The Central San Joaquin Valley
K-16 Partnership is a collaboration between the Fresno-Madera K-16 Collaborative and the Tulare-Kings College and Career Collaborative, which combine resources to achieve equity-focused goals in our region.
What is the CSJV K-16 Partnership?
The macro-region Central San Joaquin Valley K-16 Partnership, a collaboration of the Fresno-Madera K-16 Collaborative and the Tulare-Kings College and Career Collaborative, was created to strengthen our region’s leadership and impact by combining these two successful micro-region collaboratives for the purpose of achieving the equity-focused goals of this large-scale project.
The two collaboratives support and lead the work in their current regions and come together to learn and impact the work of the new Central San Joaquin Valley K-16 Partnership. They share their resources across all pathways and projects, coming together as one with efforts related to this work.
County Collaboration
The Fresno-Madera K-16 Collaborative and the Tulare-Kings College and Career Collaborative, who collectively are the entire Central San Joaquin Valley CERF region (Fresno, Kings, Madera and Tulare Counties), signed an Intent to Participate on February 14, 2022 which would bring them together for one K-16 Regional Collaborative Grant Application.
There is a history of the four county intersegmental partners working together through K-12 County Office collaboration, Community College Central Region collaboration, California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) and UC Merced collaboration, as well as developing larger regional work-based learning and industry related events.
Our Impact
The Central San Joaquin Valley K-16 Partnership’s impactful and innovative foundation is built upon the Fresno K-16 Collaborative’s intersegmental program and proof of concept for the 2020-2022 pilot K-16 Collaborative Project, as well as the Tulare-Kings College & Career Collaborative’s prosperous 2015-2018 first project launch with the California Career Pathways Trust Round 1 and the following four years of investment and outcomes. Both collaboratives are designed to create and scale regional, intersegmental work to reimagine race equity, diversity, and inclusion in education and the workforce as they serve over 516,574, K-16 students and adult learners. Although Fresno is the fifth largest city in the state of California, all four counties are primarily serving rural disadvantaged and underserved communities.
The Fresno-Madera K-16 Collaborative, the Tulare-Kings College & Career Collaborative, and their partners spent considerable time in building the partnership and planning for this application.
K-16 Regional Collaborative Partnership Building and Application Timeline
Led by Fresno-Madera K-16 Collaborative’s Executive Director, Karri Hammerstrom and Tulare-Kings College & Career Collaborative’s Director McKenna Salazar, the Design Teams from both collaboratives communicated extensively over a four month period including four larger sessions, facilitated by an outside facilitator for both partnership building and creating collective ideas and agreements for the K-16 Regional Grant Application.
The culminating experience for the newly formed Central San Joaquin Valley K-16 Partnership was a large hybrid (in-person and virtual) gathering at Fresno State on April 22, 2022 to launch the new Central San Joaquin Valley K-16 Partnerships Overarching Goals, 9 Key Elements and 9 Design Principles. Derek Kirk from the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development was the keynote speaker for the event. He shared with us that the intent and guidance of the Regional K-16 Education Collaboratives Grant Program is rooted in intentionality, “not over-prescribing what regions are to do and acknowledging that the regions know what work needs to be done and the best way to do it”.
Our approach is based on that premise exactly, and based on project applications from our partners that require meticulous and careful braiding of the equity recommendations around the four pathways with particular focus on our Central San Joaquin Valley K-16 Partnership’s key elements and design principles. The gathering of partners also provided a space to have deeper conversations focused on the Recovery With Equity Recommendations and the application of those recommendations in our region. It was also a time of introduction and connection with new and existing regional partners. Through the arduous, rigorous, and rewarding process, there was a profound realization that this was much more than a grant writing process. It was the birth of an effort that was larger than one existing mature collaborative and that we would realize greater efficiencies and shorter timeframes for impact if we galvanized the entire CERF region around our three equity-focused overarching goals.
The CEOs, Presidents, Superintendents, and Business Representatives of the region are committed to co-creating and co-owning transformative strategies, solutions, and metrics for collective student success and equity. We aim to enhance our intersegmental, regional collaborative as a model for the state to support macro level work.
In doing this, we will lift and leverage programs and educational resources that will directly impact our most precious resource; the learners and workers of our region.
