality programs customized to state and local education standards.

Literacyworks California Health Literacy Initiative (CHLI) The goal of the Literacyworks California Health Literacy Initiative at literacyworks.org/healthliteracy (launched by Literacyworks and California Literacy in 2003) is to inform & partner with individuals and organizations to craft collective, lasting solutions which will positively impact the health and well-being of individuals with low-literacy skills, their families, & their communities. Literacyworks continues to expand the original goal of the Initiative by increasing collaborative partnerships & developing understandable health literacy material. In 202-21, we have supplied plain language COVID-19 information and resources to the community, including employment, financial assistance, food security, housing, medical health, domestic violence, and mental health.

Literacyworks' Parents as First Teachers: Engaging Families to Increase Children's Literacy goal is to improve the emergent literacy skills of low-literacy, low-income bilingual parents and children. The program does this through a combination of access to resources in the home and the community and training parents in the basic skills to encourage their children to become avid readers.

Literacyworks administered the US Department of Education's Regional Professional Development Center (Region 4) for the Literacy Information and Communication Network System (LINCS) for twenty-one years. Through LINCS, we connected, trained, and provided educational resources for literacy programs in local libraries, adult education programs, and other community and institutional settings throughout Alaska, Hawaii, the western United States, and the Pacific Islands.

And, of course, the Literacyworks Center assisting underserved, below-basic-skills adult students in solving the many educational, personal and logistical challenges they must face to stay in school and succeed in work. The Center provides advising, mentoring, and scholarship support (through the Adult Literacy Awards) that help break persistence barriers to school completion such as transportation, childcare, and tuition.

The Center is in its sixth year of operation, serving basic skills students attending Santa Rosa Junior College.  In the first year, the Center supported 20 students, primarily individuals taking Early Childhood Development classes, which were required to maintain their jobs.  In each of the following semesters, the number of students has continued to grow to a high of 110 individuals. Students have many diverse goals ranging from completing their high school equivalency, improving their English skills, completing the nursing program's prerequisites, and graduating and transferring to a four-year university. Students must be functioning at a pre-collegiate level to be admitted to the program. Still, financial and advising support is maintained until they achieve their educational goal.  Students to date have developed trade skills in a variety of areas. They have received certificates in ESL, completed the GED, and 19 have completed the Associate's Degree.

As of the end of Spring semester 2021, 14 students have transferred to several universities; UCLA, UC Berkeley, and Sonoma State University are just a few. 

The fundamental premise of the support the Center provides is that every individual deserves a chance to succeed. Knowing there is someone who believes in you and is concerned about your future makes a difference. That learning to trust and believe in yourself creates opportunities that were not previously foreseeable.  The Center has been and will continue to be committed to changing lives.

May 2021

Literacyworks Center and Foster Youth

There's an enrollment and a persistence issue that foster youth face in attending community college. Literacyworks has seen a growing need for working with and increasing the numbers of foster youth students aged 18-24. 

It's hardly surprising that foster youth struggle in school. Most come from impoverished families and have been removed after being exposed to neglect or abuse. Many spent their childhoods moving from one foster placement to another and bouncing from school to school. In 2018, the high school graduation rate for foster youth in California public schools was just 59 percent, compared with 83 percent for all students.

A California Youth Transitions to Adulthood Study (CalYOUTH) study tracked thousands of former foster youth in California. The study found that a growing number are going to college, but many are not graduating. The study found that just 49.6 percent completed their first two semesters among those who enrolled in post-secondary education. The gains in enrollment are linked to recent initiatives in California to help foster youth transition to adulthood and succeed in college.

These support programs help the roughly 35,000 current and former foster youth attending California colleges. Of those, about 4,000 attend the University of California or the California State University systems, and the remaining 88 percent are enrolled in the state's 115 community colleges. About 9,000 young adults ages 18 to 21 take advantage of extended foster care.

We are working with the Santa Rosa Junior College to provide advising and financial support for these foster students by recruiting them for our Center program. Many of our students are going on to advanced degrees at four-year colleges and advanced job training.

We will work with our referring partners to increase the numbers of our Foster Youth for the 2021-22 school year. Our partners include the Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC) Foster Youth Services and Extended Opportunity Programs & Services (EOPS), Sonoma and Marin County library literacy programs, Roseland school district, and Graton Rancheria. Our goal is to enroll at least 20 Foster Youth aged 18-24 in the Fall and Spring Semesters of 2021 and 2022.

LITERACYWORKS BEGINS ESL CLASSES AT GRATON RESORT AND CASINO (GRC)

The Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria Tribal Council has asked Literacyworks to set up and conduct a class for English for Speakers of Other Languages for GRC team members and Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria (FIGR) Tribal Citizens. 

Literacyworks submitted a proposal and budget. Both were accepted by the Tribal Council. An orientation for the learners was conducted on Tuesday, April 27, 2021. Our ESL instructor, Kathy St. John, began assessing the English skills of those who registered for classes (what level are their listening/speaking/reading/writing skills). We began conducting two six-month-long classes for beginning-level learners on Tuesday, May 11, and Thursday, May 13 (one at 10 AM and the other at 2 PM). Classes will be completed on Tuesday, October 12, and Thursday, October 14.

The classes will be conducted live over Zoom by nationally known ESL instructor Kathy St. John. Each learner will have an Internet-connected iPad with a keyboard and earphones. A Literacyworks educational technologist will be in the classroom in-person to assist learners with technology and coursework. Each learner will have the opportunity to meet virtually with the instructor in one-on-one sessions to support in-class learning.

Injustice and unfair circumstances occur every day in so many aspects of our lives and society.

The evolution of Foster Care in America is both a responsible and human response to a difficult situation when families fall apart, but a profoundly incomplete one.

I had an opportunity to attend a conference a number of years ago focused on California Community College’s response to the crisis of Foster Care ‘timing out’. It woke me up to the profound limitations of an attempt to deal with the accident of children not having a secure family structure. A young man presented at this conference.

Well dressed and clearly intelligent, and somewhat shy about speaking in front of a room full of college administrators.

He talked of not trusting his future, not knowing if he would be cared for, but deeply appreciating the foster parents who did care for him. He briefly described the sense of belonging but without a normal family. His relations with the other foster care kids he lived with were often complicated.

This young man graduated from high school, and his foster family was there to celebrate with him. But that is where he discovered the cliff in the Foster Care system. There were no supports after high school. You turn 18, and you are on your own and on the street. Through no fault of his own, he was on his own.

Good people cared about him, and he had done the things young people are supposed to do, but he was still without support to define the next stage of his future. He told the audience that he had spent the last night and many nights sleeping in his car, often having trouble finding food. He was attending classes at a Community College and working when and where he could. His goal was to become a lawyer so that someday he could help other kids like him to have a chance to find their way. This story is sadly not uncommon.

We at Literacyworks Center are proud to be part of a response in addressing this critical challenge. For no fault of your own, you have hope, and you are not alone.

Chris Schultz
Literacyworks Center Director

April 2021

TUTOR READY READING AND WRITING

In the February 2021 newsletter, we talked about the fact that there were limited resources for adult writing tutors working with low-level adult writers compared to tutoring reading resources. Tutor Ready Writing was developed as a response to that need. Literacyworks also helped develop Tutor Ready Reading for low-level adult readers.

Until now, both sites remained hosted at Portland State University’s Learner Web platform. As of May 2021, Learner Web will be closing down. To save our nationally used and respected Tutor Ready Reading and Reading learning plans and videos, Literacyworks has contracted to port over both sites to Literacyworks website. Hosting both Reading and Writing on Literacyworks enables us to archive and update the sites. Also, it will be easier to provide training and workshops to ESL and ABE tutors and instructors nationally. Literacyworks continues to offer Certificates of Completion to those who complete the modules.

Tutor Ready Reading is a set of learning plans designed to provide volunteer tutors and instructors with training and information in a helpful and timely format. It is an excellent resource for programs to use to complement their pre-service and in-service training. Tutor Ready Reading is a free, online resource providing adult literacy tutors just-in-time answers to their questions about how best to help their learners improve their writing skills.

Tutor Ready Reading was developed by Literacyworks, the Literacy, Language and Technology Research Group at Portland State University, and subject matter experts/national trainers developed the modules. These set of 30 short Learning Plans modules use a question and answer format to present the most salient research-based information in bite-sized chunks that will make writing research accessible to tutors.

The research-based lessons teach strategies for assessing and tutoring adults in a variety of reading skills, including phonemic awareness, decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Each strategy is illustrated by at least one video showing a literacy tutor working with a literacy learner.

