A look into the creation of the Older American Act

By Wally Pearce Winters Elder Day Council

The Older American Act is a federal law that promotes the well-being of Americans 60 years of age and older through relevant local services and programs designed to meet specific needs.

Each year, more than 20 percent of the US population (approximately 60 million) receive services through OAA programs. As of Jan. 1, 2020, in Yolo County, that approximate number is over 13,000 individuals (roughly 17 percent). According to published city of Winters data, of the over 7,000 residents, at least 7 percent represent that number of individuals 60–years–of–age and older.

The OAA of 1965 (Pub.L. 89–73, 79 Stat. 218) was the first federal level initiative aimed at providing comprehensive services for older adults. It created the National Aging Network comprising the Administration on Aging on the federal level, State Units on Aging, and Area Agencies on Aging at the local urban rural levels, like Yolo County and the city of Winters.

The OAA network provides funding based primarily on the percentage of an area’s population 60 and older for nutrition and supportive home and community-based services, disease prevention/ health promotion services, elder rights programs, the National Family Caregiver Support Program, and the Native American Caregiver Support Program.

The Act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 14, 1965. In 2020, Congress reauthorized the Act in its entirety (HR-4334), effective through FY 2024. It also extends the RAISE Family Caregiver Act and the Supporting Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Act.

OAA programs and services allow older adults to remain independent with dignity. It’s worth noting that the OAA targets its services to those in the greatest economic or social need, with particular attention to low-income minorities, rural residents, and those with limited English proficiency.

Congressional concern about the lack of community-based support services for older people helped spur the passage of OAA.

Like Medicare and Medicaid, OAA was passed in 1965 as part of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society reforms. The Act seeks

KITCHEN & BATH COUNTERTOPS

to ensure retirement income, physical and mental health, suitable housing, employment, protection from age-based discrimination and efficient community services for older individuals. OAA works to accomplish these goals through direct funding to states and the most well-known of these programs is the communal and home delivered meals program, referred to as “Meals on Wheels.”

In addition to meals, this program focuses on health and nutrition education.

The Administration’s Office of Elder Rights Protection

“Congressional concern about the lack of community-based support services for older people helped spur the passage of (the Older American Act).” state services and the creation of federal agencies designed to implement the Act.

OAA created the Administration on Aging, the main federal agency tasked with carrying out the objectives of the Act. The Administration on Aging provides services and programs designed to help aging individuals live independent lives in their homes and communities. Perhaps focuses on protecting older individuals from elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation through strategic planning and research. The LongTerm Care Ombudsman Program provides full-time ombudsmen, or public advocates, to help represent the interests of people in long-term care environments, such as assisted living facilities.

Each state, like California, receives OAA funds based on the percentage of people 60 or older in the state.

California is home to the largest population of senior citizens, over 5 million. OAA funding, while small compared to programs such as Medicaid, provides an important safety-net for older individuals who might be at risk of hunger, food insecurity or loss of independent living.

In California, it’s the California Department of Aging. State Agencies in turn manage Area Agencies on Aging (AAA), which plan, develop, and coordinate community services for older adults. In California’s 58 Counties, there are 33 AAA’s. For Yolo County, it’s the Agency on Aging Area 4. However, no one age 60 or older can be denied services from OAA programs.

California is prohib- ited from denying anyone services because of their income. Older-adult federal programs are administered by the Administration on Aging in the Administration for Community Living within the Department of Health and Human Services. Within the state of California, that administering agency is the California Department on Aging. California has several formal acts in statute. Such as the Older Californians Act known as the Mello-Granlund Older Californians Act (AB-2800), signed into law in 1996, which affirmed California’s 33 Areas on Aging organizations. For more information on what older adult services might be available for you if you live in Yolo County or the city of Winters, contact the Agency on Aging Area 4 at 916.486.1876.

Eventos hispanos

Distrito escolar avanza con acuerdo de inmersión en dos idiomas

Por Jacob Hoffman

Durante la reunión de la junta escolar del pasado 22 de Junio, la Junta Directiva del Distrito Escolar

Unificado de Winters (Winters Joint Unified School District - Winters JUSD) aprobó un acuerdo para el Programa de Inmersión en Dos Idiomas (Dual Language Immersion -DLI) del distrito y escuchó una actualización de los planes de emergencia del distrito escolar.

La Asistente al Superintendente Phoebe Girimonte presentó una actualización sobre uno de los dos acuerdos que Winters JUSD tiene con Sobrato Early Academic Language (SEAL).

