November 7, 2024 AZBSN Digital Access Task Force Recording

7:13PM Nov 7, 2024

Speakers:

Steve Peters

Mark Goldstein

Erin Lorandos

Andy Ridley

John Kelly

Michelle Simon

Kirk Busch

Kelly Krusee

Kelly Mukherjee

Tabatha Peden

Kristi Baker

Gordon Fuller

Carrie Rogers-Whitehead

Heather Whittemore

Roz Boxer

Keywords:

sponsor acknowledgments

new member introductions

career changes

digital literacy

nationally recognized credential

digital equity

competitive grant process

letter of support

prison education

digital navigators

recidivism rates

assistive technology

security concerns

reentry programs

legislative education

Okay, good morning, everybody. I just glad to see you. Those of you who are here on time, I appreciate it as always like to first of all start with thanking our sponsors, care first, health plan. Karen Ziegler, consulting services, valley, telecom, Kajeet and triad. So thank you guys, and going to be looking for some more sponsors in the very near future. So the next thing is to welcome any new people that we have today.

So Heather, you want to introduce yourself. I can't remember if you've been here before or not. No, I

haven't I. I am with wecom fiber, and I'm one of the folks who works with commercial, medical, sled, gem, is that all? And, yeah, and I, I, I'm with, obviously, we come, we're out of, out of Las Vegas, and we, you know, we do everything for Arizona that we can. So I am just here to to help our help our cause.

Sounds great. Thanks, Heather, glad you could join us this morning. Thank you. Christy King, I think you've been here before, but you want to introduce yourself, please. Christy, are you there? Well,

no. Well, move on.

Andy Ridley, welcome back. I was trying to find you the other day.

Well, I've been a little occupied. I've tried to to see if I can get this on my calendar to attend once in a while. And it's it's possible today, so that's the good thing.

So, Andy, you want to just tell people what you're doing these days. You've made some changes.

Yeah. And you know, I don't recall I thought I attended one of these meetings since I made the change. But a quick recap, I used to work for the Office of Economic Opportunity, our Arizona's Department of Labor Office up until January of this year, at which time I took retirement because there were some changes at that office. You know, new government came into office last year, and that eventually trickled down to OEO and affected a program that I was running that was related to career readiness, and that essentially canceled the program for a statewide approach to cover the costs of of career readiness preparation and assessments that would essentially certify or credential those that could pass the assessments. So with that canceled, I had been using the the the software supplied to to use to do those courseware and assessments for those six years employed by OEO and so, once retired, contacted the software company called Win Learning, and they immediately were excited to take me on. And I am now their regional account representative for Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico, and the way that ties into this particular meeting is because the wind learning courseware and assessment has a credential, and courseware related to digital literacy, and the outcome is A nationally recognized credential instead of the one that was branded solely for Arizona when I was running the program. It's the same it's the same thing, but the now we can kick in the digitally, I'm sorry, the nationally recognized credential, but it isn't, it isn't coming at no cost, where, the where the where it's being paid for by the OEO, and that's the National Work Readiness Council's credential for digital literacy. What we're looking for is, is hopefully to, you know, incorporate that into programs that might be tied in with, well in general, with digital literacy and to whomever may seek to have a credential, to be able to hand an employer upon completion and passing that credential. But also, hopefully the bead grant money. I could could assist in purchasing the courseware and rights to the assessments, and perhaps some of those state or local levels that have the digital navigators might use this credential as a onboarding or even a screening tool for hiring the digital navigators. So that's what I'm up to.

Great. Thanks, Andy, Hey, and if you would send me, well, I'll get your contact information. If you register today, that's right, so I'll have your updated information. Christy Baker, we I was looking for you earlier, just for you to introduce yourself. Are you going again?

Sorry, I'm here. Okay, I had you guys mirrored on my TV to watch it this morning, and I I couldn't get to the mute button in time. Um, hi. I'm Christy Baker. I'm also at wecom. I'm the grants manager in charge of bead and I love joining you guys and learning about all of your different projects and and non profits and efforts towards bridging the, you know, the digital divide every week. Thanks everybody.

Good. Thank you. Christy, Tabitha. Tabitha, you there? You want to introduce yourself?

Yep, sorry, I'm Tabitha Peden. I'm with Rio Salado College. I'm helping out with the digital equity competitive grant as their grant manager if we get that grant. So just happy to help.

Great. Thanks. Thanks, Tabitha. And then I want to introduce my whole friend, Roz boxer. Roz is Ros, and I go back probably a long time, long, long time. And Kirk, I know you know Roswell and so Ross, do you want to just say hi and introduce yourself?

Oh, hi, yeah, Hi, Andy, I don't know if you remember me, right.

