Adult school consortium ETCN monitors workforce needs to ensure student employability
Certification and career training programs are only as valuable as the employment opportunities they provide. The Education to Career Network (ETCN) takes care to ensure the curriculum offered at its member schools prepares students to find real employment opportunities in the local area.
This is accomplished by employing strategic, data-informed approaches rooted in the needs of the local workforce, prioritizing effective feedback mechanisms, emphasizing professional development at all levels, and being open to innovative ideas.
This approach is summed up as “Workforce-Forward Responsive Leaders who Are Strategists,” and is one of “Seven Converging Promising Practices” of adult education, a set of evidence-based strategies that ETCN and other forward-thinking educational organizations are embracing to best serve adult learners.
Dan Barajas, Assistant Principal at Escondido Adult School, details how the consortium puts this practice into action.
“We meet regularly with our business leaders. They advise us on curriculum development and refinement, technology, and future workforce forecasts. All that plays into our educational strategy.”
David Guzman, Assistant Director, Poway Adult School
“ETCN enhances the success and viability of program offerings by ensuring that we are providing Career Technical Education courses across the North County region that meet the students’ needs,” he says.
“Our collaborative structures allow ETCN site leaders and instructors to meet regularly to share best practices in teaching and learning. The ETCN consortium meets once a year with its business partners through the annual business forum to aid in calibration to ensure students possess the requisite skills to enter the workforce.”
Such collaboration is key to student success, Barajas says.
“This business partner collaboration allows the adult schools and Palomar College to collect valuable feedback about workforce trends that can help each institution shape the preparation of their respective students.”
Careers in caring
David Guzman and Sara Kende—respectively the Assistant Director and Career Education Specialist of ETCN member Poway Adult School (PAS)—see their work through the lens of three critical components: community, career, and education.
“We meet regularly with our business leaders,” Guzman says. “They advise us on curriculum development and refinement, technology, and future workforce forecasts. All that plays into our educational strategy.”
Guzman and Kende say expanded caregiver classes at their school are a prime example of the Workforce-Forward practice in action. The program was initially designed to prepare only Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs), but both the business community and ETCN recognized the need to expand into other fields to meet the community’s needs. Courses resulting from this shift provide training in physical therapy, home caregiving, pharmacy tech, medical billing and coding, and medical assistance.
Data collected and compiled by ETCN using TOPSpro Enterprises—cutting-edge relational database and data accountability software used by the network—reveals the consortium’s successes when it comes to student employability. In the 2024-25 school year, 197 PAS students earned occupational skills certificates, 70 found new jobs, and 57 reported they found better employment or received pay raises, which are the highest numbers reported by a single ETCN member school. Consortium-wide, 466 students received certifications, 111 found new jobs, and 78 earned pay hikes.
“With the consistent shortage of registered nurses (RNs), we are confident that the courses we offer in CNA, medical assistance, etc., will provide a solid hiring pipeline for healthcare organizations,” says Sharon Mah, ETCN’s Partnership Coordinator.
“Another thing that makes the programs successful is that the department hires instructors who are subject matter experts,” Kende adds. “They bring us cutting-edge information on the labor market.”
To determine if a given program will have enough student interest, PAS staff rely on both state data and data compiled from their own campus and other ETCN member schools. Student input is also incredibly valuable, with PAS looking to its ESL Student Council to provide feedback on the curriculum.
“We use the data from the feedback to continue fine-tuning the courses until they serve the populations they’re being developed for,” Kende says.
The Education to Career Network is the largest adult education consortium in San Diego County. Its members include Escondido, Poway, Ramona, San Marcos, and Vista Adult Schools, as well as Palomar College. To learn more about ETCN and its members, visit educationtocareer.net.
Written by Jill Spear and Jacob Peterson
| Regions | Classes & Topics |
|---|---|
| Southern California | Enrichment |
