So the union negotiates on behalf of the faculty, not students --
Nothing in writing. The memorandum of understanding was that we would agree to look into trying to do that. Again, I understand that people walk away and say, yay, that's what we're going to do. But I have to be a good steward of the financial resources that the college has. I have to prioritize, along with my team, what is highest priority. And then, what can we maintain into the future. Like I said, I could not be the president tomorrow, but whoever came and sat in this seat will have to find at least $2 million every single year or they're going to have to abruptly stop providing SEPTA passes for students, and that's not a good look either. So I'm trying to think more broadly about how do we work with other entities. Perhaps the state can pick this up and they will help us with that. Maybe they're listening. But I don't want to sign us up for something that's going to cause a problem every single year and I definitely would not want to provide SEPTA passes to students in one year and the next year say we don't have the money to do it. So that's where we are, but we are on the same page. We want to do it.
So I would think -- and I'm just objectively looking at all of this and obviously, I want to advocate and be supportive of the students, right. So they could potentially strike this year, right, if things don't go the way they would think they would. I mean, I would think if somebody agreed to do something or I'm going to have the interpretation that they agreed they did something, then they say, well, next year, that's not what we interpreted it, I probably would get my team together and be like, well, you know what --
That would be very unfortunate because I think we're all here for the students and success of the students when we try to disrupt their educational experience, but I think somebody wants to say something who's on my team.
Yes, I'll keep it brief though. They -- the Federation, this is not a term that's in the collective bargaining agreement and we have a collective bargaining agreement with the Federation with the terms that would -- an agreement not to strike during the period of the term of the CBA, which goes through August 31st of 20 --
And as the term that we're discussing relates not to a term or condition of their employment, but to a student benefit arguably, and I think the college's position would be that they are not able to strike based upon a term and condition that does not affect their employment.
Gotcha. Okay. All right. I just want to get additional information. I just want to go on the record and say, any way that we can support the students there, I know this is an added benefit and understand about thinking about who may be president in the future and taking on additional costs, even in the strategy of working with the state and the city as well, and the city as well, to try to figure out how we would make something like this work, because we have the resources. It's just what we prioritize. On the city level, we have a $7 billion budget -- (Applause.)
-- on the state, they have a tremendous surplus. And I understand you saying, I'm not going to put it all on the city. And so, I want the state to participate, and I do know Chair of the Philadelphia Delegation is on your Board as well, Morgan Cephas, I know she does a lot of hard work as well. But it should be a convening and meeting of the minds to try to figure out how we can be supportive of our young people, especially with the issue of affordability that's going on right now. And so, I'm trying to get a balanced approach so I hear you exactly as well in terms of wanting to be responsible in terms of how you go about it and also our role is to try to break down as many barriers as possible for young people to take advantage of their great high-quality education that CCP has to offer. And so, just wanted to say that. Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips.
Thank you. I just want to say first thank you, Dr. Marshall, for your leadership and for actually doing your best to listen to your students and your faculty. I do cosign with Councilmember O'Rourke and Councilmember Johnson about the importance of trying to get to that request. I just want to know how much would it cost to get to that request over a five-year period?
So that's part of what we're trying to assess. When I talk about being thoughtful, the $2.1 million is actually just the cost of the passes based on our current enrollment annually. What we're doing with our pilot is trying to assess human resources piece, because there is an implementation piece, there's work that has to be done. Right now someone is picking up that work, but there's potentially a position that we might have to hire if we were going to really do this broad scale and if we're going to continue to do it. So part of this period of time around the pilot is to also get real numbers around the student interest and who would take advantage to figure out what that looks like in terms of our human resources. Because again, we would have to hire somebody and we will need to sustain their salary wages into perpetuity if we were going to really offer this as part of what we do. So the 2.1 is really just what the SEPTA passes cost, but it doesn't take into consideration, which is what we're trying to assess now, human resources and infrastructure that we would need to set that up.
Okay. Great. So continue to assess all the information. I know it's a difficult decision because you have a lot of priorities for the Community College of Philadelphia that you probably want to -- what do you want to advocate first as the number one priority compared to all of them, because that 2 million can go to some other big priority. But I do want to congratulate you on the fact that you have this Cubhouse, which is really nice. A lot of families need that. I do want to ask you another question. The Catto Scholarship, it's a full scholarship for students in a certain income bracket, correct? It's a full tuition scholarship, correct?