Roz, you're unforgettable. Oh,

okay, I was waiting for that. Yeah, okay. I love, I

love seeing you, goodness, yeah, like the minute

you came on. I said, wow, it's been a while. Sounds great what you're doing, but I'm retired and loving every single moment of it. But I used to be the program manager for workforce development for the state of Arizona with ACA and then OEO and so we did a lot of lot of good stuff in terms of training and all of that. But Steve and I go way, way, way, way back to night, the early the late 80s, I would say, and knowing each other, and Steve and Mary actually was grant writing and helping me with grants when I started a non profit here in Tucson and and that was wonderful for many, many, many years. So I just coming on because I'm interested in the topic, but not because I do anything close to what you guys do. I have a leisure breakfast. I go for a walk, you know? I have my own time.

They're going to make us jealous. Ros, oh, I

hope so. I hope so. It's wonderful retirement. You know, love it. Okay?

Thank you, Roz, glad to see you and glad what you're joining us today.

Okay, Steve, I gotta chime I gotta chime in here a little bit. Yeah, I know you do, because Roz is just way too humble. She always has been. I nicknamed her the godmother of workforce, because that's what she is. Still, we just got a data center certificate through the community college system. We have two of them right now, and we've got the data center certificate program in Australia Community College in conjunction with the Microsoft data center Academy and then Maricopa County, the Mesa Community College System in the industrial program out there with the fellow wild man that runs that program. And it took us a year and a half to get our certificate into two colleges. And back in the solar days, Roz got a solar certificate when Janet Brewer decided she wanted to be the solar crane and Roz got a solar installation certificate, which then qualified people to either be on a solar farm, hanging panels on a rack, or safely on a roof, installing.

That I like to include in my newsletter,

probably because I haven't added that to the website. It's not a secret, I just haven't gotten to it. So I'm going to make a note of that and do that today, but I will say the ones in piedmon and penal are with the Board of Supervisors. So thanks to Michelle Simon and Tammy Riel for helping us with that, we get to visit the Board of Supervisors and make presentations there, and that will be, I think, next week and the week after, but I will get those details up. Sounds good.

Thanks. Kelly Erin, do you have anything that you want to add? Please.

No, I'm the one sitting around eating Bong Bong, because everything is happening on the bead side right now, absolutely no news on the de side. We're still working on the approval process. We have heard rumors that we're getting close to entering the last phase of the review process, which basically will put us, like, close to the end of the year, which is, you know, kind of what we've been thinking as far as when we will hear back. Just to make it super clear, in case you've seen this happening with other states awards, a lot of what you see first is a recommendation by NIST that we get approved, okay, so, or whatever state. So a lot of states are advertising then, because that's like a huge milestone for, you know, for the state work. But that doesn't start our period of performance. We still get one more form back from NTIA. It's the CD 450 if anyone is interested, that actually has, like, the date that our award starts, and that letter and that date is what kicks off our ability to, you know, start our sub grant process and all that stuff. So we, you know, we're hoping that we get through the approval process by the end of the calendar year, and that, you know, our award date is soon to follow for for this group's knowledge, you know, we we are intending to make as long of a runway as we possibly can for our sub grant process to Make sure that all of the eligible potential sub grantees in the state are well aware of what's going on and that that opportunity is coming, because we don't want to miss anybody. You know this, this first pot of money we anticipate is going to be the largest pot that we receive for implementation of the plan. And so we really want to make sure that we use every penny of it in the best way possible. We are, you know, intending to sub grant as much of it as we can, either through the traditional sub grant process, which, you know, we'll be able to give more detail on once we move into that that phase, and through, you know, inter agency relationships that we have as well, and so all the details of that will be shared as soon as it possibly can be. But we do hope to be able to give people at least a two month notice that the window will open, and then the window, we hope will be open for a full two months as well, and we're doing that again intentionally to make sure there's space for everyone to apply, but also to get ready to apply. We've heard from a lot of organizations of all sizes that you know just that getting approval to apply part could, could be a big hurdle for them. So we don't want to miss anybody. We we do only have nine months, though, from the date of that award letter that we get to get back to NTIA, the full list of all of the sub awardees. And you know how we're spending every dollar and Penny. And so you know it will be a a timeline that that seems short while it's happening, but we're hoping to be able to front load it with as much you know, training opportunities, conversation opportunities, etc, and for organizations that you know are considering applying for a sub grant through the de process. Just a good reminder, basically, we're going to be looking for projects and programs that align with the goals that we laid out in the digital equity plan, which I'll put a link to that momentarily. And so, you know, as you're looking at that plan, you know, consider that aspect. You know, how, how would the program that you're considering applying for funding for horrible sentence, how does that align with the goals and objectives? And how are you going to, you know, target serving the covered populations and right up until when the actual application opens, you know, so probably a couple of months into next calendar year. But don't write. Down yet, you know, we'll be able to have those individual conversations, and, you know, make sure that whatever you're considering is in alignment. I know there are also a lot of organizations that are worried about potential conflict with a competitive grant application right now, because they, you know, put in that there will be, you know, opportunities for, you know, to make sure that there's de duplication. We don't want to, you know, wait on a capacity grant, hoping for a competitive grant, and then, you know, realize, you know, too, too late, that it's, you know, that that didn't get funded. So, so that's basically where we are right now. You know, like I said, not a lot different. But that recap, I think, is always good to hear. So let me know. If there are any questions, I'll put my information in the chat as well. Of course, always happy to have offline conversations with folks.

