California Regional K-16 Education Collaboratives Grant Program

This program is part of a statewide initiative aimed at helping California’s economy recover from the COVID-19 pandemic while addressing long-standing social and economic inequities in higher education and workforce participation.

Beginning in August 2022, regional partners began to meet to discuss the possibilities of forming a collaborative to address educational and occupational needs of the region. Based on these initial meetings, the collaborative applied for a planning grant which was received in November 2022 ($250,000).

Under the Planning Grant, the collaborative achieved the following:

• Engaged in foundational capacity building.
• Created a governance structure for the collaborative.
• Conducted a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) Analysis.
• Conducted an assessment of Pathway and Equity Needs of the region.
• Developed a branding toolkit.
• Held 2 in-person collaboration sessions at Columbia College.
• Between Dec 2022 and September 2023, 33 Executive Steering Council, Core Team and Workgroup meetings occurred.

Based on the success of the planning grant, an Implementation Grant was applied for in September 2023 and received in April 2024. The Implementation Grant runs November 2023-June 2026.