With so many low-literate adults in the Permian Basin, Odessa College offers a high-school equivalency diploma and English as a second language programs that are quite popular with students.
Tiffani Price, associate vice president of adult, continuing and workforce education has been at Odessa College a little more than a year.
According to the Literacy Coalition of the Permian Basin, this area has the largest population in the state of low literate adults with 67,700.
The OC program is funded by the Texas Workforce Commission.
“We have grant dollars to help us teach these students and get these students to the next level. There are programs in the Permian Basin that are not funded, that are volunteer and fully supported by … philanthropic efforts. So we are in a good group of trying to make a difference and an impact,” Price said.
They are on the last year of a five-year grant cycle.
“We want to make sure that we’re pursuing the next five years and are able to keep the grant. I think we’ll probably start at the beginning of next year to start that competitive process,” Price said.
She added that OC has a fully integrated model. The student registers, they are assessed for GED and English as a second language.
The GED test is broken into tests for math, science, reading and social studies.
“We assess where they are, if they’re ready for that, and we then have classes and programs that are ready to take them and teach them and get them ready for that next level,” Price said.
ESL is the same way. They register and they assess their language ability. There are also classes and additional programs to help get them to the next level.
Many students see the high school diploma as all they need.
“We don’t want this to be their end education goal. Especially on the GED side, we have many, many, many students that come in and all they want and all they can see in front of them is that they want their GED. Our goal in this integrated model is preparing them to yes get their GED but also opening up the opportunities that they can do more and get a college degree, as well,” Price said.
About 90 percent of GED students are working.
“They’ve either determined, or their employer has said you can’t do anything else unless you have a high school diploma, or I need you to go get a high school diploma so we have a lot of students that are pushed that way,” Price said. “We have a lot of students who just know that this is a goal and they want to be able to say they did it because they have kids that are now in school.”
“On the ESL side, it’s usually different. They’re usually not working really because of the language. They sometimes have come to us from their country and they have a doctorate degree. But the equivalent doesn’t work here. We have some very high professionals in our ESL program that are reaching that language attainment,” she added.
The ESL program is larger than the GED right now. There are 234 GED students and 361 ESL students.
The grant states students have to have 12 hours of classes to be considered an OC participant.
“We’ve had students that come in that are ready; that it would be a disservice for us to say now go sit through an eight-week, a 16-week class. They’re ready to just go take the GED test. Many of them even when they’re ready, they’re like oh, but I want a little bit more help with math or something like that. So we have our classes set up in eight weeks. We follow the OC model and we have our classes set in eight-week increments.”
“We test our students, we retest our students’ progress, test our students. On the GED side, we retest our students after 40 hours of instruction, and then we retest our ESL students after 60 hours of instruction to see how they’ve progressed. So it’s hard to say what the time is. It’s very individualized.”
Price noted that ESL students tend to stay in the program longer.
“They definitely build that community here,” Price said.
On the GED side, the students want to finish their diploma quickly.
OC also has vouchers allotted annually by the state for GED testing. The college also helps pay for the test in certain cases.
“It does not cover all of our students by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s definitely helpful to some students. We’ve had 31 (GED) graduates so far. That’s always a moving target, too. … ESL is a little bit more. How the state measures our effectiveness is based on MSG, measurable skills gains. ESL doesn’t have a graduation,” Price said.
The 31 graduates have been since the beginning of the grant cycle this year.
Students find out about the program mostly through word of mouth. Angela Lowery, the lead GED instructor, also has done a good job with the team of going out to community events and distributing information about the program.
Price said they are also designing and finding “short, stackable credentials” for students.
An example would be that while students are attaining their English skills or GED, they’re offering a “contextualized class that is supplementing instruction for them to earn a certified nursing aide.”
“We’re providing support and that’s paid for by the grant. We’re able to say, go get your CNA. Here’s a class for you. We’re going to provide a supplemental instruction to ensure you’re successful in this class, as well as continuing to be successful in earning your English skills or your GED. I think that’s a great opportunity as well. … But we are also using OC resources … We’ve enrolled some of our ESL students in our learning frameworks class, so we’re teaching them how to be a college student,” Price said.
OC offers its ESL and GED classes in Odessa; the ESL and GED in Andrews; ESL and GED in Pecos; the GED in Kermit; and ESL in Crane. These are all in-person.
“We also have virtual courses. We’re trying not to do as many virtual (classes) …,” Price said.
There is a synchronous virtual option for GED students, which means they still meet at a certain time but it’s virtual.
“They can do it at home with their kids. … It’s just not as popular for the ESL students,” Price said.
Maria Compean, scheduling and logistics specialist at OC, went through the GED program earning it in March of 2018.
She earned three associate degrees in teaching early childhood education, psychology and sociology. She completed all three in two and a half years at OC. Compean is now going for her bachelor’s degree in psychology at University of Texas Permian Basin.
She previously worked in the Adult Education and Literacy Department at OC as a programming specialist and stayed in that department after earning her GED.
She wanted to serve as a role model for students coming into the same program that she graduated from.
It also helped her become a role model for her four children.
“It doesn’t matter what age you are, you can still keep going, continuing your education and just by continuing your education (it) opens a lot of doors,” Compean said.
She added that the GED program is amazing. Everybody helps out and the instructors are very friendly. Tutoring is offered for GED students, as well.
In her job now, she schedules courses and sections and faculty overloads for the entire college.
Having dropped out of high school, Compean decided it was time to do something for her own education after raising her children.
After earning her GED, she went on to college.
“I just want to be a role model for my children. I wanted to be somebody they look up to and I wanted them to continue their education and be somebody, because like I said, having an education opens a lot of doors,” she added.