Thanks, Erin, thanks. Kelly. Anybody have any questions for Erin or Kelly? You Hearing none we're going to move on. Give me a second here.

Okay, so next up on the agenda is Michelle, to talk about a meeting. Oh, Nicole, you're not online. Are you? I didn't Don't think you're here. Michelle, you want to just give us a quickie on what's happening tomorrow with your feed, letter, request process,

absolutely. Thank you for the time. We are very excited to make sure that everybody is aware of how to get letter support from Pima County and our local municipalities. Um, you know, to start, I'm very excited that Erin and Kelly will be presenting to the board of supervisors on Tuesday. Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting. You can watch it online if you want to see what they have to say. So that is on YouTube. So look for Pima County board of supervisors on Tuesday. The meeting starts at 9am and then for the bead letter of support process, everybody can go to our website, pima.gov, or forward, slash, connect, dash, Pima. And on the right hand side of the screen, they will see a thing that says the letter of request process. And there's all kinds of great information there, including a link to a meeting that we are having tomorrow at 3pm and we will walk through what that process is and answer anybody, answer everybody's questions, and the meeting will be recorded. So if, for some reason, you know, you know of somebody who should attend, or they need that information and they're unable to attend tomorrow's meeting, the recording will be posted to our website as well right after that, with any Q and A answers from from the people who participated in the in the meeting. So we're excited to make sure that everybody knows that we have a process for them to follow and make it real easy for them to be able to put together their packages for the project areas in Pima County. Thank you, Steve.

Thank you, Michelle. Any questions for Michelle? So one question Michelle and maybe this is also for Erin and Kelly, about the process that they put together for Pima County. Is this an applicable thing for other people in the state that might want to do this in other counties?

Are you talking about the board of

the well, the letter, the letter process of getting people getting letters of support

that well, this one for that Michelle is speaking of is is driven by Pima County. And so that's a separate initiative that that Michelle is doing at this point. So we have not offered a template, and, and we're not offering a template, but we are accepting letters of support,

right and, and honestly, every county has their own way of doing things, just from the county supervisors Association held a meeting, and there are a bunch of different ways. Some some are asking for, you know, requests for information, and it goes in front of the board of supervisors and all that kind of stuff. Ours is just a process where they're submitting the form, but the the the request will be reviewed, essentially, by the. Subject matter experts from all of our municipalities, and then, based on their agree, agreement and or recommendation, then the County Administrator will be the individual that provides letters of support from Pima County.

Alrighty, Thank you, Michelle, moving on, just quickly. Erin or Kelly, are you guys still looking for a tribal liaison manager?

The role is yet unfilled, but as I've mentioned, the broadband team isn't the hiring manager for that. So we don't have a lot of additional information. It's an ACA wide position, so if you know folks, you know we'd be happy to pass along resumes and things like that. But yes, it's still open.

Thank you. So a couple of quick things, workforce development is going to be a future program. Actually, it's by coincidence that Roz is here today and Kirk was talking and Andy talking about OEO, because I'm hoping to have OEO present in the next week or two about what's happening currently. So keep stay tuned for that. And then, as I mentioned previously, and I'm working on trying to connect with them, is that the Tucson Fire Department, and I mentioned this before, as a started a new program with 911 that when people call 911 if they don't have a an immediate emergency, but they need medical assistance that they can now provide a telehealth response and forward them directly to a doctor. So I'm working on, been in touch with the fire department, working on having them come and and do a presentation for us. So moving on. I think Mala is not here today. I know she had a conflict today. So let's jump into our program today. You know, I'll tell you when I start planning programs. It's just really exciting to learn more about people who have been attending our meetings and don't know as much as I would like to. So it's been great to meet Carrie Rogers Whitehead and her company, digital responsibility. And Carrie is going to talk about she's give us a quickie. I know, I know Carrie. You don't want to get in to lengthy discussion today about digital responsibility other than just a quickie. You know, who are you guys and what do you do? But what's really interesting, one of the covered populations is, excuse me, that is incarcerated populations. And so she's doing some work in that, in that space. So I'm going to turn it over to Carrie to introduce herself a little more, tell us about digital responsibility, and, more importantly, about the work she's doing with, excuse me, with incarcerated populations. So with that, Carrie, I'm going to turn it over to you. I'm going to stop sharing, in case you have anything that you want to share.