So with that in mind, have you seen -- what is the graduation rate for students with the Catto Scholarship?
So there are advocates that are saying we need to increase the number of Catto recipients, which I truly understand, right, but at the same time we only have a 36% graduation rate for those who are getting fully invested in to go to the Community College of Philadelphia. What do you think is contributing to that? I'm not going to say relatively low, but low graduation rate where even people who are getting fully paid for are not finishing?
I'm going to have Dr. Seth Jacobson speak to that. He oversees the Catto Scholarship Program.
Good afternoon. I think it's a great question. It's something that we grapple with and we think about a lot. In fact, when I first started at the college, one of the things I took a very vested interest in is looking at survey exits for all of our students that end up leaving the college to really look into, display all the supports that are being provided, what is it that is moving them to leave the college and the scholarship. And the reasons end up being on par with what we're seeing at the college at large and at community colleges across the country, right. We have a higher representation of our lowest socioeconomic bracket students and residents of the city. And so, they're also in addition to the supports that they're being provided or despite the supports they're being provided, they're still grappling with poverty, housing insecurity. And while we do work really closely to try to ameliorate that through the Last Dollar tuition, through course material coverage and even a monthly basic needs allowance to provide that to offset support for it, what the students say is 275 is just not going to cut it in terms of some of the realities that they're facing in their homes and in their families. So when it comes to what, where and why we're still seeing a lower rate or not a higher rate rather, it's a lot of the same reasons that we're seeing low graduation rates at community colleges across the country.
Do you transfer -- if someone doesn't finish, do you transfer those funds over to another student who was waitlisted for the Catto Scholarship?
Yes. When students are unable to complete the program, we're able to open up more seats for any students that have not been able to get into the scholarship.
Okay. That's very important to me. Because I understand, housing, wages, you know, economic things, costs for people not to finish, but it's also relatively not necessarily in the best interest of the college or the student if you start and you don't finish, and then that funding that someone else could have utilized to finish your education is not necessarily utilized. So I don't know if we have to begin to have an agreement that says at some point if you receive this funding, you have to finish or you're owed 5%, something, I don't know what it may be, but I just think people have to finish if they're given a grant of that nature.
Yeah. And I just want to reiterate what Dr. Marshall mentioned. While the rate is low or it does appear to be low, 36% compared to the general population is still significantly higher than the general population. And then when you look at Catto scholars' counterpart, so students when you're comparing apples to apples when it comes to other students who would have qualified for Catto but were not able to get in because they're waitlisted, the difference in terms of the graduation rate is doubled. So we know that when the students get those wraparound supports, we know that they lead to much higher graduation rates. It certainly doesn't solve the entire problem. The other thing I'll just mention as well is Catto is modeled after a proven national model out in New York City, the CUNY ASAP program. And our results are on par with what they've seen over the past years as they've been 15 looking to boost their graduation 16 rates. So students that 17 participate in a comparable program 18 in New York are seeing double the 19 graduation rates, but generally 20 speaking across the country, community college graduation rates are just not that high. And so, while Catto and those wraparound supports we know are working, they just unfortunately don't solve all of the challenges that some of our students are facing.
Gotcha. And I heard there were some concerns about student safety as well. How is the college addressing increased concerns around student safety, student and faculty safety I gather?
Thank you, Councilman. So around safety, we do have a public safety department and we actually are an open campus because we're in the city. However, we are required to have individuals swipe with ID. So we have security guards at every entrance and pretty much our security guards monitor safety and we have a safety team that kind of monitors our campus 24/7.
Okay. I'll follow up later with more data around the safety issues that I'm concerned about. Thank you so much, Dr. Marshall and team. And also, I want to give a shout- out to Kenisha. She's been doing a great job with engaging all of us in City Council. She is an incredible force for you all. So thank you, Kenisha, for your service to the Community College of Philadelphia.
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jim Harrity, Councilmember Rue Landau and Councilmember Jay Young.
