Fast Track To Work Fall 2008

Winter Session Early Registration for Continuing Students

10/27

Veterans Day Holiday 11/11

Last Day to Withdraw 11/22

Spring Schedule on Website 11/24

Thanksgiving Holiday 11/27 & 28

Spring Semester Early Registration for Continuing Students

12/8

Fall Semester Ends 12/20

College Closed 12/24—1/1

Winter Session Begins and Parking Permits & Bus Passes available

1/5

Martin Luther King Jr. Day Holiday 1/19

Spring Parking Permits & Bus Passes Available

1/26

Winter Session Ends 1/30

President’s Day Holiday 2/6

Spring Semester Begins 2/9

Important Dates

Show Us Your Stuff!

We want your stories, essays, po-ems, art work & photos! Fast Track would like to collect your expressions of your successes, challenges, hopes, fears, or what-ever you’d like to share. Please email them to Dena Taylor (detaylor@cabrillo.edu), or drop them off at the FTTW office to Dena’s attention (include your contact information). Our hope is to put these into print! You will be contacted be-fore anything is published in order to get your permis-sion and give you more de-tails.

Staff Changes & Additions

We are thrilled to wel-come to our office a cou-ple new staff members! Noemi Gonzalez has re-placed Caitlin as our new Office Specialist and Brianne Riggins is our new social work intern for the fall and spring semes-ters. And Karen Farrow’s wonderful assistant, Janis Farmer, has stepped into the Job Development Co-ordinator position to fill in while Karen is recovering.

Noemi

Hello all you Fast Trackers, In case you haven't met me yet, I am the new Office Specialist! My name is Noemí (no-emmy) Gon-zalez. I always tell people who have trouble with my name to “think that I am not an actress, thus, I have no-Emmy award!” I've already met quite a few of you and have really enjoyed the great conversations and little insights on life that I've gained. I appreci-ate working with you and look forward to more. Good luck this semester!

Brianne

Hello everyone! My name is Brianne and I am thrilled to be joining the wonderful staff at Fast Track To Work, to provide indi-vidual counseling services to any-one interested. I am currently at-tending San Jose State University, working on a Masters in Social Work. I will be available this school year, interning Tuesdays

and Wednesdays from 9-5pm. Please feel free to come by and say hello or to make an appoint-ment for some private sessions. I am looking forward to meeting you!

Janis

I’m very happy to be able to step into Karen Farrow’s shoes for a while in the Job Development area. Having worked with Karen since August 2007, I feel confident that I know most of the ins and outs of Work Study. However, I’m always willing to learn more – if you have a question for which I don’t have an answer, I promise to do my best to find it.

It’s been great putting faces to the names I know already and I’m looking forward to meeting more CalWORKs students in the future. Remember, if you want or need some Work Study experience, then I’m your first stop. Don't for-get that through Work Study, you are able to keep your total earn-ings - there are no deductions from your cash aid.

Karen Update

My stroke was July 24th, so it’s been three months now. My mother came to stay and I really appreciate the support she has given me. She's going home to Minnesota at the end of October so I'll be getting used to doing things by myself once more.

My progress is good and I'm walking without a wheelchair, some days I don't even use my cane. I am in therapy three days a week all day long, and I am defi-nitely feeling better because of it. My left side is still not doing any-thing so I am working very hard on that.

I miss everyone very much and if I had not had all the student sup-port and good wishes I have re-ceived, I would not be doing as well as I am.

Love, Karen

Need Help In Your Classes?

Fast Track To Work students are eligible for 2 hours per week of free tutoring for each class taken. Go to Room 1080, the Learning Resource Center. The following classes are currently being tutored:

Accounting 151A, 1A;

Biology 4, 5, 6;

Chemistry 1A, 1B, 2, 30A, 30B, 32;

Comm 1;

Digital Media 1, 4, 12, 70, 110;

English 100, 1A;

French;

History;

Japanese;

Medical Assisting 130A, 170A & B;

Math 254, 154, 152;

Music 1 – 4, 6;

Philosophy 4, 9, 10, 14;

Political Science 1;

Psychology 1, 4;

Spanish 1, 2, 3;

CalWORKs Activities During School Breaks

At this time, there is some confusion about your having to stay busy for 32 hours, even during holidays, vacations and times when school is not in session.

The Fall semester ends on December 20 and the Spring semester begins on February 9. Until this week, we believed that you would either have to enroll in Winter session classes (January 5-30) or find some other way to fulfill the requirement for seven weeks. In fact Janis has been working on a program of alternative activities. But now there are some new guide-lines in place.

We recommend that you contact your County Educational Training Spe-cialist to find out what's required in your case. And, as always, come and have a chat with us if you need help.

FTTW Student Award Winner

Last May, Shannon Brady was hon-ored with the Women's Opportu-nity Award, along with a check for $1,500 to help her complete her nursing studies at Cabrillo Col-lege. A single mother, Shannon is the first president of the new Cabrillo College Medical Assis-tant Club.

Save Money & Get More Money!

The Santa Cruz Community Credit Union (SCCCU) has established an Individual Development Account (IDA) program. The purpose of this account is to help you save monies for higher education or to start your own business. The SCCCU is match-ing what you save—example: you save $40.00 a month and they match it $40.00 a month = $80.00 for you! If you are interested and want more details please call 479-6344 to make an appointment with Catherine Lachance.