“Quiero aclarar que este acuerdo es para nuestra asociación de inmersión en dos idiomas y la capacitación asociada con el apoyo a nuestros maestros en (Waggoner Elementary) y (Shirley Rominger Intermediate) en esta transición de un modelo de ed-

Who

By Adam Echelman CalMatters

Across California’s public colleges and universities, one nearly universal admissions factor — first-generation status — is still up to debate because no one can agree on how to define it.

The phrase “first-generation college student” is about the education level of a students’ parents and it’s a key predictor of that student’s success in school.

For years, California schools have used first-generation college status as a means to boost campus diversity, especially after voters banned affirmative action in 1996. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 29 decision to end race-conscious admissions nationwide, the term is top of mind.

It’s more than semantics: For those who lack support from family to navigate college, the term “first generation” encompasses an experience, a part of their identity, and in ucación bilingüe de desarrollo a una inmersión en dos idiomas,” dijo Girimonte.

El primer año de capacitación DLI con SEAL se completó este año y Girimonte dijo: “este acuerdo permitiría que el aprendizaje profesional comience en Agosto del 2023 y concluya en Junio del 2025.”

Parte de este acuerdo incluye una “serie de desarrollo profesional de dos años sobre pedagogía DLI y estrategias en el aula” y Girimonte dijo que el acuerdo también “nos permitirá continuar con la asistencia técnica para SEAL a medida que continuamos ampliando ese programa.”

El impacto fiscal del programa es de $22,500 que se financia a través de la Subvención de Inmersión en Dos Idiomas. Se pagaría en dos incrementos separados el 30 de Abril del 2024 y el 30 de Abril del 2025.

Los patronos aprobaron por unanimidad el programa.

Operaciones de emergencia

Jenny Pinedo, directora de educación especial y servicios estudiantiles, presentó una actualización sobre el desarrollo de un Plan de Operaciones de Emergencia (Emergency Operations Plan - EOP) para el distrito escolar. Hablando sobre el propósito de este plan, Pinedo describió el EOP como “un documento vital que está diseñado para guiar la respuesta de un distrito escolar a diversas emergencias o crisis,” así como para “garantizar la seguridad y el bienestar de los estudiantes, el personal y los vis- itantes en instancias críticas, incluidos desastres naturales, emergencias médicas, actos de violencia o cualquier otro evento imprevisto.”

Continuando con la forma en que el EOP hace esto, Pinedo dijo que el EOP “sirve como un marco inte-

“Al final del día, se podrá dormir mejor por la noche porque se abordará nuestra prioridad número uno de mantener seguros a nuestros estudiantes.”

Rody Boonchouy, superintendente

gral que describe los roles, las responsabilidades y los protocolos que deben seguir los administradores escolares, los maestros, el personal de apoyo y los servicios de emergencia,” así como para “establecer un enfoque coordinado y sistemático para el manejo de emergencias, ayudando a las escuelas a minimizar la confusión, tomar decisiones informadas y responder de manera efectiva a estas emergencias.”

El desarrollo del EOP está siendo coordinado por el Comité EOP, un grupo que consta de miembros del personal calificados y relevantes que ayudan a tomar decisiones relacionadas con emergencias “incluidos aquellos con experiencia en áreas como manejo de emergencias, educación, seguridad, salud pública y aplicación de la ley,” dijo Pinedo. El comité evalúa las vulnerabilidades del distrito escolar, desarrolla protocolos de respuesta y establece planes de comunicación.

Una vez que el comité haya redactado su EOP propuesto, Pinedo dijo que ellos lo traerán de regreso para recibir el aporte de los fideicomisarios antes de enviar una versión final a la junta para su aprobación. El fideicomisario

Joedy Michael preguntó sobre los detalles del cronograma,

ARTS a lo que Pinedo respondió que el comité tendrá un borrador para los fideicomisarios en Octubre y que el comité trabajará cada dos semanas y coordinará partes de sus planes con todos los que necesitan trabajar en él para que pueda estar listo en ese momento.

El superintendente Rody Boonchuoy, que forma parte del comité, les dijo a los fideicomisarios: “Estamos sentados alrededor de la mesa con todos estos grupos de interés y expertos, incluidos los departamentos de bomberos y (departamentos de policía) y conversando sobre los peores escenarios” para determinar “qué debemos tener en el lugar para que seamos proactivos para garantizar la seguridad de nuestros niños.”

“Al final del día,” concluyó Boonchuoy, “se podrá dormir mejor por la noche porque se abordará nuestra prioridad número uno de mantener seguros a nuestros estudiantes.” some cases, access to targeted state and federal services. In the Inland Empire, first-generation students can receive thousands of dollars worth of tutoring and support through high school and college — if they meet a certain definition.

But these contradicting definitions leave some students unsure what first generation means and how they should proceed.

Who counts?

