Source: KBLA (from 6:33)
CSUDH President Thomas A. Parham joined Dominique DiPrima for an interview on August 23.
KBLA: First Things First with Dominique DiPrima
CSUDH In The News
CalMatters: $33M to Ease Preschool Teacher Shortage
Source: CalMatters
California needs 11,000 more pre-kindergarten teachers by 2025, as lawmakers embark on a huge expansion of free early education in California.
Could $33 million in donations to two California State University campuses, announced Wednesday, increase the pipeline of educators for these little learners?
The larger of the two gifts, $22 million, is the biggest-ever donation for Cal State Dominguez Hills. The grant is from the Ballmer Group, a limited liability company and philanthropy co-founded by Los Angeles Clippers owner and billionaire Steve Ballmer. The group also gave $11 million to nearby Cal State Long Beach for much of the same programming. The gifts will be doled out annually at roughly equal amounts for six years; both campuses got their first allotment in June.
The two schools educate a large share of low-income students. The campuses will spend about 80% of the money on scholarships for aspiring teachers and the rest on hiring personnel and expanding teacher training.
While most students at Cal State get enough financial aid from state and federal sources to avoid paying tuition, “the issue is that becoming a teacher is a lot more expensive than just being an undergraduate student,” said Jessica Zacher Pandya, dean of the College of Education at Dominguez Hills.
Students aspiring to be teachers must pay hundreds of dollars in licensure exams and commit to 600 hours of student teaching. The Ballmer Group scholarship will help students cover those fees, work fewer hours and borrow less so they can focus on completing their studies and teaching credentials.
Dominguez Hills plans to support roughly 1,200 students over a six-year period starting this spring, Pandya said. Students will get awards of $2,500 to $10,000, the largest amount reserved for those fulfilling their student-teaching hours. Some of that scholarship money will fund students who plan to teach in schools with large numbers of Black students, including in high schools, Pandya said.
The university is also developing a credential that will focus specifically on early grades, pre-kindergarten to third grade. The Ballmer Group money will help pay for faculty to develop that curriculum. Right now, the standard credential is for teaching grades kindergarten through eighth grade. The new credential is “much more developmentally appropriate” to teach younger students, Pandya said.
And as the Los Angeles area and California shift more of their early education from private institutions to school districts that pay higher wages, the Dominguez Hills campus hopes to graduate more teachers specifically trained to educate those young kids.
The campus hopes to attract current early-education instructors, who are typically women and people of color, into its programming, Pandya said.
EdSource: New Grants Support Early Childhood Educator Training
Source: EdSource
California State University Long Beach (CSULB) and California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) today announced $33 million in funding from the Ballmer Group, a philanthropic organization, to support programs designed to address the shortage of early childhood educators (ECE). These grants are intended to help close the emerging ECE teacher gap as well as provide living wage jobs for these educators.
California school districts need an estimated 12,000-15,000 credentialed ECE teachers to drive California Gov. Newsom’s expansion of early childhood education such as TK, or transitional kindergarten, experts say.
CSULB and CSUDH both have key programs that train early childhood educators, a profession long dominated by women of color in California. Whereas preschool teachers often exist on meager wages, TK teachers are paid the same as K-12 teachers. That’s why these programs should increase the economic mobility of ECE teachers who can use their new credentials to access jobs with better pay and benefits.
Axios: How the Affordable Housing Crunch is Hitting College Students
Source: Axios
The affordable housing crunch has not spared students in college towns.
Why it matters: Students would need to earn about $72,000 a year to afford rent in America’s most expensive college towns, per a new report from InMyArea.
- Rent costs range from about $250 per month in some rural towns to more than $1,800 in the priciest California county, the report found.
By the numbers: California is home to 16 of the country’s 25 most expensive college towns, with the three priciest cities all in Santa Clara County.
- The most affordable off-campus housing is found in the southern and midwestern parts of the U.S., with the two cheapest in Kentucky.
What they’re saying: “Affordability and food and housing insecurities, if not addressed, have a direct impact on student success and retention rates,” said Deborah Wallace, vice president of administration and finance at California State University, Dominguez Hills.
- There, 32.5% of the students there are under-represented, Pell-eligible and first generation – a group that is particularly vulnerable to housing and food insecurity, Wallace said.
- “Housing affordability is essential to helping to ensure that the most vulnerable students are on campus and immersed for the highest chance of success,” Wallace told Axios.
What’s happening: College attendance increased with millennials, driving up demand for housing at and around universities, said Gary Painter, academic director of University of Cincinnati’s real estate program.
- “What you didn’t see,” he said, “is the building of housing in those communities.”
- This has become an issue that universities have been grappling with much more in the last five years, Painter added.
- Many top-ranked colleges and universities are situated in places where housing supply is already constrained, Painter said. So when there’s an increase in the number of students and additional housing isn’t added quickly, prices soar.
