ETCN schools work together and with other organizations to help students succeed
At the Education to Career Network (ETCN), adult education goes beyond the classroom by providing integrated support services that help students overcome real-world barriers. ETCN member schools connect learners with coordinated academic, career, and community resources, ensuring they have the tools to succeed in school and beyond.
Providing these integrated student support services is one of “Seven Converging Promising Practices”—a set of evidence-based strategies developed in 2024 after studying high-performing adult schools across the state. These practices serve as a framework for improving student outcomes by aligning instruction, support, and transitions to ensure that students receive personalized guidance. By adhering to these practices, schools are able to provide ample wrap-around services that can address the different barriers students may face.
“We work together to support the students, to make sure that they successfully transition through our program and then out to employment or to college,” says Jennifer Dufresne, Workability II Coordinator at ETCN’s Vista Adult School (VAS). She is also a member of VAS’s student support team, which works to help students overcome whatever obstacles they may have when it comes to completing their education.
“We work together to support the students, to make sure that they successfully transition through our program and then out to employment or to college.”
Jennifer Dufresne, Workability II Coordinator, Vista Adult School
Outlining the team’s composition, Dufresne says, “We typically have a CTE [Career Technical Education] coordinator. We have a high school coordinator, we have a disability support counselor who handles accommodations. We have a transition advisor who handles helping students apply for jobs and apply for college.”
Dufresne herself often works with students with disabilities, and says that while the team members’ areas of expertise may differ, their overall goal remains the same.
A big part of following through with the “wrap-around” part of the integrated service practice, she says, is being able to recognize what services outside of VAS they can connect students to when needed.
“Students drop out for a variety of reasons,” she says. “Typically, it’s financial or housing, all kinds of things that typically we would say are outside of our sphere of influence. But being the student support team, we don’t want to have that mentality, we want to be able to support students where they’re at and help them to be successful through our program and beyond.”
ETCN tracks the services it provides on these fronts under what it classifies as “Barriers to Employment,” according to ETCN Data Management Coordinator Tan Stowell. VAS reported providing 92 instances of services regarding disabilities, 138 to single parents, and 1,239 for low-income students during the 2024-25 school year. VAS provided these services in greater numbers than other ETCN member schools, and consortium-wide there were 133 counts of services for disabled students, 258 to single parents and 2,449 to low-income students.
Establishing relationships with various community resources outside of the school is an important aspect of the VAS student support team’s job. Dufresne mentions the state’s Department of Rehabilitation, Fresh Success (which helps community colleges, community-based organizations, and adult schools start and manage CalFresh employment and training programs), and women’s empowerment nonprofit Leap to Success as some important outside partnerships the school maintains.
Pooling Resources
On top of working with community resources and organizations to better help students, ETCN schools collaborate and share resources with one another.
Oscar Lopez, Transitions Coordinator with the Escondido Adult School (EAS), started working with the school nearly 25 years ago. Prior to 2013, when new legislation called for the formation of regional consortia like ETCN, adult schools operated independently. He says combining resources has been beneficial to adult students and enhanced opportunities individual schools can provide.
“Back in the day Escondido did their own thing, Vista did their own thing, and we all had our own sphere of influence,” Lopez says. “Now we’re always meeting either in person or through Zoom, we’re always sharing resources, supportive services, and funding.”
One of the most prominent ways this collaboration shines through, Lopez says, is with student support services. When one school doesn’t have the services or resources available to handle a student’s needs, they are able to refer them to one of the other ETCN members.
“We weren’t running Certified Nursing Assistant classes for a while here at Escondido,” Lopez says. “But luckily, Poway Adult School was running and is running a CNA program, so we were always referring students from the Escondido area.”
Lopez also notes that sharing resources means adult schools in less-served areas are able to have access to resources they need to grow and better support their communities.
“North County is quite unique—we have pockets of suburbia and then we have large rural communities, especially the reservations here,” Lopez says. “Through different projects throughout the years, we’ve been able to better serve those communities.”
Through this collaboration, ETCN schools are able to bring students the full benefits of the integrated student services practice.
“It’s a blessing having these consortia here in California, especially at ETCN, which covers such a wide geographical area,” Lopez says. “It’s such a game-changer now that we all share resources.”
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 Jacob Peterson
| Regions | Classes & Topics |
|---|---|
| Southern California | Enrichment |
