On July 28, 2020, the Board of Trustees of the Peralta Community College District (PCCD) approved the appointment of Mark Johnson as Executive Director of Public Information, Communication & Media. He will continue to manage the Department of Marketing, Communication and Public Relations (MCPR) for the District. Mr. Johnson had been in the interim role for the past year. 

These are challenging times for everyone. All of us have had to make adjustments in the way we work or study thanks to the ongoing shelter in place guidelines. As recently announced, all four of the Peralta college campuses as well as the district office are closed through the end of the year while the Fall 2020 semester will be taught online with just a few exceptions. Working at home is now the reality for most Peralta employees. Our homes are now our offices too.

On July 21, 2020, a community forum was held via Zoom giving Peralta employees including faculty, classified professionals and administrators the opportunity to hear about several exciting projects impacting the district.

Presenting were Dr. Leigh Sata (Vice Chancellor of General Services), Amy Marshall (Facilities Director, Laney College) and Keith Kajiya (Vice President, AECOM, the Peralta bond program manager). Mark Johnson (Marketing, Communication & Public Relations) moderated a Question and Answer period following the presentations. 

Dr. Angélica Garcia, who started as President of Berkeley City College in May, was featured in the June 25, 2020 issue of Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, a national publication based in Virginia. With more than 30 years of experience covering education, Diverse has a monthly print and digital readership well over 100,000. That makes it one of the largest higher education trade publications in the country, and the largest audience of educators of color from more than 4,800 U.S. colleges and universities. The feature in Diverse provides excellent national exposure for Dr. Garcia, Berkeley City College, and the Peralta Community College District. 

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.