The Campaign for College Opportunity has named College of the Canyons a 2024 Champion for Excellence in Placement in Black Math Success. The college was among 20 California community colleges that were recognized for implementing equitable placement policy AB 705, championed by Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin and signed into law in 2017.

Since going into effect, AB 705 accelerated student success by ending remedial course placement practices that decreased students’ likelihood of earning a degree and preventing them from reaching their college dreams.

“We are honored to have been recognized The Campaign for College Opportunity for our continuous efforts to reduce racial equity gaps and help students succeed,” said College of the Canyons Interim Superintendent/President David C. Andrus, J.D.

Ranked No. 2 among California community colleges, COC had a 70.8 percent success rate of Black students completing transfer-level math within one year of their initial enrollment in a math course for the academic year 2022-23.

“This is the highest rate of transfer-level math completion for this group of students, who also experienced a substantial increase between 2018-19 and 2019-20, from 33 to 51 percent due to the implementation of AB705 that opened access to transfer-level courses,” said Preeta Saxena, director of institutional research, planning and institutional effectiveness at the college.

COC has worked diligently to modernize its mathematics curriculum in support of student placement and completion. Faculty leadership created new credit support for students in trigonometry, college algebra, pre-calculus, calculus, business calculus and introductory statistics courses while also designing equitable access to modularized support in developmental mathematics concepts through continuing education noncredit as needed.

“This holistic approach, coupled with additional out-of-class support through expanded tutoring services and learning communities, have resulted in improved successful outcomes for our most disproportionately impacted students,” said Omar Torres, assistant superintendent/vice president of instruction at COC. “The college is proud of its continued work in support of Vision 2030 and implementation of AB 705 and AB 1705.”

The college’s success can also be attributed to the collaborative effort between Instruction, Student Services and Institutional Research, Planning and Institutional Effectiveness, said Daylene Meuschke, IRPIE vice president at the college.

“We are grateful to the collaboration between discipline faculty, counseling faculty, administrators,” said Meuschke. “It has allowed the college to provide additional instructional support for students through the development of noncredit classes and The Learning Center, professional development offered to our discipline faculty involved in the placement and curricular redesign, as well as continuous quality improvement examining placement and throughput data each year.”

The Campaign for College Opportunity is a non-profit bipartisan organization that works toward increasing the number of California students attending two and four-year colleges and who complete their college education.