Good afternoon, everyone. My questions are also around the -- I'm the Labor Chair on Council so I'm very concerned about promises made, promises being kept. This was a good-faith agreement between the college and the -- one of the reasons they actually went back was because you guys said you would work on getting the school passes for the kids and the facility leaders. I understand that cost plays a big thing. But in some of your own testimony today you've said that some of the things that help and will help with the graduation rate is those services, the wraparound services. I would argue that this is a wraparound service that the students in community college would need. They're at community college for a reason. Most of the time it's because the institutional schools were too expensive and they needed to go a less expensive way. Not saying that the education is any different. Community College, we all know is a great school. My wife is enrolled at Community College in the paralegal studies thing, but our concerns and my concerns, just like the Council President and Nick O'Rourke is that this is going to bite us back at some point. Because as a union guy, I know if somebody makes a promise to me and then they don't come or live up to that promise, then the next time I'm going, I'm not going to take their word for anything and it's going to end up causing other issues. And while I know the finances, but as the Council President, something this important we should be able to find a way. So could you elaborate more on the whole...
So I appreciate that perspective and the advocacy. I think we are all aligned in terms of the desire and the need for this service. I will say that -- I will say that for our pilot we just have some numbers here. Out of the 300 students that were eligible for the pilot at our Career Advanced Technology Center, only 80 of our students are actually taking advantage of it. So part of my deliberation and thinking about this is trying to assess what the actual need is and then trying to work with SEPTA so that we are not on the hook for people that aren't going to need the service, right. And so, that's part of the exploratory phase. The promise was made to look into trying to do this and to work with SEPTA to get to a place where we could provide it. We have kept the promise. I will say that the promise was or the memorandum of understanding was made under a different administration. This is a new administration --
Oh, okay. Oh, I got it. I got it now. There's a new sheriff in town.
No, this is just facts. I'm saying that at the time I was part of the negotiations in full transparency, but my role was a Provost and Vice- President of Academics and Student Success. I did not have information or authority over budget at the time. The decision was made by those in authority to make the decision. I agree that if we could provide this, this would be great. But I have now information about budget and trying to figure out how to do that. And so --
I'd like to know how you're actually getting it out there. Because if you're saying 300 students were eligible for the pilot and you only had 80 sign up, that doesn't make sense to me. I live in Kensington. If you're giving us something, we're taking it and we're going to use it. So I know a lot of those students are from my neighborhood, just like they're from Jeffrey's neighborhood and Jamie's neighborhood and everybody else's neighborhood here. The public transportation thing, I would say then even if that is true, then that means you have 220 slots available that we can give to somebody else, right?
Right. So this is a conversation to help us with negotiating with SEPTA. They have ways by which they are approaching this with us that is somewhat rigid, which is why we are negotiating. I don't want to get into that, into too much detail, but they have presented it to us in a certain way that says this is how we would price it for you. This is based on who we think is going to use it and we're working with them to figure out a way we can get to a place where we're comfortable with our budget and we're addressing the needs of our students. But that is what happened at our Career Advanced Technology Center. We're also doing a student survey and gathering information from that. So we want to put together an informed proposal of how we might do this moving forward. Dr. Rooney can speak a little bit to the survey and the information that we've been gathering to date.
Sure. Good afternoon. I'm Shannon Rooney. I'm the Vice-President for Enrollment Management and Strategic Communication. I think you posed a really good question and it's one that has been animating our entire leadership group. Just to give you a little bit of a sense of how we got that information out to students, we also expected much closer to 100% adoption from students. We hosted SEPTA onsite twice. We also had folks who worked at the CATC in person, handing out cards. We sent out emails weekly to students who were eligible and we also text messaged students who were eligible. Part of the text messaging campaign, we asked students to let us know why they had not adopted or signed up for the program for which they were eligible. We got very little feedback on that, to all of our kind of shock. Anecdotally, what we did hear from the students who did respond to those surveys, they were telling us that they were either driving or they were taking alternative methods or they already were getting SEPTA benefits elsewhere. So that's the kind of scant information we have right now. To Dr. Marshall's point, we are in the process of taking a look at a much larger survey that we developed in collaboration with our Student Government Association, because we really do want to kind of understand what our students are telling us they need and want.
Yeah, because that's a little hard to take. Okay. I'm going to let it go because of time. But just know I will be standing out there with the union when we go to negotiate again. And being new is not going to be an excuse the next time. Thank you. (Applause.)
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Rue Landau and Jay Young, and Dr. Nina Ahmad will wrap us up for the day.
