AAQEP Accreditation 2022
Standard 4: Aspect B
The program is committed to and invests in strengthening and improving the education profession and the P-20 education system. Each program’s context (or multiple contexts) provides particular opportunities to engage the field’s shared challenges and to foster and support innovation. Engagement with critical issues is essential and must be contextualized. Sharing results of contextualized engagement and innovation supports the field’s collective effort to address education’s most pressing challenges through improvement and innovation.
The university’s service area encompasses five counties and includes both urban and rural areas with ethnically diverse populations. The program actively recruits candidates who reflect the Central Valley’s rich cultural, ethnic and linguistic diverse population. The Coordinator recruits in undergraduate courses, on campus, at district job fairs, through our district partners, and in the prerequisite course, “Introduction to Special Education”, which is open for enrollment to any student at the university. Understanding cultural norms as well as issues of poverty, racism, and trauma that affect many families in the surrounding areas is an important factor in recruiting. Candidates may be placed in a variety of clinical practice settings: classrooms, inclusive settings, co-teaching opportunities, self-contained classrooms, adult transition programs or separate schools for the most severely disabled and medically fragile students. Clinical practice placements reflect the socioeconomic and cultural diversity of the Central Valley, include supports for English learners/emergent bilinguals, and provide opportunities for teacher candidates to work with students with disabilities in schools with qualified site administrators.
The program provides support to all candidates, particularly underrepresented and/or first generation candidates, with regular academic advising, faculty support and mentorship. Candidates who are at-risk of failing a course or field experience are monitored, counseled and offered targeted assistance by their instructors, program coordinator, and/or university coach. The program also offers professional development via programmatic events. These practices ensure an accessible and smoother pathway for candidates to complete their program and enter the Education Specialist teaching profession.
Demographic Data of Recent Graduates:
| 2019 N=183 |
2020 N=181 |
2021 N=133 |
|
| African American | 3.5% | 2.7% | 5.2% |
| American Indian or Alaska Native | 1% | 0.5% | 0.7% |
| Asian | 7.1% | 6.1% | 9.0% |
| Filipino | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Hispanic or Latino | 39.8% | 38.1% | 48.9% |
| Pacific Islander | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| White | 33.8% | 36.4% | 27.1% |
| 2+ Races | 5.54% | 5.5% | 3.7% |
| Not Reported | 8.2% | 8.9% | 6.0% |
2020-2021 Regional K-12 Enrollment Data by County (source: CDE DataQuest):
| County: | Fresno | Madera | Tulare | Kings | STATE |
| Total | 205,480 | 31,494 | 103,592 | 29,284 | 6,002,523 |
| African American | 4.7% | 1.2% | 1.0% | 3.3% | 5.2% |
| American Indian or Alaska Native | 0.6% | 1.0% | 0.7% | 1.0% | 0.5% |
| Asian | 9.5% | 1.5% | 2.0% | 1.0% | 9.5% |
| Filipino | 0.8% | 0.2% | 0.7% | 1.6% | 2.4% |
| Hispanic or Latino | 65.8% | 75.6% | 78.2% | 71.3% | 55.3% |
| Pacific Islander | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.4% |
| White | 15.9% | 18.2% | 14.5% | 18.1% | 21.7% |
| 2+ Races | 2.2% | 1.6% | 1.4% | 3.3% | 4.1% |
| Not Reported | 0.4% | 0.7% | 1.3% | 0.2% | 0.9% |