No thanks, Steve. And I'm glad to be here today and talk about this. I know a lot of you might be working with these populations, and I wanted to give like some context and changes and things going on in this digital equity issue with incarcerated youth. But as Steve said, I run digital responsibility. We serve 10s of 1000s of students, parents and teachers and digital citizenship. We also have a contract in the state of Utah working with juvenile offenders on digital literacy and digital citizenship as part of their college and career programs. So this digital citizenship, we love to work. There's this intersection with digital literacy and digital citizenship is, let's be ethical and safe and responsible, but let's also know how to use the tools and have the skills too. So we love working in this space, and I love working in this digital equity space. And I found myself inadvertently having to deal with a lot of digital equity issues, moving from like on what's I work part time with Salt Lake Community College. We serve about 30, 40,000 people across Utah. And then I found myself working in a prison where all sorts of things are different, if you've been in that setting, and how to navigate all of these issues, with these big concerns around digital literacy and getting them transitioned to workforce development. So there's this big need to get these offenders when they come out, and get them trained, to get them skills. But there's a lot of barriers to that. So I wanted to share a little bit about what's going on in that area here for. You. So I wanted to hear your stories as well, with some challenges and some opportunities, and I put a little I have a little link right here. Yeah, love to talk with people working in this in this space as well, but let me share my screen and and chat with you. So I wrote this piece for Inside Higher Ed, partly because I just like you passionate about digital equity, and I didn't feel like I was seeing much on this topic about this prison education is growing across the country, but we still have all these technical issues to be in it. So for students and background, I was in a pilot program in 2018 and they had a one laptop that did not connect to the internet. That was like from 1995 that was locked away and no one ever had the key like I just basically taught in a cluttered room with the whiteboard and printed everything. And I'm still often printing everything too in the more updated facility, but you I've had students that have been in there for 20 plus years, have never had a phone. They've never they don't know how to type. They are severely lacking any of these digital literacy skills. And I've had a number say they're scared of when they get out. What do I do? This is, this is, like, overwhelming, if you can imagine, it's almost like you're in a time capsule, and then you get out of the time capsule, and the world is, like, moved on, and you were like, what is happening in this world? So my students tell me they have this need for this kind of thing, but there's a major security issues and concerns and all of that. So we'll, we'll talk about some of that, but I'll share some stats and stories there too, but just Yeah, think of a every prison is different in every state. And you also have county and state level and federal level prisons. You have sometimes private entities working within the prisons or like, they're more privately run versus state or publicly run. So you have a wide range. But overall, like this is an issue you're going to find anywhere with around Internet access and access to computers and all of it. But this is especially present in which I'm glad to have to have this conversation, because in 2020 Pell grant funding was restored to incarcerated students. So this was not available for 30 years. So it the number of prison education programs was like five in 2005 there was just like a handful, and now we have over we have over 400 roughly. I mean, the stats are kind of hard to find, but like, there was over 1000 programs running in the 90s, before the Pell grant funding was taken away, and it just, it just decimated it. So in some ways, the last few years, prison education programs had been rebuilding across the entire country because they there wasn't funding for the students to take the classes. They do not get these classes for free. They pay it, just like any other college students, but they don't have the money. I mean, we already know, you know, high poverty rates in prison. So now this has really opened it up to to more students. So this, this need is growing. And of course, as we know from all the work we're doing, the digital literacy need is growing too. So roughly about four, over 400 programs, if you want to dive into what's in your state, what's in your county, what's your area, there is a national directory of higher education and prison programs. This can vary widely. Some of them just have a, literally, a few students, like five or six students. Salt Lake Community Colleges runs actually one of the largest ones. They had over 400 students, which is one of the biggest ones. They've actually shrunk it down because we're going through an auditing process. There's a lot of rules. When you have federal funding, right? There's a lot of there's Title Nine you have to follow. There's all sorts of things. So they've shrunk the program to audit it, and they plan to grow it again, but they offer multiple degrees right now, and some of these programs don't offer the full degree. Maybe you're just taking a few classes. So it's a wide range of programs, but there's definitely that that need. So every semester I can say I work at this Utah State Prison. There is a huge waiting list of students who want to get into these classes, but there's only so much space. They have to be on their best they have to kind of be on the best behavior in terms of, like, points, levels, credits, whatever you're going to use it for. There's a lot of demand right now. Roughly the Department of Ed thinks close you know, 750,000 students could qualify for these Pell grants. So even if you qualify, that doesn't mean there's a program in your institution, even if there's a program, that doesn't mean you can get enrolled. So there's some barriers in terms of access. That way, they can apply for FAFSA online. If they can get online, they can do that themselves. But you also run into the issue, and this is what's happened in in our program, is they don't know how like and it's hard enough to fill out forms. I have student loans myself. I don't know if you have student loans. FAFSA is difficult, like, it's confusing. So if you have someone who hasn't used the internet that's trying to apply for Pell grant funding, I mean, that's like, that's like, PhD level, digital literacy skill there. Is what I'm saying. So you have a lot of need for digital navigators in this space too, because what, what we've learned through teaching at this program the last few years is you have to guide them one by one to get set up, to enroll in a class, to have access to those materials. And these are things that are kind of, you know, different and not not things that they're they're focusing on, but more higher education is jumping in. There is this the demographic cliff of more college age students. There has been funding that's been cut. So this is an opportunity that more higher education institutions have looked into. But I can say from working in it, it there's a lot of there's some barriers, there's some bureaucracy. There's some challenges to it too. I mean, a big thanks is the is communication. And I have to say, too, I am not advocating for internet, free, unfiltered Internet access in the prisons. I do not want my students having my personal information to contact me that this is safety issue. There's concerns about that. There's there's so there's this balance of like getting them access, but also the safety and and, and typically prisons, in my experience, safety, safety, safety is the number one thing. So if I want to bring in any content, any video, I have to put it on a thumb drive. I have to download it all. I may have done things on torrent. I shouldn't, but I'm trying to get these videos because I can't just find a link in a classroom, and I have to get that approved. They have to go up a multiple chain. It can take months, sometimes to get some of this approved. They're very strict about phones and things that you bring in inside. There is a computer lab at the savers and I work at it took about two years to get that going, and they have to be highly monitored, and it has limited access. There are some types of, maybe some of you have seen these. They're like, small, kind of, like, heavy duty little tablets that they can access. So the students in the program that we have, they do have limited access that they have a certain amount like TED talks, databases, some research materials that they can do, and they can contact the Prison Education Coordinator, but they cannot contact teachers directly. So that's how they had set up. But that is an issue. I've had to build in extra communication time in my classes, because they can't reach me during the week. There's also some issues with typing skills and being able to turn in papers and do some of this. So there's these, all these challenges in terms of approval and safety. There's also digital equity challenges in that you have a wide range of abilities in one classroom, so you're trying to train with people that maybe have had nothing, like literally nothing at all, versus someone that got in there a couple years ago that might have some experiences. So trying to teach this in this environment that's focused on safety and security is an issue. So I just want to pause for a second and pull up the chat if anyone wants to add anything, if they worked in the space or challenges that they've seen,