Thank you. Thank you so much for being here, Doc. We are very, very happy that you're here. You're making some very significant changes to CCP. Love seeing the gains that you're doing. And as we're seeing a rollback on even availability and eligibility of student loans for parents and students going forward, CCP is more important than ever to make sure that people can afford going to college and figuring themselves out and whatnot, and you're making it very, very easy for them. So thank you. I'm going to try not to double-, triple-down on the SEPTA student passes. I too was really excited to hear or to think that we were finally at a point where we are going to provide passes to everybody. We just had a budget town hall in South Philadelphia last week and somebody stood up to the microphone and said, I'm a CCP student and I cannot afford to get there, I can't afford to get my classes. I would suggest as we try to figure this out, and we will try to help with as much funding as we can, that maybe it is part of the terms and conditions of employment for your faculty when the students can't get to class. So we need the students that come to class, we need the faculty to get everything they need to teach it. All we're trying to do is trying to make it easier. I know you want this too so we're all on the same page. We can all work collectively to make this happen. But this would be the success story for the region, maybe even the country, who knows, that we all got together and made this happen. I'm going to get to -- we touched on a couple of other things already, including the Catto Scholarship. I want to get to something kind of touchy that I've heard about. I'm the Chair of the Tech Committee. And I know that the Board has approved $1 million purchase of the Evolv weapons detection systems from Allied Universal Technologies. It's a detection system that has had questionable reliability. There's been serious concerns. Even the FTC in 2024 basically called it false advertising, marketing, that they can detect the weapons they say they can. And my understanding is that you did this through your foundation and I wanted to hear more about it and whether or not you should have or could have collaborated with the faculty and students and others on this purchase?
I'll jump in. So this is a result of a local share grant, so it's not college money operating. However, the decision to approve, to use this money in this way was made by the Board. No money has been spent as of to date. And again, this was a follow-up from a previous decision. So I am assessing whether or not we're needing to move forward with this in realtime. We've just had an official session with the Board that says you can do this, but it has not been done yet so we're looking at that.
Point of information; is that right, Councilmember O'Rourke? Are you -- point of information.
I got to acknowledge him first. Chair recognizes Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke.
Thank you. I just wanted to circle back. You had someone who mentioned that there were other SEPTA benefits that were being utilized by some of the students. Can you just clarify what those are if you know, whoever it? Was it Zero Fare? What are the benefits that have been used by students?
So I can speak to the fact that through our Catto Scholarship Program, there is a transportation stipend so sometimes people use that for SEPTA passes. We also have single-stop services where we provide support for students in transportation who have high need. And if they come to us with the need, we sometimes offer them SEPTA passes through those avenues.
Thank you. Dr. Marshall, I'd like to get back to, you said it was a local shared grant. Is the grant only for security for the campus?
Yes. Previously there was an application. It was approved and we were awarded that. We have not drawn that down. We have not made a --
Okay. Would it be possible to look at other possibilities and to spend the money elsewhere? If there's $1 million, I'm sure people want higher security. But is there a possibility of allocating that money in a different way and not going with above?
So as it relates to grant funding, it's restricted. So it's restricted for the purpose that we applied for, which was the metal detectives. So we cannot reallocate that money for other purposes at the time.
For metal detectors. And just a point of clarification, the contract has not been signed yet.
Gotcha. Is there a way to use a different company with different metal detectors with this money?
So we typically do what we call an RFP process. So we did an RFP process and we looked at that particular technology. We outsourced our contract security with Allied, so we currently have a relationship with Allied. So we thought it would be best to use a software that Allied is familiar with. And this software is used throughout the city. You know, Xfinity Center, when you go to basketball games, you go through this software so it is a popular software. But once again, we have not implemented it yet. The contract has not been signed. We have simply received approval from our Board and we are exploring, so we can continue to work on this.
Thank you very much for that information. Thank you.
Just was making sure you're all right. Chair recognizing Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young. Then Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad, and then Rue Landau will take us home.
Thank you, Mr. President. First, I just want to acknowledge CCP for the hard work that you do. This past Saturday I personally know multiple graduates, including the son of my Chief of Staff and my Political Director, who were two of the high school students from Boys' Latin, who got their Associate's Degree. (Applause.)
And I want to give a special shout-out to my intern, who's leaving our office this week, Selena. She was our legislator for the day from CCP. She interned in our office and she also just graduated this past Saturday as well. (Applause.)