The videos were filmed using the project experts as tutors and actual adult learners as the tutorees. 

MAJOR DONATION

Literacyworks staff and students want to sincerely thank the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria for their most generous donation this year. The Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria have recognized the importance of education and were among the earliest donors to the Literacyworks Center back in 2015. The Center’s students and their families have succeeded in meeting their educational goals because of the generosity of such donors as Graton Rancheria.

NEWS FROM THE CENTER

Over the past year, we shared how the Center was forced to change and adopt new strategies in this newsletter. This was necessary to support our students due to the pandemic's impact.

No in-person meetings or one-to-one interviews were possible. Only remote connections to provide support and even the simple act of filling out forms have become problematic.  Many students stopped out of college for a wide variety of understandable reasons. Some lost jobs, others could not pay rent, some moved away, many stayed home to support their children's learning, and for some food, scarcity was a real issue. But it is important to point out that most stayed and are succeeding, although with difficulty. Our students are a great group of resilient and determined individuals who are changing their futures.

Now, suppose it is possible to imagine a return to face-to-face learning in the foreseeable future because of vaccines and herd immunity. What have we discovered that will help make our program more effective and our students more successful.  Individuals learn best when they are inspired by others.

We will further develop our alumni program, where former students talk about how their lives have changed because of education.  One can vision a new future when one can see it in others.  Students can trust themselves when someone has their back when support during difficult times is there.  So, we will develop a closer communication process both personally and online to create a value-added support model.  Students learn best from one another.  We will establish an informal tutoring program where students support one another in their academic work.  Most people enjoy being part of a group where they are heard and can listen to each other.

We will expand our 'workshops' to further develop the sense of community where each individual sees themselves as members.   Utilizing the communication technologies we were a force to develop during the pandemic, we will enhance our community building's efficiencies and effectiveness.

Clearly, we are not ready to institute these plans yet.  Social distancing, face masks, no large gathering, and more vaccines are still very much called for.  The Center will be ready to build a new future.

 SUPPORT OUR STUDENTS!

Our low-income students are among the most vulnerable in our community when it comes to suffering during a disaster. Because of the COVID-19 epidemic, many of our students are suffering a loss of income and housing. Also, SRJC has been closed since the first of April when online classes began.

Our staff is offering additional support services to ensure our students stay in school and complete their course of study. We are proud that most have persisted and remained.

Thank you for supporting our students with your donation during this difficult time. You are making a difference in their lives with your gift.

March 2021

Libraries, Literacy and Federal Support in the Time of COVID

Two federal bills, the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and the Build America's Libraries Act, are coming to help our library and educational community. Both bills will help our Literacy Center students and their families by providing, among other things, emergency assistance for financial aid, increasing broadband access, and safely reopening our schools.

As part of the $1.9 trillion ARPA of 2021 passed by Congress, libraries are eligible for billions of dollars in recovery to meet critical needs, including:

• $360 billion to state, local, and tribal community governments to offset potential cuts to public health, safety, and education programs

• $130 billion for education costs associated with the safe reopening of K-12 schools; hiring additional staff; reducing class size; modifying school spaces; and addressing student, academic, and mental health needs

• $40 billion for colleges and institutions of higher education to defray pandemic-related expenses and provide emergency assistance to students, with half the funding dedicated to student financial aid

• $135 million each for National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities to support state and regional arts and humanities agencies. Forty percent of this funding is designated for grants and administration for state arts and humanities agencies, while forty percent will go for direct grants eligible to libraries.

The Build America's Libraries Act would provide funding to construct and modernize public libraries in underserved communities, creating jobs while revitalizing our neighborhoods. Our Sonoma County libraries have challenges with our current buildings, building new branches and maintaining old ones, and providing technology and hotspots to our patrons.

Our own Congressman Jared Huffman is co-sponsoring this bill, saying:
"Libraries need our support, even during the pandemic when access is limited, and we're reading a lot of e-books and audiobooks. Most communities have libraries that are helping educate, connect and enlighten people in significant ways. We need to support that everywhere. While technology and services are changing, I can't imagine a time when we will not need libraries. That's why I'm proud to be co-sponsoring the bipartisan Build America's Libraries Act, which upgrades to the nation's library infrastructure to address challenges such as natural disasters, COVID-19, broadband capacity, environmental hazards, and accessibility barriers - including improving library facilities in underserved communities across the country. That's all. Just a plug for libraries. Have a great day.”

Our Literacyworks staff constantly searches for new funding opportunities that will improve our students and their lives. We appreciate any additional suggestions from you, our wonderful supporters.

The Center serves a very diverse and capable group of individuals. One particular student that stands out is facing extraordinary challenges.

She is learning English as a second language, working on her High School Equivalency, and she is non-sighted. Navigating public transportation, finding classrooms, completing her homework, and buying groceries are situations most of us don’t have to face without the ability to see. Despite these challenges, she is extremely happy, social with a warm circle of friends that support her and learn from her. She has the unique gift of openly asking and accepting others, and both are better for it. So how can she attend classes remotely in this time of the pandemic?

She has learned to use a computer with specialized software that reads her assignments to her. She can participate in zoom meetings and complete her work online. She is also completely capable of using a phone. When I check in on her, she answers using my name. Her long-term plans include the desire to get a degree and to become an interpreter with the goal of helping others. We are regularly inspired by the people we work with at the Center.

EOP&S at SRJC

Extended Opportunity Program and Services (EOP&S) is a well-established program throughout the California Community College system. It provides extensive support services to students not fully prepared for college-level academics. The outcome of this considerable support and personal attention is that EOP&S students succeed at a higher level than the average entering freshmen.

Literacyworks Center is delighted to extend its services to the EOP&S staff and students at Santa Rosa Junior College. This opportunity will be beneficial to our students during this period of distance learning due to the pandemic.

February 2021

Tutor Ready Writing

There are limited resources for adult writing tutors as compared to resources for tutoring reading. There are even fewer resources for tutors to use with low-level adult writers. However, there is a great demand for these resources. As adult literacy and ESL professional development experts who have worked in many states, they have heard programs across the country ask for help preparing their volunteers to tutor in writing. Tutor Ready Writing has been developed as a response to that need.

Tutor Ready Writing is a set of learning plans designed to provide volunteer tutors with training and information in a helpful and timely format. It is an excellent resource for programs to use to complement their pre-service and in-service training. Tutor Ready Writing is a free, online resource providing adult literacy tutors just-in-time answers to their questions about how best to help their learners improve their writing skills.

Four subject matter experts/national trainers from Portland State University, Kent State University, Sacramento Public Library, Alameda Reads, and a Literacy/Nonprofit expert developed the nine short modules. These modules use a question and answer format to present the most salient research-based information in bite-sized chunks that will make writing research accessible to tutors. Literacyworks was part of the team, providing tech support and designing the YouTube channel for Tutor Ready Writing. Funding came through a California Library Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant.

The nine modules feature 36 videos of tutor and learner interactions helping form individual learning plans based on the writing process and the principles and strategies of effective, research-based writing instruction. The videos were filmed using the project experts as tutors and actual adult learners as the tutorees.

Tutor Ready Writing Module Categories                                                                

• The Writing Process

• Pre-Writing

• Getting Ideas on The Page - Some Drafting Strategies

• Writing for Everyday Purposes

• Working on Mechanics

• Responding and Revising

• Editing

• Assessing Writing Progress

• Using Learner-Generated Texts with English Language Learners

---

The pandemic has changed all of our lives in significant and diverse ways. As we have described before, our students are learning remotely, often with little technical support. Many are still out of work, living very close to the edge. Some students are supporting their children's efforts to keep up their studies online. The remarkable thing, most are making the best of this situation. As we speak to them, they are tired but optimistic about the future they are creating for themselves and their family. One word comes to mind when thinking of the Literacyworks students – resilience.

The work of the Center's staff has also changed dramatically over the past nine months. All communication is by phone or email. Our supportive 'in-person' workshops have turned into zoom meeting, which lacks connection between the staff and fellow students. We developed a plan to articulate how to reach our goal of supporting student success but do it differently. This is where the excellent staff of Santa Rosa JC has become so important. Over the past six years, the Center staff has developed close working relations with various people and programs at the College.

Counselors, outreach coordinators, and program directors have come to understand the Center's mission and have supported our efforts in so many ways. Now that Literacyworks Center staff's delivery of services was forced to change, the College's support has become invaluable.

We thank every person at SRJC who has worked so hard to help our students succeed.

We just learned that the Board of Trustees of the College has determined that remote learning will continue through the summer semester of 2021. Remote learning means more challenging times ahead in finding new ways to make a difference.

