In 2008, Twin Rivers Unified School District had just been born as a merger of Grant Joint Union High School District with it feeder districts. But the celebration was muted by the Great Recession hitting California, and leading to a dramatic reduction of school funding. During this time, California Adult Schools had their funding frozen and placed in “Tier 3”. This meant that the district could take that funding and use it for any program.
With the writing being on the wall, the new Twin Rivers Adult School principal, Kirk Williams, set out the bold vision of transforming the adult school from a school that mostly had small career technical education (CTE) programs, to one that had larger programs, such as Truck Driving, HVAC, and Licensed Vocational Nursing, and to then become Title IV Accredited so the school could administer Pell Grants as part of Federal Student Aid. And I was put in charge of making this transformation happen.