And she's done a great job for us in our office. I know the pathway. CCP creates a lot of opportunities for people who kind of just don't know what they want to do, right, and you're playing a much more larger role when it comes to the city's workforce development ecosystem. I mean, you're involved with the CCME, you have the dual enrollment, teacher pathways and industrial training. But how do you decide what industries get scaled, what industry, what programs get subsidy and how employee demand is validated before students are recruited into those different pathways?
That's a great question. So majority of our programs have an industry advisory board, which they meet with the program leadership, the faculty. They meet with the advisory boards who provide input in terms of making sure that our curriculum is relevant and what are the standards for the industry as well as what do they need to be successful in the workplace if they're pursuing a career in that way. So we do have extensive engagement with industry. A great example is our collaboration with Hanwha. We've been talking with them. We want to make sure we're developing curriculum that's going to supply. I think the most important piece of this is that we're prioritizing high-priority occupations. One of those occupations is welding, and that's going to be thousands and thousands of workers that are needed. So we're looking at and identifying where the need is, where there are guaranteed job opportunities, but also where there's opportunities for students to graduate or complete the program and make a living wage that they can take care of their families. As part of our strategic planning process, I'm working with my team to actually take a look at academic programs, our inventory, to understand and make sure that our programs are relevant. And if there are programs that are no 3 longer relevant, we need to think about that because we need to make sure that our programs are preparing students for success and that they can make a living wage. So those pieces are taken into consideration. Obviously, what we've been talking about here is funding. So some programs may start more quickly than others. If we have an investment from an industry partner or something like that, it may be easier for us to stand that up, so we take that into consideration as well. But we're definitely looking at high-priority occupations, where the career interest is for our students, but where the workforce need is and that's where we need to prioritize our programming.
Okay. Thank you. So it seems like from the numbers there were 400 folks who enrolled in the CCME program, 80 completed, more coming. How many of those completed the program actually entered city employment?
Hello again. Seth Jacobson, Interim Vice-President for Strategic Initiatives and Community Engagement. So just as a point of clarification, because there has been a lot of evolution in the CCME program, even in the months that 15 it's been in existence, so at the 16 college level there's four 17 different programs that we're 18 running through CCME, and those 19 programs are what we call the traditional CCME program, which is those pathways that you were referring to that lead residents into jobs or are designed to lead residents into jobs with city government. There's the upskilling program, which is supporting current city employees to get upskilling in their subject areas. We have a high school program, which is we're working with the city as well as the school district to expose more high school students to careers in city government and just thriving industries in general. And we have a civic entrepreneurs program as well, which is a new sort of internship program for CCP students to get who are pursuing Associate's Degree, to get exposed to city government jobs as well. So across those, all those different programs, when it comes to the traditional program or rather across all those programs, over about about 56% of those in completers have now moved into what we are considering desirable next steps, so that either are jobs with city government or it is continuing education with Community College of Philadelphia --
So I get that. So that kind of inflates what I'm looking for. So for the first program then, right, the first program is just students enrolling to a direct path to a city job. Program number one you mentioned, how many of those completers got a city job? Not -- because that's the goal of this program is to get folks into a job with the City of Philadelphia. So out of that --
So our numbers indicate that there are that are currently in city jobs. And those go across the Streets Department, Water Department, Police Department, Procurement, and Office of Innovation and Technology.
A point of information. 10 We went over this in the past. I 11 think the level of investment I 12 think it was 14 million, correct? 13 Because I think it was a million 14 per individual who actually got a summer job; is that correct?
I guess just clarifying, it was 14 million that was invested in the initiative and there's actually only 14 individuals who received city jobs, and that's million per individual.
If you can clarify that for us for the record.
And I'll relinquish the time back to Member Young. Go ahead, sir. You can respond.
So we're aware of it, a $10 million investment total. But to your point, Councilmember President -- Council President, again kind of going back to sort of the evolution of CCME, over the past months, 18 it was originally focused on moving 19 folks into jobs in city government, but has since evolved into a number of other programs that are not just moving folks into city jobs but also other thriving industries across the region as well, so there's an evolution of that. The other thing I would mention is that these are students who have been moving into the program and some are still in the program and the programs range anywhere from months to 8 months. And so, some students are 9 still completing, other students 10 are still in the pipeline. They 11 are on civil service lists, they're 12 waiting for interviews. And so, 13 we're working with our partners in 14 the city, with the city to make 15 sure that we're doing everything we 16 can to reduce any potential 17 barriers for those graduates to 18 move into city government jobs. We're also continuing to work with those remaining students who have completed the program to ensure that they are again still on track to being able to get employment with the city or that we're helping them to move into another desirable pathway desirable for them, whether that is continued education at CCP for free if we can get them into the Catto Scholarship to continue to sort of stack upon the existing education that they receive through CCME or looking at alternative employment, where the skills that they learn through CCME are applicable in another area.
