We are excited to welcome Marcus Creel as the new Graphic Design Specialist for the Peralta Community College District.

In 2019, Peralta Community College District received $1.8 Million in grants awarded by the California Virtual Campus - Online Education Initiative (CVC-OEI). A grant in the amount of $400,370.00 for Improving Online CTE Pathways with a Focus on ESOL and Adult Students was awarded to Laney College in order to create and expand online opportunities in:  Business Management and Supervision; Construction Management, California Green, and Sustainable Building Standards; Legal Community Interpreting; and provide wraparound support through counseling and tutoring.

On May 26, 2020, Peralta Community College District reported that Laney College and College of Alameda had formed partnerships with Steph and Aisha Curry's non-profit Eat.Learn.Play and the World Central Kitchen to provide free meals for students.  Now all four colleges have solidified their partnership with these great nonprofits to serve our community.  Merritt College started their program on May 28. Berkeley City College began their program on Friday June 5th. 

UPDATE: On July 14, 2020, news outlets began reporting that ICE has rescinded a rule that would have required international students to transfer or leave the country if their schools held classes entirely online because of the pandemic.The decision was announced at the start of a hearing in a federal lawsuit in Boston brought by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs said federal immigration authorities agreed to pull the July 6 directive and "return to the status quo."  For more coverage of this breaking story, see here, here, and here.

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On July 6, 2020, US ICE’s Broadcast Message: COVID-19 and Fall 2020 informed institutions of the updated reporting requirements for hosting F-1 and M-1 visa students this fall semester. According to Thomas Torres-Gil, Director of Peralta's International Services and Student Support office, "Our international students and community immediately contacted our office and colleges to express their valid concerns and frustration towards a policy that has been described as reckless, horrifying, and a self-inflicted wound."

The coronavirus pandemic has had a major impact on the state of California budget, both in the reduction of funds available as part of the budget and also with regards to the timing of the budget, which has been delayed. On June 30, 2020 the Board of Trustees passed a resolution allowing the district to continue operations in the new fiscal year beginning July 1, 2020 while work to align the Peralta Community College District budget with the resources allocated by the final California budget continued. The District has made much progress on updating the Tentative Budget for Fiscal Year 2020-21 over the past few week. 

The Peralta Community College District (PCCD) Bond Measures Oversight Committee (BMOC) met for their regular quarterly meeting on July 1, 2020. The meeting was held via Zoom because of the continuing shelter-in-place directive from Alameda County. The meeting agenda and presentation materials are available on the Build Peralta website here.  A recording of the meeting is available on the Peralta YouTube channel here. 

A special meeting of the Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees took place on June 30, 2020. During the epic Board of Trustees meeting on June 23, 2020 - the nearly six hour meeting that included a hundred public comments - the Board tabled the planned discussion of the Tentative Budget for Fiscal Year 2020-2021. That budget discussion resumed at the special meeting. Dr. Carla Walter, Vice Chancellor of Finance and Administration, gave a presentation on the proposed Tentative Budget for FY 2020-21. 

Oakland, CA – In the latest demonstration of financial stewardship by the Peralta Community College District (PCCD), the District has sold General Obligation bonds from bond measures passed in 2006, 2009, and 2018 to finance capital projects throughout the district while saving taxpayers $5.1 million in reduced debt service.

In the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery and others, educators are determining options for a thoughtful response. At first, school principals and college presidents responded by releasing public statements to their campus communities. See Peralta Community College District's Executive Leadership statement as well as statements by Chancellor Stanback Stroud, President Gilkerson at Laney College, President Johnson at Merritt College, President Garcia at Berkeley City College, and President Karas at College of Alameda. 

On June 10, 2020, the Peralta Community College District (PCCD) Department of Marketing, Communication and Public Relations (MCPR) received recognition from the Community College Public Relations Organization (CCPRO) as part of the 2020 CCPRO Awards Ceremony. The District earned Third Place in the highly competitive Social Media Marketing category. We received the award for "Become a Champion" - a Twitter post by Faiza Ali that included a 17 second video produced by AC Hunter that was then "boosted" by Mark Johnson to maximize the audience reach for the video here in the Bay Area. It was a real team effort! Click the photo below to visit the Tweet and watch the video.