The University of California boasts a higher percentage of first-generation students compared to the community college system, which uses a more restrictive definition of the term. The UC system defines a first-generation student as anyone whose parents did not receive a bachelor’s degree or equivalent, while the California Community College Chancellor’s Office defines it as any student whose parents never attended college at all.

Cal State, meanwhile, includes nu-

Vbs 2023

K-6th Grade

August 3rd-5th at First Baptist Church merous definitions on its website. In one scenario, 31 percent of CSU students are considered first-generation; according to another definition, 52% are.

It’s a national problem. In one 2018 study, researchers surveyed 7,300 students using eight different definitions for the term “first-generation student.” Using one definition, 22 percent of students were considered first generation; according to another definition, 77 percent were.

“There’s nothing really clear and centralized,” said Sarah Whitley, who serves as the vice president at the Center for First-Generation Student Success, a national nonprofit and advocacy organization. “It’s something that we’re hoping to get to, but the data is just so messy everywhere.”

Mateo Fuentes’ parents immigrated from El Salvador where his father dropped out after middle school.

Fuentes’ mother enrolled at Mt. San Antonio College, a community college in the Inland Empire, after they arrived in the U.S., but she left before completing her associate degree.

Fuentes qualifies as a first-generation student under the UC definition, but not under the requirements set by the Community College Chancellor’s Office.

He said it’s an unfair distinction. Even though his mother attended college, he said she was unable to help him navigate the system when he applied to college in his senior year of high school and eventually enrolled at UC Davis.

To the Community College Chancellor’s Office, calling Fuentes a first-generation student disregards the education that his mother received: Even students who drop out before obtaining their associate degree may receive certifications, such as for many healthcare or trade professions.

In an email to CalMatters, community college spokesperson Paul Feist said any definitions that exclude associate degrees and certificates — including the UC definition — “inaccurately and unfairly assumes that such experiences are not college.” Other students who may qualify as first-generation status never appear in the state’s data. They may not know their parents’ education, they may decline to share it, or there may be challenges in data collection.

For example, a little more than one in five enrolled students in the 2021-22 academic year did not report their parents’ education, according to the California Community College Chancellor’s Office.

WSW production (a Winters Friends of the Library program) and the Winters Participation Gallery’s history mural project.

Continued from Page 5 “This year, I was overjoyed that I wouldn’t have to decide what activities and buckets of needs would have to go with less thanks to that funding.”

I saw both programs expand their rosters of participating artists and it made my heart happy. It also gave students whose families may not have been able to afford to have them particpate in the past the chance to participate this year. I know from firsthand experience that when you have multiple children who want to participate in extracurricular activities, it all adds up and can overwhelm the checkbook and the calendar. I was fortunate last year to receive a scholarship so that both of my daughters could participate in the WSW production. This year, I was overjoyed that I wouldn’t have to decide what activities and buckets of needs would have to go with less thanks to that funding.

I feel that I’ve gained a lot of knowledge about how our different groups can work together to provide for our community.

The beauty of living in a small-town community is that we can work to gain knowledge about what it is our residents need support with, what it is they would like to have more opportunities to do, and even learn more about local residents who are in need but unsure of how to ask for help just by asking.

I’m not talking about idle gossip or water-cooler chats.

I’m talking about if you know someone in need of help, ask them if you can help to connect them. If you know someone who has an idea but doesn’t know where to start to take action, ask your local influencers who are connected well in town who they could reach out to. We need to work on our communication and bring it off of social media and into actual actions.

My action step is to reach out to you, my community members. If you have an idea, know of a potential program or person who can help to provide more opportunities in the arts to Winters youth, or even have a connection with someone or something that could help to provide it – I encourage you to reach out to a local nonprofit organization and/or Winters JUSD to see if it is something that can be sponsored by them.

I’d be happy to discuss it over a cup of coffee with you if you have an idea and aren’t sure where to go with it. Sometimes, I know a person who could help fine-tune it.

Our youth are worth it. These experiences bring both enrichment and lifeskill opportunities to their lives.

At the CSU system, it’s one in 10, and in the UC system, it’s about 3 percent.

Details ‘tricky’

In many cases, individual schools use their own definitions.

For example, the UC system requires that students seeking first-generation status have parents without a four-year degree. But UC Riverside and a grant-based program at UCLA have a more expansive definition: If their parents have a degree from another country, the student still counts as first generation.

Whitley says colleges and universities in California and other states along the U.S.-Mexico border are shifting to this new definition to encompass students whose parents may not have “the cultural capital” to help their child navigate higher education.

“It’s tricky,” she said. “You don’t want to get into the business of saying, ‘Well, a degree from Canada is okay, but a degree from Nigeria is not.’”≠

Like UC Riverside, community colleges including El Camino College in Torrance and Mt. San Antonio College use the more beneficial definition, only considering degrees from U.S. institutions.