there's, there's a lot of challenges also in, like planning, I have shown up a few times and it's like, nope, not today. There was an incident, and the whole thing is shut down. So you have to build in a lot of flexibility. And courses, I had an escape attempt that happened one time when I was showing up at class and they said, If I don't get out of there in five minutes, I could be stuck there for a while, like those kind of things. Like, you should, you know, you don't know if you're going to teach that day because of things that happen in the larger system, because safety is number one. So I know Steve, or anyone wants to mention anything, I'll pause for a second here on thoughts or questions on some of the challenges.

Tabitha, was that you with Rio Salado College?

Was that with Rio Salado?

Yes, it was me, can hear me, yes,

and I think you guys didn't you guys apply for a grant regarding the prison incarcerated populations. Yes,

we did. So we are part of the competitive grant program. That was what we put our competitive grant in for. So Rio Salado College partnered with Yavapai College, Arizona, Western central Arizona College and the Department of Corrections to bring internet to some of these prison sites that have not had it before. We had a pilot program that we've done on our own to show that we can do this safely and with some of our classes so we can expand across the state. So that is what our competitive grant is about.

Great. I figured someone people were doing it in this group. I'd love to hear about it, because there's this huge need for sure. So thank you for sharing.

Uh, hi. Carrie. Gordon Fuller, here. Go ahead. Gordon, hey, could I ask? What is I would imagine you have a little bit higher percentage of people with. Disabilities in these classes.