Of note: College enrollment has been on the decline over the last few years but the drop may be slowing after reaching historic levels during the pandemic.
Zoom in: The University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), which borders Beverly Hills, has reached its goal of guaranteeing four-year housing for undergraduates who come in as freshmen.
- The university received grant funding from the state to add about 540 more beds at a rate of $600 per month, according to Pete Angelis, assistant vice chancellor of UCLA Housing & Hospitality.
- Housing options that the university offers on-campus or in neighboring areas cost anywhere from 13-42% less than other nearby options.
- The university capped room and board rates at increases of 2.5% for undergraduate students and 3% for graduate students per year.
The bottom line: While it’s not necessarily the responsibility of the schools to guarantee affordable housing, Painter said, they need to be transparent about the cost and the quality of housing to students who are choosing where to go.
Signal Tribune: As the City Prepares for Organic Waste Collection, North Long Beach Residents Show Initiative in Trial
Source: Signal Tribune
A handful of residents in a North Long Beach neighborhood tried their hand at organic waste collection this summer, giving a glimpse into the assurances and obstacles of an upcoming state-mandated program.
The week-long project was led by Cal State University Dominguez Hills student Amber Alvarado, who is studying to be an ecologist and environmental scientist.
Alvarado visited nearly 20 homes in July and handed residents fliers on what food and yard items to collect and the benefits of collecting organic waste.
Senate Bill 1383 took effect in January 2022, requiring cities to implement a mandatory organic waste collection program. California set a goal to reduce organic waste disposal in landfills by 75% by 2025 and to reduce food waste by 20% in the same timeframe.
Organic waste includes food scraps, yard trimmings, paper and cardboard, which currently makes up about half of California landfills, according to the bill.
Since the bill went into effect, CalRecycle reported that 70% of California communities have implemented residential organic waste collections.
Long Beach, like many other cities, has hit roadblocks in rolling out its residential organic waste program. The City’s Waste Diversion and Recycling Officer Erin Rowland told the Signal Tribune that one of the main roadblocks is a supply shortage of the trucks that will pick up organic waste.
Another obstacle is “a lack of infrastructure in the area to support the processing of organic materials,” according to the City’s website.
The goal of Alvarado’s project was to explore resident’s willingness to learn about and participate in the organic waste collection program once it’s rolled out to residential areas. The City said there is no concrete timeline for the residential program as of now.
Alvarado said 19 households agreed to participate in the project, but only six of these homes fully completed the program. Still, she said she was “pleasantly surprised” with her results.
Community Survey Results
After giving the neighborhood a week to test their organic waste collection skills, Alvarado checked back in with residents to collect their bags of food and yard debris. She asked them questions created with the help of Long Beach City recycling specialists to gauge their experiences.
The 13 residents who had planned on participating but didn’t collect organic waste cited issues of time fulfillments such as scheduled vacations or they simply forgot to separate their waste.
“This is what happens, it’s real-world situations and it’s still good that this happened,” Alvarado said.
Despite the mishaps, Alvarado was still able to collect 27 pounds of food scraps and yard debris. After removing non-compostable items such as plastic bags and bones with meat on them, she donated the remaining 25 pounds of organic waste to The Growing Experience urban farm in Long Beach.
Questionnaire results included:
- Most residents did not struggle separating their food waste into a separate container
- Most residents did struggle to get other members of their family to separate their organic waste
- Most residents said their collected food waste did not cause unwanted odor
- Half of the participants said before the program they did not know how to separate organic waste
- Most residents said that after the program, they feel confident separating and collecting organic waste
Alvarado said that the most surprising result was that only 10% of collected organic waste had to be removed.
“I think it made me feel more hopeful that people are going to be able to do this … It’ll take some time to implement but I think it will be possible,” Alvarado said, adding that she suspects the educational fliers she handed out made a big difference in inspiring confidence.
What Long Beach is doing now
Though Long Beach is not ready to implement the organic waste collection program in residential areas, it started a similar pilot program with 168 commercial businesses in 2021.
Waste Diversion and Recycling Specialist Britney Coker-Moen told the Signal Tribune that as of the beginning of August, 168 tons of organic waste had been collected. In July, the City collected 25.1 tons of organic waste.
Coker-Moen said the City is hoping to expand its pilot program to more businesses by the end of this year.
Residents can enroll in free composting shops through Long Beach’s Environmental Services Bureau, where they can learn how to transform organic waste into nutrient soil. The next workshop will be on Aug. 26 from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Michelle Obama Library (5870 Atlantic Ave.) and will be taught in Spanish.
Long Beach will teach composting skills through a virtual workshop on Sept. 7 from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Residents can purchase a composting bin at a discounted rate through the City, but will currently be placed on a waiting list.