January 2021

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn." –Alvin Toffler 

On most of the Top Ten New Year's Resolutions, there are two that usually appear on every list: Learn Something New and Read More.

Learn Something New: Sometimes, New Year's resolutions are about losing things such as weight or debt. Twenty-five % percent of the population say they're about gaining something, like a new skill or hobby. Our students have resolved to stick with their educational goals and learn something new (actually, many things new) this school year, overcoming huge barriers to do so.

Read More (and write more): The library gets pretty busy after the first of the year. Folks have vowed to pick up more books this year (17 percent of the population, that is). Our students have resolved to learn, unlearn, and relearn to make a better life for themselves and their families. We encourage them to read more but also write more.

So our resolution this year is to help our students acquire the skills and knowledge to become active and informed parents, workers, and community members. This includes health advocacy, civic engagement, and family literacy, to name a few. We will be better communicators by providing topical online workshops, understandable current COVID information, improved community partners connections, and better contact methods with our students.

Literacyworks believes in lifelong learning as a path towards opportunity and fulfillment. As individuals increase their literacy and basic skills, they can secure better jobs, manage their personal lives, advocate for themselves, enhance their parenting skills, and contribute more to their community. In short, they improve the quality of their lives and communities. 

LITERACYWORKS CENTER

We have many wonderful funders/supporters/advisors who have helped our Literacyworks Center students succeed over the years. Thank you because Literacyworks could not have accomplished what we have without you. We wish to highlight one, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, for their continued support from the Center's very beginning. The Tribe knows the power of education to change an individual's life for the better. We have Tribal members enrolled in the Center who are succeeding with their education goals at SRJC. Here is one. 

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

Hi. I am a mother to five wonderful children. My name is Teela and I joined the Literacyworks program over five years ago, originally to obtain my GED. Along the way I had hit a few life speedbumps which I had overcome. On my journey to succeeding, I learned that hard work and dedication is key. I took my final GED test May of 2019 and passed. That is a feeling I will never forget. It gave me motivation to jump right in and sign up for Nursing school with my ultimate goal of becoming a RN someday. That summer I received my CNA certificate and began working while attending classes. Then the Pandemic happened and Nursing programs were placed on hold. I switched my major to Pharmacy Technician which I enjoy very much. I am going for an Associate’s Degree in Pharmacy. I am a couple of semesters away from reaching my Degree. I am extremely grateful to the Literacyworks Program and everyone who works there. Because of them I decided to stick with the program. They have helped me throughout my education journey. I would like to formally thank the Donors who have made this program possible. I would also like to say to all mothers in the program that no matter what obstacles you encounter, remember your reason for furthering your education. My motivation is my children.

December 2020

THE LITERACYWORKS CENTER IS CHANGING LIVES AND
THE NEED IS GREAT

 SOME PROGRAMS PROVIDE JUST A BAND-AID, BUT THE CENTER CREATES REAL LIFELONG CHANGE 

It's hard to write our traditional year-end grateful list with so many in our community struggling. However, we, the Literacyworks staff, are still very thankful for many things this year. Below we offer our Literacyworks list (in no particular order) of the things we are grateful for in 2020.

OUR LITERACYWORKS 2020 "TOP TEN LIST" STARTING WITH #10:

 #10. Our Center participants: This 2020 Spring and Fall Semesters, 220 of our adult students received our Adult Literacy Awards to help them persist in school and progress on their educational goals. Needless to say, we are proud of all our students who have overcome considerable barriers to be the first in their families to attend college and persist in their educational goals.

We have collected comments from our students about the Center. Here are a few:

"I am sending my deep regards and many thanks for the motivation to return to school. Without this program and awards for individuals such as myself, I doubt that I would've ever returned to school. Thank you for the encouragement you've given me to help our future leaders find their voices. I am honored and cannot thank you enough for the help that you've given me in returning to school." 

"Literacyworks has helped me both emotionally and economically. The support, regardless of age, and the diversity are some things I particularly value. I have not found another support system like this in my educational years."

"Thank you for helping me and giving me this opportunity to continue my educational goal. This really helps me and encourages me to keep going. As a first-generation Mexican-American student and a low-income family man, it is really difficult for my mother and me to survive in this world. This program has changed my life and has impacted it in many positive ways. I am blessed, and I promise I will not let you guys down. Thank You!" 

"As a mother of five children, I would like to be a role model for them and show them that life is not easy, but they can make their dreams possible and their goals reachable by furthering their education. I have no words to express the gratitude I feel for this program. Thank you so much!"

"I thank God for having you in my life at the right time. I truly appreciate your help. Thank you because this helps and encourages me to push myself even more to make my dream of becoming a nurse come true. This opportunity shows that anything can be achieved if we work hard and that there are people like you who help us to achieve our goals. Thank you so much for helping students have brighter futures."

#9. Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey: Lynn continues to be our biggest supporter. She is our Literacyworks Center founder/partner and Honorary Board Chairperson.

#8. The Literacyworks Center accomplishments: 2021 will be the Center's 6th year of operation. Some of our Center's achievements to date: 

• Enrolled students each semester at Santa Rosa Junior College, 90% being Latino.
• Provided $942,000 Adult Literacy Awards scholarships* to over 781 low-income, low-literacy students 
• Achieved less than a 10% dropout rate each semester (90% retention), well under the 60% average dropout rate for community colleges for this at-risk population 
• Increased acceptance by our students to certificate and associate programs and even four-year college programs. As of Spring 2020, our graduates have achieved 15 (AA/AS associated degrees), 13 transfers (to 4-year universities UC Berkeley, UCLA, Sonoma State, Sac State, among others), 60 certificates, and 52 GED completions. 
*All Adult Literacy Awards scholarships come from a family foundation and go to benefit our students. No scholarship funding is used for program funding

#7. Parents as First Teachers: Engaging Families to Increase Children's Literacy Program: Literacyworks Parents as First Teachers: Engaging Families to Increase Children's Literacy program works with low-literacy, low-income bilingual parents and children through a combination of access to resources in the home and the community and by training parents in the basic skills to encourage their children to become avid readers. The goal is to help our parents positively view their parenting role, have appropriate expectations of their children's achievements, prepare their children with the necessary skills to succeed in school, and establish and maintain positive relations with community resources, including libraries, schools, and community groups. This year, the lockdown prevented face-to-face workshops. We are preparing to give out bags of books and Zoom workshops this coming year. The Sonoma and Marin library branches are interested in offering the program in 2021.

#6. Literacyworks Board: We sincerely appreciate the support and wisdom of our Literacyworks Board: Elizabeth Howland, President, William Soper, Treasurer, and Gloria Cruz McCallister. Plus, thanks to our Honorary board members: Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, Honorary Chairperson; Peter Coyote, actor, author, director, screenwriter and narrator; and Greg Sarris, writer, academic, and Tribal Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria.

#5. Founding Friends of the Center, the Friends of the Literacyworks Center and Program Partners: Again in 2020, many people and organizations helped to make Literacyworks and the Center successful, including Santa Rosa Junior College, the Friends of the Literacyworks Center and our Center donors, both individuals and organizations, including Codding Foundation, Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, Marin Community Foundation, Community Foundation Sonoma County, KRCB, The W Foundation, Sobel Communications, Fishman Supply, Westamerica Bank, Arrow Benefits Group, and Schwab Charitable Giving.

#4. Santa Rosa Junior College: The Petaluma and Santa Rosa campus staff and administration have been very supportive of the Center with particular thanks to Dr. Frank Chong, President/Superintendent; Rachael Cutcher, Manager of Scholarship Programs; J Mullineaux, Executive Director Santa Rosa Junior College Foundation; Beatriz Camargo, HEP Program Coordinator, Enedina Vera, HEP recruiter; Dr. Jane Saldana-Talley, Vice President of Academic Affairs/Assistant Superintendent; Dr. Matthew Long, Dean of Student Services; and Yesenia Rodarte-Hurtado, EOPS Counselor.

#3. Staff: Thanks to our talented Center staff: Chris Schultz and Rita Sorpranith.

 #2. Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resources: We have translated and provided the community and other national literacy programs up-to-date Covid-19 information in plain language. This has helped our low literacy population understand the ever-changing information about remaining safe during this pandemic. The site contains update facts and resources about Employment, Financial Assistance, Food Security, Housing, Medical Health, Mental Health, and Activities for Kids and Families.

#1. YOU: We are incredibly grateful for all the Literacyworks supporters, both anonymous and public, and that includes you!

Literacyworks helps underprivileged and underrepresented adults secure better jobs, become better parents, and contribute more to their community. Thanks for all your support this year and next.