A Note from Claire

Changes to WIA Reimbursements

As usual I hope this newsletter finds you well. This has certainly been a busy semester! But now things have slowed down a bit for me and I would like to hear from you. How has your semester been? Are you inter-ested in adding any classes to your education plan? Do you have any other necessary revisions? Are you graduating soon? Have you filled out a petition to graduate? Call me and/or make an appointment. Rules and regulations are often changing, so come on in and let's see if there are any updates we need to make to your educational plan.

If you are new to Cabrillo College as of fall 2008 you will need to take and pass English 1A and Math 152 to graduate with your AA or AS. If I neglected to put that in your education plan, you must come in so I can make the correction. If you cannot come in, call or email me this month. Thanks.

Take good care and remember that we are here to assist you and help you to achieve your important goals.

Claire

Expenses Reimbursements:

The WIA program has a couple of changes that may affect your sponsorship. The County of Santa Cruz Auditor’s office may deny a claim for reimbursement for pur-chases made by the participant if the county has a contract with a community vendor set up for that purchased item. For example: The county has a contract with Galli Gear & Uniform Company for uni-forms, shoes, and other medical accessories. If you purchase scrubs from another company instead of using the voucher sys-tem in place, the county may deny your claim for reimbursement. Or: If you purchase your books at the Cabrillo College Bookstore on your own instead of using the voucher system in place, the

county may deny your claim for reimbursement. Before making a purchase, please ask if you can get a voucher for it.

You may pick up a current WIA reimbursement request form in the FTTW office. Please complete it and submit it with your receipt & proof of purchase when re-questing reimbursement for train-ing expenses that are not avail-able at one of the preferred ven-dors.

Transportation:

Effective July 1, 2008, WIA will be enforcing the $600 limit on sup-portive services according to their written policy. Supportive services include payments to as-sist with transportation, child care, and other needs related payments. To be approved, sup-portive services must be neces-sary to enable you to participate in your approved program.

What does this mean to you? Start-ing July 1, 2008, if you are ap-proved for transportation reim-bursement (set at $5 per day of

attendance), you can only be re-imbursed for up to 120 days of attendance. That may sound like a lot, but if you attend training (whether at Cabrillo or a clinical site) an average of four days per week, your transportation reim-bursement will last less than two semesters. For those who were enrolled prior to this fiscal year, this limit does not apply to any transportation reimbursement that was claimed before June 30, 2008.

If you have any questions about the changes in policies or prac-tices regarding the WIA program, please call the FTTW front desk at (831) 479-6344.

“The County may deny a

claim for reimbursement if

they have a contract with the

vendor set up for that

purchased item.”

Affordable Substance Abuse Treatment

Janus of Santa Cruz provides high quality programs for recovery from alcoholism or other chemical dependencies. They offer Perina-tal Day Treatment for pregnant, post-partum or parents of young children and an Intensive Outpa-tient Program. Treatment is de-signed around the client’s needs and includes group and individual sessions. There are a variety of ways to pay for these programs: Drug Medi-Cal, private insurance, self-pay with sliding scale and county funding with authorization. If you’d like more information, call 462-1060.

Free Internet Goodies

openoffice.org—Software applications for word processing, spread-sheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. You can save files in Word 97/2000/XP formats and many more. Just download to your own computer.

google.com, documents—Online software applications for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. Under the “More” tab select “Documents.” You may access your documents anywhere there is internet access. There are many templates too!

grammar.quickanddirtytips.com—Grammar Girl provides short, friendly tips to improve your writing. You can listen to podcasts online or download. There is also a weekly email. Lots of great information on the website too. Take a peak at the other Quick and Dirty Tips podcasts.

TED.com—Fascinating talks on a huge variety of topics by the world's greatest thinkers and doers. Get inspired in 18 minutes or less by watch-ing these FREE talks!

pandora.com—FREE music to listen to from your computer. With Pan-dora you can explore a vast trove of music to your heart's content. Just drop the name of one of your favorite songs or artists into Pandora and let the Genome Project go. It will quickly scan its entire world of analyzed music to find songs with interesting musical similarities to your choice. Then sit back and enjoy as it creates a listening experience full of current and soon-to-be favorite songs for you.

hulu.com—Hulu is an online video service that offers hit TV shows, full length movies and clips all for FREE anytime in the U.S. Hulu brings to-gether a large selection of videos from more than 100 content providers, including FOX, NBC Universal, MGM, Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros. and more.

snopes.com—Verify those pesky rumors and urban legends that your well meaning friends forward to you. This site investigates rumors’ ori-gins and reports whether they are true or false.

Reminders from Catherine

If you will be graduating this se-mester, schedule an appointment with one of our counselors to fill out your petition. Also if you have changed your class schedule so that it no longer matches your education plan, please schedule an appointment to revise your ed plan.

Holiday Books!

Your kids are going to love this! Once again Catherine’s book group has chosen us as recipi-ents of their holiday wish for children. This means that there will be a free holiday gift (book) for every FTTW child! Come by the office starting the week of December 8th to pick up a book for each of your children. Please sign the thank you card when you drop by.

Fast Track To Work Cabrillo College 6500 Soquel Drive, #802 Aptos, CA 95003 831-479-6344 Fax:477-5632 fasttrack@cabrillo.edu fasttracktowork.blogspot.com Monday—Thursday 8:00 to 12:00 1:00 to 5:00

Friday 8:00 to 12:00

Have a great Thanksgiving

holiday!

Have You Thought About Teaching?

If you are interested in a teaching career in the K-12 system or in a Career Technical Education set-ting please contact Catherine or Nancy to see if your are eligible for the CTE/Teacher Preparation Pipeline at 477-5627.