And I'm glad I was going to mention that as a challenge, because you are seeding federal funding right Pell grants. So Title Nine applies, and that is an issue sometimes to have those accommodations. So what you remember copy paper, where you have, like, a piece of paper and you can copy it. We were using we're using that for accommodations as well. We're kind of making these old school ones, but we're also running into issues. So So, for example, I have a few students that have accommodations that first of all, going through the process and understanding the process is a whole thing, right? Getting them connected to the right? The disability resource office, having them fill out the forms. That's a whole thing. Yeah, I have a few students that need extra time on tests. Well, I can't keep them there. They have to go back to their cell like, they can't, like, take double time on tests. So how do I accommodate double time on tests when they have to be back at a certain time for movement? So those kind of things, it's an interesting space of but you have to, you know, we do our best, but it's difficult to sometimes accommodate it. So I'm glad you brought that up. There's also issues in terms of technology. I have a I have a small I do not know who bought the projector. It is like a small screen. I can't get captioning on things very well. I don't have often, like audio or extra things. I can't send out extra notes. I can't have a note taker necessarily come into the class. We do have some people that sign language. We offer that, but it is difficult. Some of the assistive technology that I would like to use I can't use, which causes problems.

I think I read a statistic that in California was over 40% of the people in prison were there for reason of often, developmental disabilities. Yeah, yes,

yeah. So that's a whole other and then the medical care are having it. There's issues, there's there's lack of funding, there's not enough nurses and people that are working in medically I have had students that have add oxygen, that they have to get, and I had one or one student telling me, Well, I can't go to your class. I don't have oxygen. I was like, well, that's a good excuse. That's that your excuse. I mean, they didn't have that, or they don't. It takes a long time to get an appointment, sometimes for diagnosis or the support too. So that's a big, big issue. Well,

it sure means they're an excluded group. I mean, heavily excluded good habits. Wow, yes,

I was attending a conference recently with the nonprofit community. The the two least funded nonprofit type of works are seniors and incarcerated individuals, so they're also there. There's a lack of that kind of support from just not, not a popular thing that funders wanted to donate to as well. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. Um, so, lots of challenges. I can't use some of those things that, like, you know, Gordon was talking about the really, the really cool VR and assistive tech. I love your presentation the other week, I can't use that like I got a laptop, if I'm lucky. I have to get everything approved two, three months at a time to bring a video in. I can't access the internet. I can't I can't do any of that. So my hands get tied sometimes with the desire and that digital equity. But that's better, at least I have a laptop. I used to not have a laptop at all. It's just It

sure isn't Finland, is it? Oh, what do you say? It sure is not Finland? You know, ever heard of how they treat prisoners? Oh, no, I haven't. I haven't. Oh, my God.

And every prison is different. Some might have a little bit more, but at the end of the day, the prison's job is security and safety. There's also you have to have trainings and approvals to even go into a prison. There's, there's things that you have to take and to know so challenges like to even, to even get in there, get all the approvals. But there's, there's opportunities too. I mean, I think it's the FAFSA has streamlined a bit of the application to make it easier for incarcerated individuals to apply, they're probably trying to provide more support around Title Nine and some of that out there. There are more programs that are growing, and we're organizations trying to get into this space so that, and we know that recidivism rates drops like 40, 50% if they get some of this education in there. So it's a huge benefit to the larger community there, there too. But the this is a place that we really, definitely need more digital literacy folks in there, because a lot of these individuals went into the prison where they would have a paper job application and they talked to someone. And none of that is all online, resumes, building it, typing, all of it is online. So there's a lot of skills to catch up with, and there's that opportunity for the great work that some of you you do. So this is a there's a few different sites out there, but I do, I do like this. Quote, digital technology remains the essential agreement that would revel. Inclusionized Prison educations from a UK based group in this area. It is, yeah, it's not, I just like this. It's not a digital divide. It's a chasm. I mean, we're not talking about someone who just, like doesn't know how to type. We're talking about someone who's never even had the opportunity to learn how to type, or never touch a computer. So it's like a it's a large chasm, and being able to provide more of this devices and this training would help them, not not just in the prism in terms of like so there's less violence in prisons when they are in school, when they are occupied, lower recidivism rates, higher levels employment with transition. And it helps everybody. A lot of my students are mothers and fathers. They actually try to support their families while they're in prison. They work, and they have really big dreams and goals for when they get out, but they're also scared, because they know when they get out, they're going to have to be confronting a lot of this technology that's very foreign to them. So I put a few resources on here. If anyone has any resources, too, I put a little chat on there, but I just want to also open it up for thoughts, questions, comments, things that, yeah, come up.

So Carrie, just thank you. This is a population we really haven't had much discussion about, and it's a unique challenge, while we know that we have many populations that have great challenges in the digital equity space, but this is a whole different population that has a new set of issues. Yeah.

I mean, if I heard someone I taught the juveniles before and then the adults, I would say I love teaching the adults. They are highly engaged. They're excited to be there. This is often first generation students that have never had this opportunity before. They are like some of the best students. Juveniles are much harder, but they are engaged. They're some of the best students you'll ever have, if you can get in there and teach so few, few resources out there, but I hope to keep in touch. And, yeah, oh, well, thank you. Thank you. Erin, yes, I'm familiar with some of the fathers based program. There are a lot of parents in prison, and they want they work really. A lot of them work really hard to help their their families out. So I'm glad you mentioned that too.

