At the last Burbank School Board meeting held at City Hall, two topics stood out in a three-hour session, and they were the Los Angeles Valley College Update and the Report On The BUSD summer school session.
Dr. Gribbons, Valley College president, spoke for about 25 minutes about how the college, which was founded in 1949 and stretches across 105 acres, has changed and improved dramatically over the last 15 years.
The current cost is $46 per unit and the college has 195 associate and certificate programs.
Valley College offers a planetarium and an observatory, which not many junior colleges do.
Under the Los Angeles Promise, college is free for two years and the school is the first California Community College [CCC] recognized as a Tree Campus.
Other student support and enrichment programs include the Dream Resource Center, Umoja Black Scholars, Rainbow Pride Center, Next Up/Guardian Scholars Program, Veteran Resource Center, Extended Opportunity Programs and Services [EOPS], Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) and the Family Resource Center.
Additional support and enrichment programs are Helping Hands Center [Basic Needs] TRIO [helps and motivates students from disadvantaged backgrounds], Puente Program [helps students reach their dreams of college success], financial aid and scholarships, academic resource center which includes free tutoring, study away, TAP/Honors, Phi Theta Kappa and athletics.
College students are able to then transfer to UCLA, USC, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, Cal State Northridge, Cal State Los Angeles and many other excellent colleges and universities.
Located in Valley Glen, Valley College serves Burbank, North Hollywood, Studio City, Encino, Sherman Oaks, Valley Glen, Valley Village, Lake Balboa, Pacoima, Panorama City and Van Nuys.
Dual Enrollment Vision is available to all students and the range of intentional offerings include single CSU/UC IGETC courses, college 101, ethnic studies, career and technical education pathways from sophomore/junior to senior capstone courses, early college high school type models and developing design options.
There were 286 students who opted for dual enrollment and the success rate was 94 percent overall.
Enrollment by course was Art 201 [drawing] with 31 students, Communication 101 [public speaking] with 70 students, Counseling 020 [post-secondary education] with 14 students, Computer Science 101 [introduction to computer science] with 13 students, Finance 008 [personal finance and investment] with 31 students, Media Art [introduction to screenwriting] with 35 students and Sociology 011 [race and ethnic relations] with 64 students.
Dr. Robyn Anders spoke for about 20 minutes and addressed what happened during BUSD Credit Recovery summer school.
In summary, summer school served approximately 1,209 students in virtual and in-person classes.
For the first time, all programs ran concurrently with the inclusion of grade improvement.
There was high demand for initial credit classes, including United States History, and World History. There was increased credit recovery in science and upper-level math classes.
The numbers for the secondary summer school summary: total number of instances of recovered credits for summer school was 675 students, and during school there were 240 students for a total of 915 students.
The total number of students for initial credit was 1,031 students. The total number of grade improvement 160 students and the total number of math acceleration was 81 students.
Those who earned credit this year in Special Education included 235 students while in Physical Education there were 123 students. In Biology there were 34 students and English the total was 160.
In Algebra there were 36 students, in Algebra II there were 13 and in Geometry the total was 62 and in senior non graduates there were 6 for a total of 675 students.
In Health the number was 325, in United States History it was 237, in World History there were 297 students, in Physical Education the total was 132 for a total of 1,031.