I understand that the program has evolved over the past 18, 15 months. But the goal is that we 16 have so many vacancies in the City 17 of Philadelphia right now. Every 18 department comes to us -- I mean, 19 the Fire Department had hundreds of vacancies, right. So every department has these vacancies. And for us to only have 14 jobs, I mean with that level of investment, we mind as well just give the people the money directly then, right. I mean, we'll save some money. Even with the 56% rate, right, I mean that's still not enough for the investment that we're putting into this to fill the vacancies that we have in the city. So if the goal is to ensure that we have a city workforce that's ready, able and willing to do the job, then I think we have to really look at that program a little bit more to see what other ways can we get our residents ready for city employment for that level of investment.
Excuse me, Member Young. Member Gauthier has a point of information.
I just wanted to correct the record that the 14 is sort of an uptick from what we heard from the hearing. At the hearing, we heard that people were employed from a 4 $10 million investment, which was 5 roughly $1 million a person. 6 And to Councilmember 7 Young's point, I worked in the 8 funding world before I came to City 9 Council, we would never fund a workforce development program with those numbers. But also, most workforce development programs don't control the training side and the employment side, like we are both sides. So if there are changes we need to make on the employment side to take in the people that we are training, arguably we have the power to do that. So this should not be a workforce development program that that is seeing those kinds of numbers, because we have the power to change things if we wish to. Thank you.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Young.
Thank you. One last question. Of course, we all know the recent labor unrest at CCP creates, I'll say, different experiences between the workforce quality and the student experiences. And the faculty and staff union secured a fact-finder to authorize that strike before they reached the tentative agreement. And I know you weren't the president of the college then, but you were in leadership. So what did you learn from that breakdown and what has actually changed in the labor management relations since then?
So we're talking about the SEPTA passes, correct, and the agreement to look into providing SEPTA passes as part of --
So that's one part of it. But just overall as the management style, what have you learned since that process of negotiating with the union? And how can we create a better atmosphere for that relationship?
So I appreciate that question. I think it's pertinent. One of the things that I instituted, and it's a great example to share today in light of the conversation we've been having, I've started a listening tour. So what I'm doing is going around to various departments and divisions at the college and just sitting down and listening. What's going great? What can we improve? What are the challenges? Two listening tours that I had last week specifically, independently came up with challenges and problems with one particular building at our institution, the CBI building. This happened last week -- two weeks ago, within the past couple weeks. Immediately that day I had cabinet members come in. We looked at what were our priorities for maintenance and issues that dealt with HVAC and we moved up this building because it was impacting negatively the student experience, and I'm hearing it from multiple pieces, multiple departments. So let's figure out, how do we fix this and how do we fix this now. And so, I think this open communication in addition to monthly meeting with Federation leadership -- myself and my cabinet, we meet once a month with the Federation leadership and we have an open agenda where they bring any concerns that they have, they can discuss that with us. If we have information we want to share, we do that. And I think it's keeping the lines of communication open. I also think that we have to have more transparency and communications, which I've tried to institute. I had an open meeting, a gathering a couple of weeks ago where I shared what was going on with the finances, where we are as an institution. And so, I think it's communication and opening those channels. I think we want the same thing, what's best for students, so I'm happy to continue that.
Thank you. Thank you for your leadership with the college. I think we want to see improvements with your leadership. So thank you.
Thank you very much. Last, but definitely not least, Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad. It's Dr. Nina Ahmad, right?
And Member Gauthier has a Master's from Penn, right, in planning. And Jeffrey Young has a --
-- Dr. Anthony Phillips from Morehouse. I haven't seen this level of education in the history of City Council, but I'm going to leave that there right now. Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad.