Paul Heavenridge
Executive Director

2020 YEAR-END CAMPAIGN

We've launched our 2020 Year-End Campaign. Our goal is to raise $25,000 to keep receiving the donor's scholarship funding by matching it with staff and operations funding. This will allow us to reach our goal of helping 110 motivated low-income low literacy adults get on our program each semester in 2020.

A WORD ABOUT THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND OUR STUDENTS

Our low-income students are among the most vulnerable in our community when suffering during a disaster.

During this last fire, SRJC was closed for a week. Now our students have to adapt to attending classes completely through technology because of the pandemic. Many of our students are suffering a loss of income and housing. Our staff offer additional support services to ensure they stay in school and complete their course of study. We are proud that most have persisted and remained.

We can't do it without your help. Will you make a gift?

To make your donation now, go to http://www.literacyworks.org/donate or contact Rita at rita@literacyworks.org to be mailed a remittance envelope.

Bonus: The CARES Act, which was signed into law this spring, included a "partial above the line deduction" for charitable contributions. This allows a $300 tax deduction per individual even if the taxpayer isn't itemizing charitable donations. (To qualify for the deduction, the donation must be made by check or credit card; unfortunately, volunteer hours or donated goods do not qualify). 

November 2020

THE CENTER IS CHANGING LIVES AND THE NEED IS GREAT

 SOME PROGRAMS PROVIDE JUST A BAND-AID, BUT THE CENTER CREATES REAL LIFELONG CHANGE 

As is tradition when we near the end of the year, we want to share the Literacyworks Center's 2020 accomplishments and our students with you and ask for your continued financial support. 

It takes $3,000 a year to enable a Center student to reach their goals and stay in school for a full academic year. We do whatever it takes to help our adults succeed in college, but we can't do it without you. Your gift of any amount creates meaningful change for our students, families, and their communities. All of our adults are low-income, low-literacy members of our community and are the first in their family to go to college. Many are parents. Their perseverance in reaching their educational goals encourages their children to excel in school and follow their example to attend college. 

THE LITERACYWORKS CENTER 

 2021 will be the Center's 6th year of operation. Some of our Center's accomplishments to date are: 

• Enrolled 110 students each semester at Santa Rosa Junior College, 90% being Latino.
• Provided $942,00 Adult Literacy Awards scholarships* to over 781 low-income, low-literacy students 
• Achieved less than a 10% dropout rate each semester (90% retention), well under the 60% average dropout rate for community colleges for this at-risk population 
• Increased acceptance by our students to certificate and associate programs and even four-year college programs. As of Spring 2020, our graduates have achieved 15 (AA/AS associated degrees), 13 transfers (to 4-year universities UC Berkeley, UCLA, Sonoma State, Sac State, among others), 60 certificates, and 52 GED completions. *All Adult Literacy Awards scholarships come from a family foundation and go to benefit our students. No scholarship funding is used for program funding

Center students tell us repeatedly that they work hard and persist because they know that someone is ready and willing to invest in their future. With your support, we make a difference in families' lives, as reflected in notes from our students.

We are asking you to support our students. With your donation, you will help Center students reach their goals and stay in school for a full academic year. We do whatever it takes to help our adults succeed in college and invest in their future, but we can't do it without you. Your gift of any amount creates meaningful change for our students, families, and their communities.

Please go to our Donation page at http://www.literacyworks.org/donate to help our students succeed. Literacyworks has been determined a 501 (C)(3) organization by the IRS (EIN: 94-3396412).

A WORD ABOUT THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON OUR STUDENTS

Our low-income students are among the most vulnerable in our community when suffering during a disaster.

During this last fire, SRJC was closed for a week. Now our students have to adapt to attending classes completely through technology because of the pandemic. Many of our students are suffering a loss of income and housing. Our staff offer additional support services to ensure they stay in school and complete their course of study. We are proud that most have persisted and remained.

The pandemic's stress and costs take a physical and psychological toll on all of our students. During our student interviews, we have found that health literacy and health access is one of their top concerns. In response, we are holding Health Resources workshops for our students in collaboration with SRJC Student Health Services and The Petaluma Health Center. Students learn about accessing and utilizing healthcare resources on campus and in the community, including mental health services.

So thank you for supporting our students with your donation. You are making a difference in their lives with your gift.

LITERACYWORKS CENTER

The Center's staff provides a variety of programs and workshops to support our student's success.

The centerpiece of this effort is conducting a one-to-one interview with all students. In this context, we learn more about the challenges, needs, and frustration facing our students. We then can attempt to address their needs with a more personalized approach. 

Since all connection with our students is remote due to the pandemic, we initiate our one-to-one interviews via Zoom.

We will use a set of interview questions and attempt to start a supportive conversation to maintain our friends' close relationship. We will report back to you next month on how this effort has gone. Thank you for your interest in our students and our program.

October 2020 Newsletter

Depression during COVID

According to the American Medical Association journal JAMA Network Open, nearly a quarter of people in the United States are experiencing depression symptoms. That's almost three times the number before the COVID-19 pandemic began.

People with lower income, smaller savings, and affected by the pandemic — either through a job loss or the death of a loved one, as examples, are likely to carry these symptoms.

When a population experiences something traumatic, such as our current pandemic or natural disasters such as our recent fires, researchers expect a rise in mental illnesses in following the event.

But the mental health toll of this coronavirus pandemic seems to be far greater than previous mass traumas, says Catherine Ettman, a doctoral student in public health at Brown University. 

"We were surprised at the high levels of depression," Catherine Ettman says. "These rates were higher than what we've seen in the general population after other large-scale traumas like September 11, Hurricane Katrina, and the Hong Kong unrest."

"I think it reflects both the widespread nature of this particular trauma as well as the fact that there are multiple traumas," says Dr. Sandro Galea, an epidemiologist, and dean of the School of Public Health at Boston University. Galea coauthored the new study with Ettman.

Traumas linked to pandemic have included ongoing stress and fear of catching the disease, grief over the illness, or loss of loved ones, anxiety over the economic fallout.

"It's not one of these 'we get hit, and it's over' kind of things. That is, psychologically speaking, the easiest thing to recover from," says George Everly, a psychologist at Johns Hopkins University. The latter wasn't involved in the research. Once a discrete disaster is over, he says, people often can start rebuilding their lives and regain a sense of normalcy.

Our students are most vulnerable during this time. We continue to reach out and provide them with health resources on our Coronavirus (COVID-19) site (which includes our Coping with Stress and Anxiety resource page) during this disquieting time.

Though it’s harder to reach out to students, our staff has been working diligently to assist those with needs to help them stay in school.

Literacyworks Center Student Update

As the global pandemic changed everyone's lives last Spring, it changed our students' experiences in some particular and significant ways. In a normal world, staff would have been meeting with each of the 110 students individually. We call it our 'one to one.' It is here that we discover the challenges, needs, and achievements of the folks we work with. This allows us to look for ways to provide support. What follows are the comments students made to staff during phone calls or emails, which replaced the one to one meetings. 

• My husband lost his job right away. My work hours have been cut in half. I can do online classes for now; the amount of work is much greater. We are worried about money.

• Online classes are hard for me. I've never had them before. Math is impossible, so I will drop the class but keep my English. The teacher is very nice. I miss my friends.

• I made the change to computer-based classes. My son helped me. I have no job, and my savings will not last too long. My daughter is helping me with the rent. God bless her.

• I clean houses as my job, and now no one wants anyone in the house, so I have no work. 

• My husband lost his job and is looking for something else. Worst is my daughter has got to have surgery.  

• I have five kids. I passed my GED [high school equivalency test] last semester. It took a long time, and I am so proud of myself. I dropped out of school very early and had no confidence that I could succeed, but I did. Now I am taking classes to become a nursing assistant and maybe even a nurse. 

• Life has changed so much. My husband has a full-time job.

• I work in an assisted living center with very old people. The Corona Virus hits these people very strongly. I like the work, but I am really afraid of bringing the virus home to my children.

• My husband lost some hours at work and is afraid he may lose more. I work part-time in a store, and I volunteer at the food bank making deliveries. The online classes are going well. Being home allows me to help my daughter with her classes.

• Biology is very hard. I work full-time with Hospice. I have all the protective equipment, but I am scared. I work all day with people who are dying and hear all night how so many people are dying from the virus.

• I am taking Early Childhood Development and English classes. I like the classes. All my kids are staying home and staying safe. That means so much to me. Money might become a problem soon. I will call you if I need help.