And Kelly, you had put some information about the AZ one you want to talk about that quickly?

Yeah. Hi everyone. Kelly muggerjee from ASU enterprise technology. Carrie, thank you so much for your presentation. This is something that you know. I am not that familiar with, so I felt like I learned something new through your presentation this morning, we have produced some broadband maps on as one on the as one web portal, and I provided a link in the chat. We recently added on a covered populations layer, just because it is it, it is a more common phrase being used in this space of broadband and digital equity, and I'm still learning, but we we wanted to put it out there because we found the data set, and we wanted to make it available for everyone in Arizona so we can work better together, so we do have the layer out there for people to see and click on different census tracks and better understand the breakdown of population in those areas as it pertains to covered populations, so we can see how much of the population was incarcerated or is incarcerated, or 60 and over and so on and so forth, covering the eight different covered populations. So please feel free to reach out to me if you'd like to work more together or or chat. I think it's important that we put our brains together and work through this together. So thank you so much.

Thanks. Kelly,

thank you. There's a lack of Go ahead.

Go ahead. Carrie,

I just think there's a lack of data on this, especially the growth and like how it's tracked and how it's reported. So we really need that, especially with this group. So

if I can share a personal story, most of you probably don't know, but I was a probation and parole officer right out of college, and then I got involved in alcohol and drug prevention, and when I moved here to Arizona, I had a grant with the female alcohol as a consortium, and myself and and one of my partners went out to prison here to do a wellness program, And we were presenting on how to be try to get encouraged the inmates to think more about health and wellness and stuff like that. And afterwards, I had a young man came up to me and he said, You know, I've been really trying to control my temper. And as we talked with him, he said he. Drinks, 12 cokes a day. I think we discovered what the problem is. But you see, he said they can't get fresh fruit because they make mash out of it. So you know, when Kerry was talking about security issues and things that we just don't think about, that the prison population is a whole different challenge. And again, I don't know that we've been spending much time talking about that.

Thank you. There's a lot, there's a lot of security issues in return, what you wear, you can wear, only wear certain things. You can only bring in certain things. You have to have everything in a clear badge. It has to be checked. And so there's a lot of those rules, and technology has a lot of sharp edges and corners, and so there's that safety concern about that, about that too. Now, a number of prisons I know, I've been adding like, some zoom more in, like, visitor area so they can talk to people, so it's not just, like, you know, a phone call as well. So it's nice to see some of that. I don't know if anyone the telemedicine world. I don't know if that's being done, but I do know that they've added more abilities for zoom calls in prisons too, which is nice they can access that. Yeah,

I don't think we've had anybody from Doc Department of Corrections participating with us, and so as I mentioned to Carrie when we were talking that I don't know what's happening here in Arizona. Erin, are you still online? Yes, I am. So, Erin, do you know anything about What? What? What if, who's doing anything in the in this space?

Well, I mean, we have a number of organizations in the asset inventory that work with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals. I mentioned the group, Father matters. I just recently connected with them, and I've got a whole stack of business cards that are, you know, organizations that are working with with this population. You know, in the plan we we necessarily expanded our definition to include formally incarcerated for a lot of the things, a lot of the reasons that Carrie brought up in her presentation, you know, because these, these barriers don't disappear when they, you know, leave the facility right when I was with Connect Arizona, and I, you know, don't want to step on Anthony's toes if he's still here, but we, the digital navigators there, worked with the the televerde Foundation to provide virtual classes, as as Carrie also mentioned, you know, the the ability to visit remotely, I think is an interesting way to look at it from the digital navigator perspective, because then you don't have to worry as much about the security for the the trainer, right? And materials that are brought in are brought in virtually. So there's, you know, a little bit more freedom there. But, I mean, this is, yeah, definitely a hard nut to crack. And, you know, I am hoping that we continue to find more organizations, you know, to build out this portion of our ecosystem. And we're working on it for sure, but I would definitely point people to the asset inventory, especially the version at the end, because we have the little icon really clearly defined for every organization that's in the list right now, of which covered populations they serve.

Oh, thank you. And Michelle's mentioned that Pima County has something. I'm glad that this re entry is so hard. It's such a difficult period in a critical period. So I'm glad that they're doing that. I don't know if you want to add anything, Michelle, that you're doing in that area.

So we, you know, the Office of Digital Inclusion, we participate with the re entry coalition. But Pima County also is working because we have in Pima County, we have a department of corrections facility, we got a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility, as well as our own county jail. And so Pima County has really stepped up assisting people to reduce the recidivism rate. They created a transition services department and a whole building, literally on the same property as the county jail, and they have programs for people who are currently incarcerated, but also that the the transition out. So they're trying to help across the continuum.