However, the Community College Chancellor’s Office, which controls most student data, doesn’t differentiate which country the degree came from, meaning that El Camino College and Mt. San Antonio College are incorrectly reporting the number of first-generation college students on their campuses.

Some community colleges disregard their chancellor’s office and consider the children of those who received certificates or associate degrees at community colleges — that is, the children of their own alumni — as first-generation students, so long as neither parent ever received more than an associate degree in their lifetime.

Gov. definitions add to disarray

There’s no specific consequence for an individual college or university that defies the definition of its state leaders. However, the definition of first-generation can affect admissions and the amount of funding that a school receives or allocates for these students.

While the community college system admits all students, the Cal State and UC systems are more selective. Along with grades, admissions staff conduct a holistic review of each applicant, which in the case of nearly every one of California’s selective public universities includes explicit consideration of the education level of the student’s parents or guardians.

UC spokesperson Ryan King said all UC campuses use the same definition of first-generation student for the purposes of admissions. A spokesperson for the CSU Chancellor’s Office, Amy Bentley-Smith, said that individual CSU campuses have the option to use the data that their office collects however they choose in admissions.

Students who meet the federal definition of first-generation — those whose parents did not receive a bachelor’s degree — can get more than $4,600 annually of targeted support services from a federal program called TRIO as soon as they start high school, according to Victor Rojas, the director of TRIO programs affiliated with Mt. San Antonio College. Once those students enter community college, they receive fewer services, he said, worth less than $2,000.

For the 2022-23 state budget, a committee of state leaders, including current Community College Chancellor Sonya Christian, proposed aligning the community college system’s definition of first-generation student with that of the UC and federal definitions and tying a substantial portion of a college’s state funding to the number of first-generation students on campus.

Both proposals failed to pass into law, despite receiving support from the governor and the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.

State funding is not tied to the number of first-generation students at any campus, Feist said.

However, commu- nity college administrators pointed to two state grants, Extended Opportunity Programs and Services and the Student Equity and Achievement plans, that indirectly factor in the number of first-generation students on campus because they ask colleges to outline disadvantaged populations that they intend to serve. Unlike the federal TRIO grant, which abides by a strict definition, the state grants give colleges lots of leeway to determine how they want to define a first-generation student.

Finally, some community colleges have directed their own discretionary funds to create programs, such as the First Gen Initiative at El Camino College.

All told a community college could use one definition of first-generation students for its local programs, another for state grants, and yet another definition for federal grants. The Community College Chancellor’s Office could then use an entirely different definition when reporting the same college’s figures to state legislators or the governor.

Many college officials who spoke to CalMatters were unaware of the Chancellor’s Office definition, or of which definition each of their departments used.

First-hand knowledge

The words “first generation” have a lot of power, said Serandra Sylvers, a counselor at El Camino College. When the college updated its definition of first-generation students to include those whose parents received degrees outside of the U.S., she said students who met the new criteria told her it substantiated their feelings of “imposter syndrome.”

Unlike other boxes a student might intuitively check off when applying to colleges, such as questions about race or ethnicity, students say first-generation status is often something they learned later in life but still holds value.

Luciaceleste Garcia was a first-generation college student who knew that her parents had never gone to college and understood part of why she had been selected to participate in the

John Rominger, a Class of 2023 Winters High School graduate, is Pisani’s Athlete of the Week. Rominger competes on the Winters swim team this summer. He has been swimming for 14 years and decided to continue to pursue swimming after graduation, competing in both freestyle and butterfly. Coach Ricky Silva said Rominger is a great addition to the team because he “always shows up, has a great mentality, and works hard no matter what.”

TRIO program in high school.

But the phrase, “first-generation college student,” didn’t hold special meaning to her until she enrolled at Mt. San Antonio College, where she said she felt unworthy and unprepared at times. She ultimately hopes to transfer to UCLA, in part because of investments that the university has made toward Latino first-generation students like her.

Fuentes also participated in a TRIO program in high school. He realized that he was a first-generation college student after attending a conference in high school for Latino students, and it has since become a guiding principle for him, even outside of UC Davis: Many of his friends are first-generation and he is spending this summer working with Garcia for TRIO. Next year, he’ll graduate, but he ex- pects that he’ll always identify as a first-generation college student given his parents’ background and education. He’s grateful to them, but knows there are certain questions he can’t ask: “I can’t just be like, ‘Hey, how do I start investing?’” That’s a first-generation problem.

— Adam Echelman covers California’s community colleges in partnership with Open Campus, a nonprofit newsroom focused on higher education.