On March 5, the Planning and Resource Allocation Committee (PRAC) held a staff meeting to discuss a variety of topics around how Chabot will use and apply for money and other resources in a way to improve educational benefits they provide to students.

The meeting started out with an acknowledgement to various birthday and a vote for minutes to start. After minutes were approved, the meeting commenced with the Acrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) report, which provides metrics on enrollment and degree attainment for the student body.

The meeting then turned towards funding towards resources requests. There were 173 technology requests by different divisions (Science, Art, English etc.) which mostly were from teachers for access to buy different software programs.

A question was raised if it were possible that PRAC could provide access to a general group that combined all of the resources, but the general consensus was that if each division wants to pool their resources they should vote individually within their own divisions but come up with a consensus with other divisions to solve a problem like campus wide Wi-Fi coverage.

Moving on towards grants and outside funding, the singular reported grant that was approved and funded was the Foster Youth Access Demonstration Project. An amount granted of $180,000 for a two year plan between Spring 2025 through Summer 2026.

This project is explained as a grant aimed at students in high school who plan to enter college afterwards; specifically, students that have experience in foster care after the age of 13. Chabot was one of only six schools in the state to get the Foster Youth Access Demonstration Grant which provides up to $5000 per person for current or former foster children towards educational expenses.

A grant that was recently rejected was the National Science Foundation: Advance Technological Education (ATE) grant. This grant had requested a funding of $475k that would have stretched over three years. Its goal would have been to support the college’s Computer Numerical Control program. Some key examples this funding would’ve been used for were updating the Machine Tool Tech (MTT) 71B curriculum, while also outreaching to K-12 students participating in MTT courses; proposing it would help establish employer partners and develop an Associates Degree for Transfer in Engineering Technology.

While a few grant requests were submitted, the largest fund request was submitted at over $1.8 million for two years (July 1 2025-June 30 2027). Titled “Rebuilding the Nursing Infrastructure,” the proposed programs include a pilot pipeline, which entails partnering with CSU East Bay (CSUEB) made for students seeking to earn an Associate’s Degree in Nursing (ADN) at Chabot and attend CSUEB for a Bachelors Degree in Nursing. Once enrolled into CSUEB, the participants would then complete their Bachelors Degree within a semester after earning their ADN. The rebuild would also establish an Associates Degree for Transfer in Nursing to create another bridge for students not in the ADN program but still pursuing a BSN.

Other improvements under the rebuild would be to provide professional development for the nursing faculty, in hopes to support faculty retention. The Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN) to Registered Nurse (RN) program was proposed to assist Chabot’s second year nursing students who have a vacant LVN. These students would receive additional clinical lab hours and academic support to get up to speed and graduate on pace. Chabot also seeks accreditation for our programs from the Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN); this would assist our nursing graduates to be viewed competitively for any future BSN programs.

The next report was about the president’s response to secure funding to hire staff, in which two roles were approved, an instructional tech specialist, and a senior lab technician for Chemistry.

Dean Paul Pinza then presented information about AB1705 and AB705. AB705 is a bill that requires California Community Colleges to maximize the probability that students will enter and complete transfer-level coursework in English and Mathematics within one year. While AB1705 is an update to the bill that cleans up some of the wording and places more specific guidelines.

Dean Pinza then brought up the Equitable Placement Grant which provided around $635k to ensure that as many students can start their entry level Math and English classes within their first year and provide them with the tools they need to succeed in those classes like tutoring and funding for computer labs.

the Equitable Placement Grant also provides resources for English as a Second Language (ESL) students in order for them to comply with Bill AB1705 and start their first English 1 class within three years of their first ESL Class. According to Dean Pinza, “When an ESL student comes into our college, they start at the Assessment Center, and we have ESL faculty there that they can meet shoulder to shoulder and they actually leave their assessment in most cases having registered for the appropriate ESL classes.” Chabot often didn’t have the capacity to hold enough assessments as there was demand for them, so the Equitable Placement Grant has allowed an increase of assessment sessions.

Another use of the funds from the grant include an investment in counseling. “When we did an initial analysis of the data and looked at the percentage of students that complete entry-level English and Math within a year of starting those subjects, we found a substantial percentage in both subjects never enroll within their first year. So we worked with Dean Sadie Ashraf in counseling to support some specific outreach mechanisms.”

The meeting then went into a small discussion on bonds that The Chabot Las Positas Community College District had received, Measures A and B. Measure B was passed in March 2004 and granted the district $498 million dollars for construction and maintenance and has since been fully depleted.

Measure A which granted $950 million to the district, has been used to construct numerous buildings around campus, including the new library, biology buildings and maintenance for 3800 building, a remodel of the football stadium and more. As of right now, Chabot has about $120 million in funds remaining.