Cool, Oh, wonderful. Any other questions, or wanted to add?

Anything else anybody wants to share or questions, or we move on. Hey, Steve. John

Kelly, here really quickly.

I was just going to call on you, John, in a random bank of

obscure knowledge. I'm aware that under the current administration of Governor Hobbs that they have put a strong emphasis on prison education. They brought in a new team. They were featured prominently in the workforce summit up in Flagstaff this past summer. So I think there's some real interesting possibilities and developments in the Arizona state prison system. I have some meetings. I'm going to be trying to follow up with to have with them to talk about where they're going and what to do. But so I think there's some reason for some optimism in that area.

Great, and it'd be great if you report it out, because in my experience, the warden makes a huge difference. Sets the tone and the culture for the whole prison. Warden's not on board. It doesn't. It doesn't happen. Some of the programs I've seen that Carter pulled back just because of a new warden and a change. So I'd be curious of that environment. A

couple of quick things. First of all, just a reminder that you can download the chat. I think I try to remember to I should say it earlier in the meeting, but as you know, I do send out the chat. But you can also download the chat to your computer. If you go to chat at the top right corner, there's three ellipses, three, and you can click on that and download the chat. And so you have all the links and stuff that have been put into the chat. So, John Kelly, so Carrie, thank you very much. That was really awesome, and we'll definitely want to get you back to talk more about the other digital equity issues. So anyway, John Kelly, good to see you. I haven't seen you in a while. Well,

thank you, Steve. You're You're well, checked to me on Friday was a inspiration for me to rejoin as much as I could for this call. Thank you for reaching out, John. You

want to just tell people you are. I don't know that there's anything at this point. Of course, after the election, sure. John Kelly,

consultant with a firm called tri advocates, doing work in technology and education and a number of other areas. I don't have any broadband clients right now, so I haven't had as much motivation to get on these early calls, but I'm still obviously very, very interested in the work that you all are doing, and very proud of the work that you guys are doing for the state and keeping us on the map. Yeah, post election analysis, they're still counting votes. There's probably another 700,000 to a million votes to be counted. The late breaking votes seem to be trending Republican way. So if you had looked at election results at midnight on election night in Arizona, the legislature would be possibly democratic slight majority in the House and in the Senate, and now it's looking like increased Republican majorities in the House and Senate. There are about seven or eight races that are within 2000 votes, and you never know how those votes are going to break in terms of when the counting is done, but these all the counting that's being done are late, what we call late, earliest ballots that were dropped off the day of and had to go through verification. And so I think we're in good shape for understanding where we're going to be dealing with it. We have a lot of new legislators, and what I tell everybody, regardless of subject, is the first thing you have to do is educate these legislators, what their job is, what the issues are, what's going on, what's important, and that's over the next two, three to five months. And so we're very anxious to see how this plays out.

Any questions for John? So just a related issue, there's already posturing at the federal level about what's going to happen with the USF and lots of other things. So just stay tuned on what the new administration is going to

mean. Steve, mark here, so Mark, John, I know last session we were ruminating about and made some some action towards having a legislative education session under ATIC. So just want to raise that again, especially with the new legislator slate coming in, that maybe that's something we can work on for some time early in the new year. Sounds good. And just for context, since we had to give ROS boxer, her her pedigree a bit and embarrass her, John was the state's telecom policy officer, the first ever under Governor Symington in the 93 four. Five era. He left the state and got his master's in Public Administration. I guess it was John from John F Kennedy School came back under Governor Hall as the state's first CIO. Even though John is not a technoid kind of guy, he was the state's first CIO and a good one. Well, there was, like, No Wrong Door. You worked on the motor vehicle department online registration, and we were one of the early states to have that capability and all sorts of other programs. So just

yeah, the door program was ahead of its time, like a lot of things, we tried to work on Mark and apparently des access and DHS are working on a No Wrong Door project right now. So it's kind of interesting. 25 years later,

nothing like that, and no wrong door means you you would call or reach out to someone, and you in the state government, and you would never be one step away. They wouldn't just refer you, call this person, call this person, call this person. If they weren't the right person, they would get you to the right person or resource one step away.

Okay, well, John, thank you. Good to see you again, and hopefully we'll see you more regularly. Ilana, do you have anything that you need to share this morning?

I don't John or Steve, sorry. Okay, no

problem. No problem.

Okay, I was gonna reach out to John, and he already gave the his update, so I

Okay, maybe we'll speak. Anything else anybody wants to share or comment on this morning again, Carrie, thank you. Great presentation, and we'll definitely be in touch about having you do some more on digital equity, I'm sure people are going to want to connect with you and the work that you're doing. So with that.