• I can't complain, I'm lucky. Both my parents work and still have their jobs. I lost my job at the outlet store. Classes are OK so far, but I am lonely. I miss my friends and my teachers.

Many emotions have emerged from these interviews. Fear, an obvious and understandable one. Hope that things will get better and not worse. But perhaps the most significant one is resilience – the belief that even in the face of unanticipated change, loss, and disruption, we can go on.

SUPPORT OUR STUDENTS!

Our low-income students are among the most vulnerable in our community when it comes to suffering during a disaster. Because of the COVID-19 epidemic, many of our students are suffering a loss of income and housing. Also, SRJC has been closed since the first of April when online classes began.

Our staff is offering additional support services to ensure our students stay in school and complete their course of study. We are proud that most have persisted and remained.

Thank you for supporting our students with your donation during this difficult time. You are making a difference in their lives with your gift.

September 2020

As a nonprofit, Literacyworks is taking decisive action during this pandemic to support our students and our community. We are refocusing our mission to include providing plain-language information that gives adults, families, and children a foundation for healthy choices, lifelong learning, and achievement.

Literacyworks is an educational nonprofit organization created to increase accessibility and participation of underprivileged and underrepresented adults, families, and children to improve literacy, technology, and basic skills. Our goal is to collaboratively and comprehensively address families' literacy needs across a spectrum of basic needs essential to the quality of life: family literacy, health literacy, financial literacy, and workplace literacy. To address one literacy need outside the context of the others leaves families only partially served. 

According to Seachange, a nonprofit support organization, organizations appear to fall into three broad categories: Hibernators, Responders, and Hybrids in responding to COVID-19.

Hibernators are entirely unable to operate during this crisis.

Responders have seen the demand for their programs go up because of COVID-19. At the same time, they face increased difficulty and cost in delivering these essential programs safely. The government's early action suggests that it will eventually get the required resources to responders, but timing is likely to be an issue. The government is aware—or should be made aware—that any large responder's failure will wreak havoc in the local community.

Hybrids offer programs that can be provided, to some degree, despite the COVID-19 crisis but which are not directly related to reducing its spread or mitigating its short-term impact. They face the most significant uncertainty with respect to how funders will view their importance during the crisis and its aftermath.

Literacyworks is making the case that we are in the Responders category. We have contacted each of our students to survey what their needs are during this pandemic and fires. In response, Literacyworks has developed a plain-language Covid-19 Resource page with topics including up-to-date SRJC alerts, Sonoma County Emergency information, unemployment applications, food security access, mental health, Covid-19 safety tips, financial assistance, and family activities.

We will continue to reach out to the broader low literacy community with emergency information written as plain-language and support our students in any way we can, including pursuing grants and other funding sources. 

Our students are tough and persistent, desiring to reach their educational goals. This past Spring semester, out of 109 enrolled students, 100 completed the semester successfully despite having to finish all their courses online.

In these unusual and trying times, all of our students have been tested and asked to take on new ways of learning remotely, sometimes without sufficient technology or skills.

Jobs lost, rents due, and children to educate from home, all have created tremendous challenges. Yet the theme that continues to weave through Literacyworks students is one of resilience. They are determined to reach their goals through education and create more significant opportunities for their future.

Cristina has been in the Literacyworks Center program for over a year. She successfully transitioned to online learning in Spring when the pandemic ended in-person instruction at Santa Rosa Junior College.

During a recent conversation, she reported that she had received her high school equivalency certificate, which she was very proud of. Cristina is continuing to take ESL classes along with Health Science classes. Her long-term goal is to become a nurse. She works to support herself in an assisted living center caring for senior citizens. Cristina is a frontline worker and a hero to the people she serves. The Literacyworks staff is very proud of all they are doing to achieve their goals.

Oscar was successfully studying Auto Technology at the JC until the pandemic lockdown put an end to in-person, hands-on classes. This Fall, he will start taking general education classes remotely to meet his degree requirements.  Oscar reported that he didn’t think he would ever take these difficult general education classes, but he is very excited to start. We wish Oscar well this semester and will be offering all the support we can.

Another of our students, Diego, joined the program last Spring.  We met him in the context of an outreach effort in the Roseland area of Santa Rosa. Roseland has recently developed several extremely innovative public schools designed to better prepare young people for college. Diego is clearly engaged in his children’s lives and wants the best for them.  We met him at an early morning parent orientation at the school where his children attend. Staff presented the Center program, he joined and is happy to be a part of our support effort. Despite the change to remote learning mid-semester, Diego completed his high school equivalency certificate and successfully took classes this Fall.

SUPPORT OUR STUDENTS!

Our low-income students are among the most vulnerable in our community when it comes to suffering during a disaster. Because of the COVID-19 epidemic, many of our students are suffering a loss of income and housing. Also, SRJC has been closed since the first of April when online classes began.

Our staff is offering additional support services to ensure our students stay in school and complete their course of study. We are proud that most have persisted and remained.

Thank you for supporting our students with your donation during this difficult time. You are making a difference in their lives with your gift.

July 2020 Literacyworks in the News

In these challenging times, we often turn to reflect on better times, so here’s some positive Literacyworks history.

Literacyworks administered the US Department of Education’s Regional Professional Development Center (Region 4) for the Literacy Information and Communication Network System (LINCS) for twenty-one years starting in 1995. At the time, LINCS began at the National Institute for Literacy as mandated by Congress to address adult literacy. Through LINCS, we connected, trained, and provided educational resources for literacy programs in local libraries, adult education programs, and other community and institutional settings throughout Alaska, Hawaii, the western United States and the Pacific Islands (Guam, Northern Marianas, Marshall Islands, Palau, Micronesia).

During the last 25 years, we have produced innovative, dynamic projects. Our Science & Numeracy Special Collection (http://literacynet.org/sciencelincs) included our interactive projects with the National Science Foundation (NSF), Centers for Ocean Science Educational Excellence (COSEE) and NOAA (Ocean Science Station http://www.literacyworks.org/ocean and Polar Science Station http://www.literacynet.org/polar). These contained our field expeditions with disciplinary thrusts, e.g., biology (zooplankton & bacteria), chemistry (trace metals), physics (ocean circulation) for K-12 schools, and ABE/ESL learners. The site also provided links to Internet sites useful for teaching and learning about science and numeracy. We continue to update the site to align with the new Core Curriculum Standards in CA and the US.

Way before anyone was offering streaming educational content, the Learning Resources stories (http://literacynet.org/cnnsf) delivered web-delivered instruction using current and past CNN San Francisco bureau news stories. Each story module includes the full text of each story, steaming video and audio of the broadcast story, and interactive activities to test comprehension. The learner can choose to read the text, listen to the text, or view the broadcast through streaming video.

A group of master instructional designers created each story. The goal was to have a current, consistent, well-designed site that benefits all learners and instructors.

At its peak, 150 countries and all 50 US states accessed the site for English instruction activities. Learning Resources has archived over 70 stories.

EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL ARCHIVE PROJECTS

Literacyworks has been committed to support, develop, maintain and advocate for online educational and cultural collections for the last twenty-five years. We are featuring a few of the sites we have collaborated on and hosted over the years with dozens of institutions.

Go to our PROJECTS page (http://www.literacyworks.org/projects) to browse some of our past collections such as:

· PORTRAITS OF PETALUMA PIONEERS
·   OCEAN SCIENCE STATION
·   POLAR SCIENCE STATION
·   LITERACYWORKS CALIFORNIA HEALTH LITERACY INITIATIVE (CHLI) 

Started in 2015, the Center helps low-literacy, low-income adults who lack the basic skills access career and technical education and persist in college. Our unique learners share a common goal of wanting to succeed in giving back to their families and communities. This is the Center’s 5th year of operation. Some of our Center’s accomplishments to date are: 

• Enrolled 110 students each semester at SRJC, 90% being Latino 
• Provided $1,029,000 Adult Literacy Awards scholarships* to over 890 low-income, low-literacy students 
• Achieved less than a 10% dropout rate each semester (90% retention), well under the 60% average dropout rate for community colleges for this at-risk population 
• Increased acceptance by our students to certificate and associate programs and even four-year college programs. As of Spring 2020, our graduates have achieved 19 (AA/AS associated degrees), 14 transfers (to 4-year universities UC Berkeley, UCLA, UCSC, Sonoma State, Sac State among others), 70 certificates, and 63 GED completions. 
* All Adult Literacy Awards scholarships come from a family foundation and go to benefit our students. No scholarship funding is used for program funding

Student Advisory Board

The Center is embarking on a new project to serve our students better. It is the creation of a Student Advisory Board, the aim of which is to review program goals and objectives and help expand strategies and activities to further support student success in college. The Board will be composed of current students and alumni of the program. As the Board develops, we envision that they can become mentors to students who are having difficulty in school. We also are planning to have Student Board members take on a leadership role in our regularly scheduled workshops. We have found that students learn best from one another, and our goal is to expand those opportunities further. We also see the potential to develop leadership skills in Board members that will serve them later in life. Please follow this project as it develops.

