Dean of Apprenticeship and Adult Education; Chancellor's Office; Workforce and Economic Development Division

Welcome to the 2024 CAEP Summit! The theme of this Summit – “Celebrating a Decade of Progress: Shaping and Building Adult Education Together”—underscores the importance of the extraordinary collaboration that this last decade has seen among all adult education educators, students and the programs in California throughout our 71 CAEP regional consortia and over 400 member practitioners. Taken together, our California system of adult education represents the largest system of workforce development in the country and this annual summit gives us the occasion to celebrate our many accomplishments and plan for our many future challenges. The CAEP Summit 2024 is a unique face-to-face opportunity for adult education practitioners to share and discuss innovative and effective promising practices, strategies, and other resources with one another. We have this extraordinary and unique among the 50 states collaborative commitment among our colleges and adult schools to our adult learners and their education, called out in the recent report “Promising Practices” as the “convergence model” where across our two systems we extend a mutual drive to work together to achieve the best outcomes for the 6.8 million Californians in our 20-million state workforce who do not have a high school diploma or college degree. This CAEP Summit 2024 in Oakland will mark a decade of work in CAEP, causing us all over the two and a half day conference for us all to stop and reflect on our accomplishments but also challenge ourselves how we can truly center our work in the 21st century workforce needs and emerging new and innovative industry in California to prepare our students for a new day, a new future and equip them to not only succeed, but thrive! Indeed, this conference provides the unique opportunity to have the tough but thought-provoking and engaging conversations with hundreds of adult education leaders from all across California about what has worked over the past decade, candidly what has not and what is the course we map for the future to show better outcomes for our students, for California’s employers and for the enormous investment that California has placed in CAEP over the last decade, as legislators start to ask in challenging budget times what is the return on investment to California’s employers of the billions of dollars investing in the program since 2014-15 at what result. There are many summit sessions where we can discuss the many important topics of our day, from healthcare ELL vocational pathway funds to how we are using data analytics and evidence to better inform our programs and practice. We welcome you to this Summit of adult education experts and leaders, and we hope that you engage in the tough conversations about how we can better serve not only our students but California and its employers in a swiftly evolving complex market driving by artificial intelligence and machine learning with all its ramifications for our programs. Welcome and may we all engage in fruitful debate and problem-solving!

Gary W. Adams
Dean of Apprenticeship and Adult Education
Chancellor's Office
Workforce and Economic Development Division
Office of Equitable Student Learning, Experience & Impact
California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office

Education Administrator/State Director; California Department of Education

Welcome to the CAEP Summit: A Decade of Progress!

We are thrilled to celebrate ten years of shaping and building the future of California adult education together. Over the past decade, we have witnessed tremendous growth, innovation, and transformation in the field, and it is all thanks to the dedication of educators and leaders like you.

This summit is a space where we come together to collaborate, inspire, and lead the next phase of adult education. Our sessions will focus on key themes: Equity, Leadership, Learner Transition, Marketing, Program Development & Curriculum, Program Evaluation, and Technology & Distance Learning. These topics are not just buzzwords—they represent the pillars of our shared vision for a more inclusive, impactful, and forward-thinking approach to adult education.

As we embark on this exciting journey, we invite you to engage fully, connect with your peers, and explore innovative strategies that will shape the next decade of progress.

Let’s continue building together!

Sincerely,

Dr. Carolyn Zachry
Education Administrator/State Director
California Department of Education

Dr. Rowena M. Tomaneng

Deputy Chancellor of the California Community College Chancellor's Office, Dr. Tomaneng, working with Chancellor Sonya Christian, will be responsible for moving forward the goals of Vision 2030 External Link Icon opens in new window or tab, the system’s strategic plan, which calls for action with equity. Dr. Tomaneng will also help foster policies and practices that support student success and college effectiveness in the California Community Colleges.

Dr. Tomaneng has nearly 30 years of experience in higher education. And her expertise in diversity, equity and inclusion, and high impact practices that lead to student equity, student success and civic engagement, will play a key role in her new responsibilities.

Dr. Rowena M. Tomaneng
Deputy Chancellor
California Community College Chancellor's Office

Tony Thurmond

Tony Thurmond, California’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction, leads the nation’s largest public school system, serving over 5.8 million students across more than 1,000 school districts and 10,000 schools. In addition, he oversees three State Special Schools for deaf and blind students. Since taking office, he has championed historic investments, legislation and initiatives to close achievement gaps and promote access and opportunity for all of California’s students.

Superintendent Thurmond is an educator, social worker and public-school parent who has served Californians for more than 18 years in elected office. Previously, he served on the Richmond City Council, West Contra Costa Unified School Board and in the California State Assembly representing District 15.

In his first term Superintendent Thurmond worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic to provide connectivity and devices to ensure millions of students could continue learning from home, distributed nearly 1 billion meals to students and families, established mental health services for students and secured $6.6 billion in funding to safely re-open California schools for in-person instruction.

In his second term as the leader of California’s education system, Superintendent Thurmond has tripled the amount of per-pupil funding from a decade ago and has focused these investments on transforming California's publics schools. With a focus on addressing critical needs, his initiatives include funding community schools, launching universal meal programs, universal TK for all 4-year-olds and a reading by 3rd grade Initiative. To ensure students have access to quality support he secured funding to recruit 10,000 teachers and counselors. Making ongoing teacher development a priority, he has allocated substantial resources for reading coaches and professional development in math and literacy instruction, empowering educators to excel in the classroom. Recognizing the importance of real-world experience in shaping students' futures, Superintendent Thurmond formed public private partnerships to initiate paid internship and apprenticeship programs and has sponsored legislation to create personal finance and computer science graduation requirements to prepare our students for the jobs of tomorrow.

Superintendent Thurmond’s family relied on public assistance programs and great public schools to get out of poverty. Public school education allowed him to attend Temple University, where he became student body president. He went on to earn dual master’s degrees in law and social policy and social work (MSW) from Bryn Mawr College and began a career dedicated to service.

Mike Walsh

Mike Walsh is the co-founder and CEO of Beacon Results, an organizational growth and change management firm founded in 2005 that works primarily with school districts and nonprofits to help them develop and align their strategic plans. He has both a B.A. and M.A. degree in Organizational Management and Organizational Leadership, from Ashford University.

A veteran trustee of the Butte County Office of Education for more than 14 years, Mike has expanded his work in educational leadership further. In 2018 he served as the President of California School Boards Association (CSBA), a group representing nearly 1,000 California school districts and county offices of education. Walsh was elected in 2010 to CSBA’s Delegate Assembly and elected to the organization’s Board of Directors in 2011. During his time at CSBA, Walsh ably served on numerous committees, including chairing the Legislative Committee and on the Executive Committee. In January 2020 he was appointed to serve as an Advisory Commissioner on Charter Schools (ACCS) to the California State Board of Education, for which he is currently the Chair.

In the past, Walsh has served as a Leadership Facilitator for several student-based organizations including Breaking Down the Walls (Ignite2Unite); the California Association of Student Councils; Rotary #5150 Rotary Youth Leadership (RYLA) annual program; and the National Student Leadership Conference at the University of California, Berkeley, a yearly Career Exploration Camp for students considering careers in medicine, engineering, and communications.

He also served as Interim Executive Director of the Oroville Economic Development Corporation and completed a three-year term as a member of the Butte Community College Foundation Board of Directors. In addition to his service to state school boards, Walsh has also served on major committees of the National School Boards Association and has written and published multiple articles focused on equity and improving outcomes for underserved student groups.