Community Education program brochures Metro North ABE - Consortium newsletter, Jan. 2015 | Page 7

Student Stats with Linda
From May 1–October 31, 2014,
Metro North ABE staff, with the
help of over 196 volunteers,
has provided information and
instruction to over 3,000
potential learners.
Over 1,700 of those 3,000 learners
have enrolled in ABE programs to
build their skills and improve basic
reading, writing, and math, or to learn
to speak conversational English. Skills
gained during ABE classes have also
assisted these learners to gain employment, earn their high school diploma,
take the GED 2014 test, acquire U.S.
citizenship, and enroll in specialized
training, and/or college.

The following information can be used
for sharing in your communities about
the learners served in ABE:

• They came from 100 different countries, not including the U.S.

• They speak 75 different languages,
not including English.

• 20 learners who had the goal of gaining employment, met that goal.

• 12 learners who had the goal of keeping their employment, met their goal.

• 48 learners who had the goal of entering post-secondary training or postsecondary education/college, met their
goal.
• 6 learners who had the goal of completing their remaining Diploma credits and earning their HS Diploma, met
their goal.

• 55% of learners are between the ages
of 25-44 years old, 20% are between
the ages of 19-24, 19% are between the
ages of 45-59, and 4% of our learners
are older than 60.

• 55% of learners indicated they were
“low income,” which is a family income of $21,257 or less.

• 28% of learners have at least 1 child
between the ages of 0-5, 23% have at
least 1 child between the ages of 6-11,
and 15% have at least 1 child between
the ages of 13-18.

• 41% of our learners heard about ABE
from their family/friends.

CCRS Implementation is
Coming to Minnesota…

While MN ABE practitioners have been hard
at work navigating the use of the ACES TIF
in their classrooms, the CCRS Implementation Team has been working hard to bring
teachers the next phase of “Standards Based
Instruction.” The CCRS (Career and College
Readiness Standards) can be thought of as
part of a three-pronged approach to content
standards in MN ABE, together with the TIF
and the Northstar Digital Literacy Standards.
What makes the CCRS standards different
from the other two sets of benchmarks is that
they focus on English Language Arts/Literacy, Math, and Foundational Reading Skills
in order to better prepare our adult learners
for success in post-secondary education.
Please watch for development opportunities
through ATLAS in the near future or visit
their website at http://atlasabe.org/professional/content-standards

Volunteers in Metro North
Volunteers support Metro North ABE
learners in classrooms across the consortium. Some of these volunteers
come to us as part of service-learning
projects at metro area colleges. In
order to earn full course credits, some
students are expected to complete volunteer hours of service in their community. This year, our Saint Francis
site has two service-learning volunteers, Ka Thao and Michal Glover.
Both women bring a new and fresh
perspective to the program. We love
their new ideas and their willingness to
provide the best assistance they can to
our diverse group of adult learners.

Our program benefits them, as university students, because they can put into
real practice the learning theories they
have been studying. As Michal, an ESL
Teaching program student stated, “I am
grateful to have the opportunity to
learn in a real classroom setting because it brings the concepts I have
been studying at college down to earth.
It makes it all have a deeper meaning
and is more practical.”
We appreciate our volunteers who
show so much energy and enthusiasm
for our classroom and students.

Thank you,
Volunteers!
JANUARY 2015

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