Well, thank you so much, Council President, and I have to pitch myself awake. Thank you again for being here. I am so excited by all the changes that are going on at CCP. They're all forward-looking, getting our children ready for the millennium we are in. There's a lot of catch-up to do and you're doing it, so thank you. But -- there's always a but, right -- there's three questions I have very quickly. One is, this is my role as Chair of Public Health and Human Services, I am always concerned about our children in foster youth who are enrolled at CCP and those aging out. And what is the enrollment pipeline and program specifically for that population and how we need to really support them as they enter adulthood? So that's one question. Two is, you note that 25% of the students are parents, right. And what specific supports are in place to ensure that student parents can persist and graduate? And I believe that there was a child care center that was closed. And what would it take to open it and to provide affordable child care? And connected to that, what are the outcomes in retention rates for graduation of parents compared to nonparents in CCP? And last question is about faculty, because that's the other side of the coin. I wanted to know how many hours do you think faculty leaders are working? Do you believe faculty leaders have sustainable workloads? And what are you doing to ensure we're able to recruit and retain talented faculty that students need and deserve? And obviously, we've heard issues around overloaded faculty members who are leaving because of these overloads and uncomfortable situations at work. So sorry, I had to pack it all in because I'm the last person asking questions.
Okay. I'm going to try to remember all of the questions and thank you for this question. One thing I wrote down was about student parents and what are we doing in that regard. So I'll start by saying it was mentioned earlier we recently opened Roary's Cubhouse, which is a specific dedicated area on our campus where students can come with their children. There's a play area there and there's a study area there, and they don't have to decide whether or not they're going to study and work as they're trying to get an education and trying to raise children at the same time. So we were pleased to be able to have support from the Jevs Foundation for this, and we were able to open that and that was a great opportunity to support our student parents.
Just a point of information. So it's not a day care where you can leave your children where sometimes you need the time to do whatever you have to do without your children?
So I just wanted to make sure that was not a replacement, just an added facility?
It's an added facility to support student parents in their experience with us when they come to the college. We did close down our child care center, particularly because of expenses and running it, so that is something that we are looking into to determine how we can afford to stand that up again and what that would look like. So we are exploring that because we understand that that's a need that if we could provide that, that would be great. We are in the process of doing that right now. The other piece --
Excuse me one second, Madam President. Member Jeffrey Jay Young, point of information.
Thank you. So you said you were having issues with funding the child care. I mean, I used to represent day care owners, right, in my previous life. And I know that it could be a lucrative business. Have you guys applied for the CCIS or we have our Philly PreK? What made it difficult to have that type of service, because I know for a fact there are a lot of students with kids who go there and that could be a barrier for them that can increase your graduation rate from 24% to something a little bit higher than that? So what's the barriers to at least having a child care where we have all these other types of subsidies that could help with that?
Yes, I appreciate that. The biggest piece of it was that it was used by our students or the need for our students was on a drop-in, right. Students are coming in, they're bringing their child so that they can take a class on Mondays and Wednesdays from 2:00 to 3:00. Unfortunately, that volume when you don't have people actually using the facility from 9:00 to 5:00 hours a week, that was not sustainable in terms of the cost for providing the care and what Kinder Care was getting to run that program. We just didn't have enough usage of it quite frankly. And I think it goes back to what we've been talking about in terms of actual usage, what that would look like and that's something that we're trying to assess right now. So that was one issue. Derrick can speak to the specific finances of doing that. But it really decreased in usage of our students, so it just became counterproductive for us to continue to operate it. It was several years ago. We're in a different day. We're in a different time, different student population. It might be more viable to do it now so we are looking at that.
Was it available from 9:00 to 5:00 to the students? Did they know that, that they don't just have to just drop their kid off while they're in class versus, you know?
Yes. But we find that -- so I'm speaking -- I wasn't here at the institution, so this is my understanding. We found that students more likely wanted to drop their kids off at a day care center that was closer to their home as opposed to bringing them to the school and then dropping them off, so that was kind of impacting the frequency or the need for the usage at the time.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Dr. Ahmad.
Thank you, Council President. Please proceed with the remaining questions.
Okay. The other piece I wanted to mention is that we are applying for CCAMPIS grants, so that's an opportunity to provide support for our students. If we were to get that, they would provide support and funding for our students to be able to pay for or offset the pay for child care if they wanted that. So we are trying to address it in multiple ways in addition to looking into the child care center. I'm going to ask Dr. Jacobson to speak to the foster care initiatives.