Student Voices: 2020 Spring Semester Completion Edition

"I am very happy, because this semester I received a computer certificate for completed level 1, 2 3 and level 4. And now for the summer I signed up for level 761.7 of Online Computing. My goal is to continue studying to help my children. With this situation and with the virtual classes for my children ... what little I have studied has been very helpful to me and every time I can help one of my children with their homework ... for me it is a great satisfaction. Thanks for your help!!!”

"Hi! This spring semester I received my child development certificate. I’m still continuing at the JC because I want to get my Associates degree. It was a hard semester because going online was hard at first since I didn’t have WiFi and I had to buy WiFi. Now I’m doing better than the beginning and I managed to pass all my classes thankfully! Thank you so much for reaching out. I appreciate it so much." 

“It is pleasure to be able to tell you how my semester was. In the beginning when everything changes to remotely class was difficult, but little by little I could continue with my class despite all the adversities at the time. I am planning to take the class ESL 732 for the summer because that class will help me to improve my computer skills and since the other semester the classes would be remotely that class help me a lot. I take this opportunity to thank the entire Literacyworks team for all the help they have given me."

"Thank you for the opportunity. I will be registering for the fall semester. May the lord continues keeping the program, and the staff under the shadow of his wings."

“This is Georgina reaching out to you that I received my computer certificate and I am enrolled in a computer class for the summer and I am already registered for the Fall. Thank you very much for the support I am receiving from you and the Literacyworks program."

"I am happy to share with you I have done with child development and soon I am going to get a Certificate for Associate Teacher and I finished ESL 100 too, and I like to share with you a video about the challenges I have to face taking an online class, this was my last project for English 100 (https://spark.adobe.com/video/y2TFnN2ulrUBr). Thank you for all your support. I am ready for fall semester!"

SUPPORT OUR STUDENTS!

Our low-income students are among the most vulnerable in our community when it comes to suffering during a disaster. Because of the COVID-19 epidemic, many of our students are suffering a loss of income and housing. Also, SRJC has been closed since the first of April when online classes began.

Our staff is offering additional support services to ensure our students stay in school and complete their course of study. We are proud that most have persisted and remained.

Thank you for supporting our students with your donation during this difficult time. You are making a difference in their lives with your gift.

June 2020 Literacyworks in the News

In our monthly newsletter, we often share stories about Literacyworks Center students, their challenges, their hopes, and their achievements. These stories reflect the resilience, courage, and kindness of the people we are privileged to work with.

Our community is currently confronted with a pandemic, economic inequality, and social injustice. Our students are living in a time of fear, loneliness, and lack of trust in their future.

With that said, we want to share how our students are coping and sprinkle in some good news. Our students are overcoming huge barriers to stay in school and move forward toward achieving their goals. This Spring Semester, they had to learn how to take all their SRJC classes by distance. We helped with technology and resources where we could. We are delighted to report that all but a few completed their course work and are now zooming ahead toward the next semester. Some even completed their certificates/associate degrees. And some are transferring to four years colleges.

Here are a few abbreviated stories that we took from the SRJC Oak Leaf online newspaper written by two of our students. We are calling this new section ‘In Their Own Words.’ We are also including some student comments from our survey that we conducted with each of our 110 students.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

Pregnant and alone in quarantine
Posted: 05 Jun 2020 in the SRJC Oak Leaf online newspaper

My name is Laura. I am an ESL student at Santa Rosa Junior college. And this is how COVID-19 has been affecting me during this quarantine. On Dec. 31, 2019, I felt very enthusiastic because we were going to start a new year in a couple of hours. Then, I remember spending all day thinking about the goals and wishes I wanted to accomplish during the new year, such as losing weight, saving more money to get a new car, and more dreams that I wanted to achieve this year.

However, destiny had other plans for me and the rest of the world. In the last two weeks of December, I heard about a new virus discovered in China, but I never thought that this situation would go out of control. Also, I was going to face this situation here in Santa Rosa, far away from my family. Nevertheless, as any person in this country, COVID-19 has been affecting me emotionally and financially.

First of all, this virus has changed our lifestyle radically for everybody in many ways because it forces us to stay in quarantine at home and leave our jobs and our daily routines. In my experience, I got affected emotionally due to this situation because I don’t have my family close to me; they live in Texas so far away from me, and that made me feel alone in the middle of this situation.

In the first week of the new year, I found out that I was pregnant, and hearing about how harmful this virus could be, I got scared and nervous not just for me but for my baby. Moreover, my doctor’s appointments have changed from regular visits to phone calls. In that way, the consequences of that are that I can’t see or hear my baby progress by ultrasound, which affected me more emotionally.

Nevertheless, this situation is very frustrating for me because this is my first baby, and I’m feeling that I’m missing those beautiful stages that most of the women live during their pregnancy. Every time I go out, I feel scared to get infected by this virus because I know I can’t take any prescriptions during pregnancy, so I prefer to stay safely at home. However, I feel sad, scared, depressed, and I never thought I was going to live my first pregnancy in this way with all these complications. 

COVID-19 has also affected me financially since California’s government took action to stop the pandemic in our state. They decided to close all unnecessary stores in the whole country, which have included the store where I used to work. I stopped working on March 15, and since then, I haven’t worked. I’m stressed about money. 

For example, I couldn’t pay my April’s rent, and little by little, I have been spending the money I was saving for my baby to pay some of my bills. Honestly, this situation makes me feel sad and worried. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. Perhaps, this situation brought me more complications, but thank God, my family has been supporting me financially, which gives me a little comfort for my baby and me. Finally, I hope that this situation ends soon so I can have my baby and enjoy the beautiful things that used to be.

Quarantine through the eyes of a blind person
Posted: 04 Jun 2020 in the SRJC Oak Leaf online newspaper

I am a 45-year old blind student at SRJC since 2012. I was very excited taking the ESL 10 course when the classes were halted, and we had to be in quarantine as a result of the coronavirus. As a blind person, I could see this situation differently from the people who can see. Many people are in fear by the things they see or hear on the street and in the media. I have disconnected from all this, and I only know what my family, my friends or my son tell me about it. For this reason, I keep positive.

Moreover, I do not go out to the street. The only time that I almost went out was with my friend to buy my food. She was afraid because she thought that going with me, she could catch the virus and become unable to care for me or for herself at the same time. I decided that my friend should go alone to buy my food to feel more trusting. I can imagine the people’s faces under a mask full of fears.

The quarantine changed some plans that I had for my future. For example, I was planning travel to Atlanta, Georgia in May after finishing the semester. And then I was to travel in June to Mexico to meet with my younger son, but now I don’t know if this date will be possible for travel. I only know that the quarantine destroyed all my plans. It also is affecting me a great deal because I am not working. I prefer to go to school or remain at home. And now I am especially isolated due to quarantine.

Moreover, I must take my classes online and on Zoom, a program that I didn’t know and that now I have to learn to use. Although, it is not easy for blind people to understand the classes and to complete the assignments in this way, I have had to work hard to adjust. Sometimes I stay up until 1 or 2 a.m. doing the homework because it is too much and I must read and reread to understand it. I really appreciate my tutors who help me because together we make a good team. I think social interaction is very important for the humanity. And with the quarantine, we can’t interact with other people. However, my older son visits me five days a week. And my friend comes over one day a week. They do it with their protective gear. And thanks to this care, they are not sick, and up to this moment I do not know anyone who has the virus.    

Sheltering at home has not only brought bad experiences into my life. It is helping me to learn more about the technology to be more independent to do my homework for myself. And I am enjoying the time that my son doesn’t work to cook with him and eat together. Facing a pandemic has not been easy for people who can see and more for me who cannot see.

Despite everything, I keep a positive mind trying to have peace in my soul and live without fear of what might happen or come into my life. I advise the people that mainly they should not feel afraid about what is happening. They have to keep the calm and peace in their heart and if they want to feel surer, they can avoid contagion by practicing distancing of 6 feet away from other people, using their mask all the time and washing their hands every time that they touch something. Mainly they need a positive mentality for all the changes that may come. For example, it is a benefit that Mother Earth can rest from so much contamination that human beings cause to the planet.

