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. The following definitions govern the construction of this
part:
(a) "Board of governors" means the Board of Governors of the
California Community Colleges.
(b) "Business Resource Assistance and Innovation Network" means
the network of projects and programs that comprise the California
Community Colleges Economic and Workforce Development Program.
(c) "California Community Colleges Economic and Workforce
Development Program" and "economic and workforce development program"
mean the program.
(d) "Career pathways," and "career ladders," or "career lattices"
mean an identified series of positions, work experiences, or
educational benchmarks or credentials that offer occupational and
financial advancement within a specified career field or related
fields over time.
(e) (1) "Center" means a comprehensive program of services offered
by one or more community colleges to an economic region of the state
in accordance with criteria established by the chancellor's office
for designation as an economic and workforce development program
center. Center services shall be designed to respond to the statewide
strategic priorities pursuant to the mission of the community
colleges' economic and workforce development program, and to be
consistent with programmatic priorities, competitive and emerging
industry sectors and industry clusters, identified economic
development, career technical education, business development, and
continuous workforce training needs of a region. Centers shall
provide a foundation for a long-term, sustained relationship with
businesses, labor, colleges, and other workforce education and
training delivery systems, such as local workforce investment boards,
in the region.
(2) A center shall support, develop, and deliver direct services
to students, businesses, colleges, labor organizations, employees,
and employers. For purposes of this subdivision, direct services
include, but are not necessarily limited to, data analysis both of
labor market information and college performance; intraregion and
multiregion sector coordination and logistics; inventory of community
college and other assets relevant to meeting a labor market need;
curriculum development, curriculum model development, or job task
analysis development; articulation of curriculum in a career pathway
or career lattice or in a system of stackable credentials; faculty
training; calibration to a career readiness or other assessment;
assessment administration; career guidance module development or
counseling; convenings, such as seminars, workshops, conferences, and
training; facilitating collaboration between faculty working in
related disciplines and sectors; upgrading, leveraging, and
developing technology; and other educational services. The
establishment and maintenance of the centers is under the sole
authority of the chancellor's office in order to preserve the
flexibility of the system to adapt to labor market needs and to
integrate resources.
(f) "Chancellor" means the Chancellor of the California Community
Colleges.
(g) "Economic security" means, with respect to a worker, earning a
wage sufficient to adequately support a family and to, over time,
save money for emergency expenses and adequate retirement income, the
sufficiency of which is determined considering a variety of factors
including household size, the cost of living in the worker's
community, and other factors that may vary by region.
(h) "High-priority occupation" means an occupation that has a
significant presence in a targeted industry sector or industry
cluster, is in demand by employers, and pays or leads to payment of
high wages.
(i) "Industry cluster" means a geographic concentration or
emerging concentration of interdependent industries with direct
service, supplier, and research relationships, or independent
industries that share common resources in a given regional economy or
labor market. An industry cluster is a group of employers closely
linked by a common product or services, workforce needs, similar
technologies, and supply chains in a given regional economy or labor
market.
(j) "Industry-driven regional collaborative" means a regional
public, private, or other community organizational structure that
jointly defines priorities, delivers services across programs,
sectors, and in response to, or driven by, industry needs. The
industry-driven regional collaborative projects meet the needs and
fill gaps in services that respond to regional business, employee,
and labor needs. These service-delivery structures offer flexibility
to local communities and partners to meet the identified needs in an
economic development region. Industry-driven regional collaboratives
are broadly defined to allow maximum local autonomy in developing
projects responding to the needs of business, industry, and labor.
(k) "Industry sector" means those firms that produce similar
products or provide similar services using somewhat similar business
processes.
(l) "Initiative" is an identified strategic priority area that is
organized statewide, but is a regionally based effort to develop and
implement innovative solutions designed to facilitate the
development, implementation, and coordination of community college
economic development and related programs and services. Each
initiative shall be workforce and business development driven by a
statewide committee made up of community college faculty and
administrators and practitioners and managers from business, labor,
and industry. Centers, industry-driven regional collaboratives, and
other economic and workforce development programs performing services
as a part of the implementation of an initiative shall coordinate
services statewide and within regions of the state, as appropriate.
(m) "Job development incentive training" means programs that
provide incentives to employers to create entry-level positions in
their businesses, or through their suppliers or prime customers, for
welfare recipients and the working poor.
(n) "Matching resources" means any combination of public or
private resources, either cash or in-kind, derived from sources other
than the economic and workforce development program funds
appropriated by the annual Budget Act, that are determined to be
necessary for the success of the project to which they are applied.
The criteria for in-kind resources shall be developed by the board of
governors, with advice from the chancellor and the California
Community Colleges Economic and Workforce Development Program
Advisory Committee, and shall be consistent with generally accepted
accounting practices for state and federal matching requirements. The
ratio of matching resources to economic and workforce development
program funding shall be determined by the board of governors.
(o) "Performance improvement training" means training delivered by
a community college that includes all of the following:
(1) An initial needs assessment process that identifies both
training and nontraining issues that need to be addressed to improve
individual and organizational performance.
(2) Consultation with employers to develop action plans that
address business or nonprofit performance improvements.
(3) Training programs that link individual performance
requirements with quantifiable business measures, resulting in
demonstrable productivity gains, and, as appropriate, job retention,
job creation, improvement in wages, or attainment of wages that
provide economic security.
(p) "Program" means the California Community Colleges Economic and
Workforce Development Program established under this part.
(q) "Region" means a geographic area of the state defined by
economic and labor market factors containing at least one industry
cluster and the cities, counties, or community college districts, or
all of them, in the industry cluster's geographic area. For the
purposes of this chapter, "California Community College economic
development regions" shall be designated by the board of governors
based on factors, including, but not necessarily limited to, all of
the following:
(1) Regional economic development and training needs of business
and industry.
(2) Regional collaboration, as appropriate, among community
colleges and districts, and existing economic development, continuous
workforce improvement, technology deployment, and business
development.
(3) Other state economic development definitions of regions.
(r) "Sector strategies" means prioritizing investments in
competitive and emerging industry sectors and industry clusters on
the basis of labor market and other economic data that indicate
strategic growth potential, especially with regard to jobs and
income. Sector strategies focus workforce investment in education and
workforce training programs that are likely to lead to high-wage
jobs or to entry-level jobs with well-articulated career pathways
into high-wage jobs. Sector strategies effectively boost labor
productivity or reduce business barriers to growth and expansion
stemming from workforce supply problems, including skills gaps, and
occupational shortages by directing resources and making investments
to plug skills gaps and provide education and training programs for
high-priority occupations. Sector strategies may be implemented using
articulated career pathways or career lattices and a system of
stackable credentials. Sector strategies often target underserved
communities, disconnected youth, incumbent workers, and recently
separated military veterans. Cluster-based sector strategies focus
workforce and economic development on those sectors that have
demonstrated a capacity for economic growth and job creation in a
particular geographic area. Industry clusters are similar to industry
sectors, but the focus is on a geographic concentration of
interdependent industries.
(s) "Skills panel" means a collaboration which brings together
multiple employers from an industry sector or industry cluster with
career technical educators, including, but not limited to, community
college career technical education faculty, and other stakeholders
which may include workers and organized labor to address common
workforce needs. Skills panels assess workforce training and
education needs through the identification of assets relevant to
industry need, produce curricula models, perform job task analysis,
define how curricula articulate into career pathways or career
lattices or a system of stackable credentials, calibrate career
readiness, develop other assessment tools, and produce career
guidance tools.
(t) "Stackable credentials" means a progression of training
modules, credentials, or certificates that build on one another and
are linked to educational and career advancement.