Sure. And just to dovetail off of what Dr. Marshall was saying, on top of that with the visit to Harrisburg yesterday, we know that there is some state funding available to support student parents through what's called the PA Parent Pathways Program. And so, we are actively seeking that funding as well. And part of our trip up there yesterday and talking to our representatives was to be sure that they are advocating on our behalf, given the need you identified. In terms of our students that have experience in the foster system, we have a foster and care and connections program at the college, which is really just our way of trying to be very intentional about supporting that population. So that program is in partnership with the Field Center as well as the Achieving Independence Center. The Achieving Independence Center is where we're able to get referrals from former foster youth to ensure that we're connecting them to a single point of contact on campus, so that they're getting support with navigating, you know, whether it's just the college sort of bureaucracy, what happens when you go into a college, but also helping them to access any benefits that they might qualify for, both on campus as well as off campus. That program also provides training across campus to faculty and staff to ensure that they know the best ways to work with former foster youth as well, so ensuring a sensitivity and sort of cultural competency in those areas. The other piece as well is our PHA shared housing partnership that specifically targets those students as well to make sure that they have stable housing. And if they don't, that we're able to move them into stable housing through our partnership with PHA.
Sounds like you have a lot of wraparounds. I would love to -- and we don't have to do it now because we're at the end of our time -- get outcomes of all of the programming and successful graduation of this cohort and maybe any feedback you've had from them to see how successful are they. One of the big things when you're especially aging out, we've found from research that having a single point of contact that you mentioned, having a trusted adult in their life that they have built trust over time is critical in place of just giving training, how to access this, two entirely different things and I want to really have a trauma- informed approach to that, so we'll follow up on that. And I had a last question about our faculty.
I'll address that. So we have multiple loads for faculty. Most institutions have faculty loaded for 30 hours. Our faculty has an option. They can be loaded for less, 27, and we have some grandfather faculty that are even at a load, which means the number of hours that they're teaching is much less than at most institutions, community college institutions. But I will say that if faculty are participating in leadership, they receive release time, which is equivalent to one or more classes that they don't have to teach, so they're supposed to be utilizing that time to participate in the leadership administrative duties that they are working on and assigned to. In addition to that, they could possibly also be receiving extended time, which is overage compensation. All that said, we are looking at faculty leadership because I think it's more not necessarily about our process, but more about what is the number of hours that should be allocated or compensated for certain leadership duties as programs change in size, as accreditation needs change. The administrative duties possibly have been changing and they may not have had a compensation or release time has been looked at for several years to make sure that it's current with what is actually happening right now. And so, we have a faculty leadership committee that's being put together by administration and faculty to look at that, the compensation, the leadership, the duties and try to get to a place where it makes sense.
So basically, you're looking at the issue of overload. I'll have us follow up with you after this, after I've spoken with faculty because I've had some examples cited of how things have not worked, so I don't want to belabor the point. But clearly, you know this is an issue and we need to make sure our faculty are well taken care of. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you. And last, but definitely not least, Councilmember Cindy Bass.
Thank you, Mr. President. I just really wanted to say thank you so much to CCP for having me as the keynote speaker at the Catto graduation program. It was a phenomenal ceremony, just really outstanding. And a lot of the graduates were the first to graduate from college in their families like myself, and it was really special. It was really very, very special. So I thank you for putting so much into it or investing in it. I certainly hope this is a program that's going to be around for a very long time and that you can expand it. And I'm a big supporter and fan. So I just wanted to say thank you to CCP and all your staff, your entire team who helped make it work. So thank you.
Thank you very much. Well, listen, thank you very much for your testimony today. And as always, we look forward to continue working in partnership with CCP as we invest in our young people. Thank you very much.
Any other questions or comments from members of the committee? (No response.)
Hearing none, the Chair recognizes Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson for a motion that the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolution before the committee today stand in recess until Wednesday, May 6, 2026 at 10:00 a.m.
It has been moved and properly seconded that the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolution before the committee today stand in recess until Wednesday, May 6, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. in Room 400. All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it and the motion carries. This committee stands in recess until Wednesday, May 6th at 10:00 a.m. Thank you very much, everyone. (Committee of the Whole concluded at 4:00 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. ________________________________ TANEHA CARROLL