REPORTS FROM OUR STUDENTS

We are ever vigilant contacting our students to keep up-to-date with their progress. Here is the email we sent in May to collect information and two of the responses we received.

Dear Literacyworks Students

Today marks the last day of finals and the last day of spring semester 2020. What a semester it has been. Rita, Paul, and I want to express our sincere appreciation to all of you for the hard work in completing school in these difficult times. You made the transition from face to face learning to online learning. You sheltered in place to stay safe, and for many, you became teachers to your children.

We are so proud of what you accomplished in the face of a pandemic. We really want to hear from you and want to celebrate your accomplishments remotely.

Please tell us by email if you are:

1. Graduating with an Associate’s Degree
2. Transferring to a 4-year school
3. Receiving a Certificate
4. Going to summer school
5. How pleased you are with the progress you made
6. Problems you may have enrolling for Fall classes (or Summer classes)

This information is important so we can help you be successful this year. 

Vicente replied:

1. I am graduating with 4 associates, Physics AS-T, Physics AS, Math AS, and Natural Science AS
2. I was also accepted to UCSC.
3. And, I am taking summer classes at the JC, and at UCSC.
4. Finally, I feel really grateful for all your help, and the motivation that you guys inculcated on me. I feel ready for the next challenges. Thank you so much for all your help.

Respectfully,
Vicente 

Esmeralda replied:

It is a pleasure to able to tell you how my semester was. In the beginning, when everything changes to remotely class was difficult, but little by little, I could continue with my class despite all the adversities at the time. I was talking ESL 371, and my grade in my class was very high, so my teacher advised me to skip class ESL 372 and instead take the class ESL 373 to the next semester. Also, I am planning to take the class ESL 732 for the summer because that class will help me to improve my computer skills and since the other semester, the classes would be remotely that class help me a lot. I take this opportunity to thank the entire Literacyworks team for all the help they have given me.

Esmeralda

SUPPORT OUR STUDENTS!

Our low-income students are among the most vulnerable in our community when it comes to suffering during a disaster. Because of the COVID-19 epidemic, many of our students are suffering a loss of income and housing. Also, SRJC has been closed since the first of April when online classes began.

Our staff is offering additional support services to ensure our students stay in school and complete their course of study. We are proud that most have persisted and remained.

Thank you for supporting our students with your donation during this difficult time. You are making a difference in their lives with your gift.

May 2020 Literacyworks News

As COVID-19 proliferates across America, access to reliable, understandable information is critical. One's health literacy is the degree to which you can get, understand, and use basic health information to make decisions about health issues, identifying the false information, and discarding it. Plain language health literacy is a valuable tool in fighting this virus for our students and the community at large.

When the California Health Literacy Initiative (http://www.literacyworks.org/healthliteracy) launched in 2003, we wrote that adult learners faced the same health care challenges as fully literate adults. They faced challenges in establishing a healthy diet, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, understanding new therapies, and new diseases. For adult learners, the additional struggle is to deal with all these tasks while lacking the necessary skills to find and understand health-related information. As a result, they often fail to engage in early detection and preventive health care practices and have difficulty understanding and complying with instructions from their doctors. 

Literacyworks staff is dedicated to providing our students and the community with the best, current, most understandable, and trustworthy information to help deal with this current and any future crisis. As the Global Working Group on Health Literacy of the International Union for Health Promotion and Education stated about the pandemic, “the dissemination of quality, timely and understandable information is key in slowing down transmission and avoiding overburdening the healthcare system.”

As part of our Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resources site, we will continue to identify and tag false information by:

• Helping our students cross-check the accuracy and credibility of information found on TV, radio, internet, and social media.

• Enabling our students to ask questions to family members and trusted health professionals about the fake news, misinformation and harmful content and messages.

• Encouraging our students to check the source of information (where does it come from, who is behind the information, what is the intention, why was it shared, when was it published.

Below are some fake theories and our response. To see more, go to our Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resources site at http://www.literacyworkscenter.org/covid-19.

Wearing gloves will 100% protect me from the coronavirus.
FALSE! Gloves only help if you do not touch your eyes, nose, mouth and wash your hands after removing gloves. Whatever your dirty gloves touch, it can spread the coronavirus to those surfaces.

I am young and healthy, so I can’t be infected by the new coronavirus.
FALSE! According to the World Health Organization (WHO), people of all ages can be infected by the new coronavirus. Older people and people with illnesses (like asthma, diabetes, heart disease) can be in danger of becoming ill with the virus. WHO recommends people of all ages to take steps to protect themselves from the virus.

Hand dryers and UV lamps are effective in killing the coronavirus.
FALSE! According to WHO, “hand dryers are not effective in killing the coronavirus. UV lamps should not be used to sterilize hands, or other areas of skin as UV radiation can cause skin irritation. To protect yourself against the new coronavirus, you should frequently clean your hands with soap and water or an alcohol-based hand rub.”

Drinking a bleach solution will prevent you from getting the coronavirus.
FALSE! FALSE! FALSE! Do not drink bleach! Social media users and others are spreading a dangerous conspiracy theory that says drinking a bleach concoction will prevent contracting the 2019 coronavirus strain at the center of a current outbreak. The Food and Drug Administration has released multiple warnings about the "dangerous and potentially life-threatening side effects" of the solution and urges people not to drink it. They have reports of people experiencing severe vomiting, severe diarrhea, life-threatening low blood pressure caused by dehydration, acute liver failure and death after drinking cleaning products.

We will continue to support our students and community when disaster strikes with sites like Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resources http://www.literacyworkscenter.org/covid-19. 

As the global pandemic moves into May, our Center students continue to face significant challenges. As reported last month, the majority of our 110 students made the transition to online learning. Many said that they miss their classmates and teachers. They tell us that there is a great deal of homework, and it seems harder with no one to ask questions easily. Many of our students have children who are having their own first experience with online learning. Parents become teachers overnight, and some are struggling with their new role. The next dimension of this ever-changing situation is beginning to unfold. Rent is due on the first of May, and a number of our folks don’t have the money to cover it. Money for food is limited for some, many are taking advantage of the food banks, but that is sometimes in short supply. The subtle anxiety about the unknown yet to come is often masked by a perpetual optimistic belief that things will work out for their family. It seems the Center staff’s role has moved from not only providing educational support to also becoming an underfunded social service effort. One student told the staff that she appreciated getting a call because she knew we had her back and that we cared. During a recent Center staff telephone meeting, one member said that they are regularly profoundly inspired by the courage and strength of our students. Their bravery and boldness in attempting to change their futures through education are now being tested, but we believe they can succeed.

Some details about a few of our students: Diana is in a pre-nursing program taking anatomy online. She will do it, but she says it is not easy. Her tenacity and drive to improve the chances for her family’s future is a model for so many of our students. Vicente, a first-generation college student, has been helping some other students figure out how to manage the technology needed for online learning. He was due to graduate this month, but he will have to cross the stage virtually due to the virus. He is transferring to UC Santa Crus in the fall with a full scholarship for tuition and room and board, majoring in Physics. Maria is working on completing her GED. Now that the class is online, she is not sure how she will do but told us would succeed because she wants to be a model for children. Emanuel’s phone was disconnected.

~ Chris Schultz, Center Director

SUPPORT OUR STUDENTS!

Our low-income students are among the most vulnerable in our community when it comes to suffering during a disaster. Because of the COVID-19 epidemic, many of our students are suffering a loss of income and housing. Also, SRJC has been closed since the first of April when online classes began.

Our staff is offering additional support services to ensure our students stay in school and complete their course of study. We are proud that most have persisted and remained.

Thank you for supporting our students with your donation during this difficult time. You are making a difference in their lives with your gift.

April 2020: Literacyworks in the News

The Literacyworks staff wish you the best in these challenging times and hope you are staying healthy and safe. We are keeping busy connecting with all of our students making sure we know what their needs are, keeping them supported so they can continue their classes at SRJC.

We’re revamping our grant requests to support our plain language COVID-19 resource page at http://www.literacyworkscenter.org/covid-19. This page is an extension of our Disaster Relief Resource page we did for the fires. We’re collecting plain language material and also developing our own. The target population is our students and the low literacy and low-income North Bay community at large, who is most vulnerable during these disasters. 

Student Voices

“All you do has helped me better my life in such a special way. ‘Thank You’ does not express my deep gratitude, yet I must tell you how grateful I am for this program.”

“I work as a full-time preschool teacher, which gives me very little time to go to school and study. The Center has not only helped, financially, but also created a connection. Literacyworks is always checking on me and giving support in any way they can (meetings, tutoring, emails and phone calls). Due to this help, I am closer to my goal of obtaining my AA and becoming an interpreter.” 

