News & Updates
Historically, community colleges have not been designed as equitable spaces to serve the unique needs of parenting students, yet parenting students make up approximately 25% of the student body in community colleges. To help increase the success of parenting students in community college, the majority of whom are women, Achieving the Dream, since 2019, has taken part in Community College Women Succeed, an initiative to identify and promote effective strategies that support women students and student parents’ success within community college.
ATD believes that understanding and serving parenting students of any gender has a two-generation impact that will benefit not only the lives of enrolled students directly but their families and the community more broadly. With this in mind, ATD is working with colleges to increase capacity to build descriptive evidence of who student parents are, where they are in the system, and their educational outcomes. Last year, with funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, ATD conducted Student Parent Opportunity Assessments for four cohort colleges to help them better understand their student parent populations and devise strategies to address unmet needs.
We are pleased to announce that a new grant from ECMC Foundation, Moving From Data to Action — Scaling Support for Student Parents, will allow ATD coaches to continue their engagement with these colleges for three more years, helping them to design, implement, and assess supports that serve the needs of their parenting students. Our approach focuses on building the capacity of cohort colleges in particular areas aligned with institutional objectives that will enable transformation within and beyond the identified cohort — through coaching, cross-institutional learning community facilitation, and development of action plans. ATD will also lead a community of practice to enhance shared learning on effective strategies to support students who are parents.
The colleges participating in this cohort (cohort one) are as follows:
- Austin Community College (Texas)
- Florida State College at Jacksonville (Florida)
- North Arkansas College (Arkansas)
- Pierce College (Washington)
In addition, we are excited that another new grant, Support To Advance Student Parent Practices, from the Annie E. Casey Foundation will enable ATD to administer the Student Parent Opportunity Assessment to a second cohort, composed of four additional community colleges. As part of the assessments, coaches will facilitate multiple focus groups with key stakeholders, including leadership; lead journey mapping exercises to uncover nuances of navigating college systems and processes from the perspective of parenting students; provide guidance in making a compelling case to stakeholders for system changes; and support colleges in the development of unique action plans.
Preliminary goals include work on the following issues:
- Childcare scholarships/childcare expansion
- Data/college student inventory: identifying our parenting students
- Priority registration: establishing processes and procedures for parenting students
- Title IX regulations: including medical necessity spaces and process review as well as pregnancy accommodations
- Minors on campus policies
The colleges participating in this cohort (cohort two) are as follows:
- Amarillo College (Texas)
- Bakersfield College (California)
- Patrick & Henry Community College (Virginia)
- Roane State Community College (Tennessee)
Learn more about the Student Parent Opportunity Assessment, as well as other services available through ATD’s Holistic Student Supports team.