“As a mother of five children, I would like to be a role model for them and show them that life is not easy, but they can make their dreams possible and their goals reachable by furthering their education. I have no words to express the gratitude I feel for this program. Thank you so much!”

“I would like to thank you with all my heart for helping people like me. You have motivated me to move forward. I am able to learn and accomplish my goals thanks to your support.”

“I thank God for having you in my life at the right time. I truly appreciate your help. Thank you, because this helps and encourages me to push myself even more to make my dream of becoming a nurse come true. This opportunity shows that anything can be achieved if we work hard and that there are people like you who help us to achieve our goals. Thank you so much for helping students have brighter futures.”

Support Our Students!

Our low-income students are among the most vulnerable in our community when it comes to suffering during a disaster. Because of the COVID-19 epidemic, many of our students are suffering a loss of income and housing. Also, SRJC has been closed until the first of April when online classes began.

Our staff is offering additional support services to ensure our students stay in school and complete their course of study. We are proud that most have persisted and remained.

Thank you for supporting our students with your donation in this difficult time. You are making a difference in their lives with your gift.

Plain Language COVID-19 for the Low-Literacy, Low-Income Community

Issue: Healthcare materials are written at the 10th-grade level or above and not understandable to a large segment of the population
Solution: Provide Plain Language materials that are written at the average American’s reading level (6th-7th grade)

Need for Plain Language Resource Information
Our students are overcoming personal challenges to better themselves and their families by staying enrolled at Santa Rosa Junior College and finishing vocational courses for better employment. Many have had traumatic experiences because of the Sonoma County fires and the Coronavirus epidemic, and our staff is offering additional plain language resources to help people process and manage their life changes. Once a hard to serve student drops out, the statistics show very few return to school. 100% of our participating Center adults are low income and low-literacy. 

Plain Language materials are written at the average American’s reading level (6th-7th grade) and uses words most readers can easily read and understand. In contrast, most healthcare materials are written at the 10th-grade level or above. The gap between document sophistication and consumer literacy skills is a growing concern in the health field. Using Plain Language to make sure adults can read and understand printed information is part of the solution. 

Presenting information in Spanish for adults who are not literate in their native language is not the solution. These adults find it more difficult to learn, read, and speak fluently in a second language. Teaching native-language literacy first can significantly increase the percentage of Latino immigrants who feel confident enrolling and succeeding in English language classes and other adult education classes. Learning to read and write in one’s primary language is vital to success in the workplace, managing health care, and raising a family. Presenting health information in plain language English also helps this population access important resources.

As in past periods of crisis, approximately 90 million Americans have limited health literacy, which puts them at higher risk for poorer access to care and poorer health outcomes. The Sonoma County Community Health Needs Assessment confirms that literacy level, income, and educational attainment is strongly correlated to health: those with low levels of literacy, low income, and education suffer poor health outcomes. Residents in Sonoma County and the North Bay who identify as American Indian/Alaska Native, African American/Black, Hispanic/Latino, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and Some Other Race have a higher percentage of individuals at risk in experiencing poor health results.

Literacyworks Health Literacy

Literacyworks was created to increase accessibility and participation of underprivileged and underrepresented adults, families and children. Our goal is to collaboratively and comprehensively address the literacy needs of families across a spectrum of basic needs essential to the quality of life: family literacy, health literacy, financial literacy, and workplace literacy. To address one literacy need outside the context of the others leaves families only partially served. We are part of an expert health educator team & a national dissemination network of research & evidence-based plain language material to reach low-literacy families.*

LITERACYWORKS CALIFORNIA HEALTH LITERACY INITIATIVE (CHLI) http://www.literacyworks.org/healthliteracy
COVID-19 resource page: http://www.literacyworkscenter.org/covid-19

Resiliency is a concept not new to members of the Bay Area community – fires, droughts, earthquakes, homelessness, and now a virus. Each member of the Literacyworks Center program is low income, has struggled in school, and some cases are new to the United States. What they all share is optimism and high motivation to succeed and improve their lives and their families. This motivation is the definition of resiliency – the willingness to work hard for what you see as possible and to bounce back when things go wrong.

For the one hundred and ten students that make up the current Literacyworks program, having their classes at Santa Rosa JC move from face to face learning to an online teaching format has presented a significant challenge. Very few of our students have ever taken online classes. Some students don’t have wi-fi or a computer to connect with. A few get lost in connecting with the college. The JC has done a remarkable job of providing access in a very short time. It has been Literacyworks staff’s role to help ensure assistance when necessary and provide a list of resources to address the non-academic needs facing our students. To name a few: filing for unemployment, securing and maintaining housing, identifying medical services, securing adequate food supplies, and much more.

Chris Schultz, Center Director

March 2020

IN THE WORKS

Families that Read Together Succeed Together

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” ― Albert Einstein

Parents are a child’s first and most influential teachers.

Parent involvement is the number one predictor of early literacy success and future academic achievement. Research by the American Academy of Pediatrics shows that reading daily to young children, starting in infancy, stimulates early brain development and helps build key language, literacy and social skills.

From birth to five, a child learns at a speed unmatched the rest of his or her life.  Early learning experiences such as reading provide a love of learning and strongly affects success in school, work and in life.

Yet more than one in three American children start kindergarten without the skills they need to learn to read. About two-thirds of children can’t read proficiently by the end of the third grade. Low literacy skills are directly linked to greater inequality, higher unemployment, less earned income and poor health.

Daily reading and talking with children develops the necessary foundation for success in math, science, reading, a continued love of learning, and social and emotional connections.

A Huffington Post article (dated 09/30/2010) listed 5 Benefits of Reading to Children.

Building Bonds
Reading is one of the best ways to develop deep attachments with one’s children. Scholastic suggests parents schedule reading sessions daily and use the moments to enrich their relationships with their children and build their vocabularies.

Secret to Success
Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (2013) research showed that children four to five years of age who are read to three to five times a week are six months ahead of their peers in terms of reading expertise. Children who are read to daily are a year ahead of those who are read to less frequently.

Rich Vocabulary Equals Advantage
Educator Jim Trelease observes that there is a clear difference between conversing with a child and reading to him or her: "The language in books is very rich, and in books there are complete sentences. In books, newspapers, and magazines, the language is more complicated, more sophisticated. A child who hears more sophisticated words has a giant advantage over a child who hasn't heard those words." 

Teaching by Example
Reading increases a child's attention span and a parent's own cognitive ability, Trelease says. It is one of the most essential and valuable activities kids can inherit from parents simply by observing them being engrossed in a book or magazine.

Boosting Self Esteem and Communications Skills
Early readers will be equipped with the vocabulary necessary to communicate to their peers, teachers, and parents. Children who have the ability to find the words they want to use are more likely to have a strong self-image, sense of confidence, and higher academic standing.

Bottom Line: Parents, read to your children. Children, read to your parents. We’ll all be better off for it.

PARENT READING WORKSHOPS

Literacyworks Parents as First Teachers: Engaging Families to Increase Children's Literacy program works with low-literacy, low-income bilingual parents & children through a combination of access to resources in the home & the community & by training parents in the basic skills to encourage their children to become avid readers. The goal is to help parents view their parenting role in a positive manner, have appropriate expectations of their children's achievements, prepare their children with the necessary skills to be successful in school, and establish and maintain positive relations with community resources, including libraries, schools, and community groups. At the end of each workshop, each family receives a bag of books and educational materials for their preschoolers.

Literacyworks Center

One of the core activities the Center provides its students is a series of workshops held several times throughout each semester. These workshops focus on a wide variety of topics ranging from study skills to health care to a better understanding of how to access college support programs.

An unexpected by-product of these gatherings has been the creation of an informal Literacyworks community, where students come to know and are known by one another. Although our students are working at very different academic levels, they share in common being new to college, being first-generation college students, and having some degree of difficulty fitting into the culture of the college.

At a recent workshop, we broke into small groups to discuss the challenges facing students both in and outside of school. The conversations became lively, offering advice, listening carefully to one another, and enjoying the comradery of sharing with one another. We then moved around the room, having each group report out about their insights into the obstacles they face. Family commitments, time management, money, work, and a lack of confidence in their academic ability were a few of the common issues identified. One of our new students sat quietly for much of the session. When asked what challenges she faced, she paused and said that just getting to college, finding the classroom and learning new technologies so she can read was a challenge. She explained to the group that she had become blind over the last ten years. The rest of the group had an opportunity to reflect on their challenges with a slightly different perspective. \

For more information, go to www. literacyworks.org or email info@literacyworks.org