Bridging the Gaps for Students in Long Beach - Cross-System Efforts to Institutionalize Dual Enrollment

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Jacob

Bridging the Gaps for Students in Long Beach examines how a long-standing regional education partnership institutionalized dual enrollment across multiple public institutions. Using interviews with faculty, staff, and administrators, the brief explains the collaborative vision and cross-system communications that enabled gap identification in academic and support services. It describes professional development planning for dual-enrollment instructors and the creation of a data warehouse to track students across districts and colleges.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

AccessFree to download

History and Context

Long Beach BtG Partners

Student Demographics

Bridging the Gaps for Students in Long Beach: Cross-System Efforts to Institutionalize Dual Enrollment June 2019 Thad Nodine Laura Jaeger Kathy Reeves Bracco A Series of Briefs from Bridging the Gap (BtG) This brief is part of a series that also includes Bridging the Gaps for Students in the Salinas Valley: Cross-System Efforts to Increase College Readiness and Bridging the Gaps through Cross-System Education Partnerships: Principles of Practice from Long Beach and the Salinas Valley. The collaborations in Long Beach and the Salinas Valley were implemented through Bridging the Gap (BtG), an initiative funded by The James Irvine Foundation. In 2016, a team of education leaders from the Long Beach College Promise (the Promise) joined Bridging the Gap (BtG), an initiative funded by The James Irvine Foundation to build and strengthen student transitions from high school to college. The institutions partnering in the Promise and the BtG initiative were the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD), Long Beach City College (LBCC), the California State University Long Beach (CSULB), and the City of Long Beach. In joining BtG, the partners sought to assess and improve the partnership’s dual enrollment programs spanning the three public institutions, pilot and implement new career exploration tools and programs, and develop a plan for a data warehouse to collect and share student information across the institutions. In this brief, we draw from interviews with faculty, staff, administrators, and others who were engaged in the Long Beach BtG team’s efforts to answer the following question for those interested in strengthening or developing a cross-system education partnership in their communities: How has a long-standing regional education partnership worked across systems to institutionalize efforts to increase college readiness for broad populations of students? In answering this question, we focused on one aspect of the team’s efforts to improve college readiness: its work to assess and improve its dual enrollment programs. The Long Beach team benefited from having a common vision for and a cohesive cross-system approach to dual enrollment, a range of existing relationships and communications structures, and extensive experience with the practical challenges of working across education systems. Drawing from these strengths, the team worked to institutionalize dual enrollment by identifying gaps in academic and support services for dually-enrolled students, by developing a professional development plan for LBCC and CSULB faculty teaching dual enrollment courses, and by creating a data warehouse to track students across institutions. History and Context For a quarter century, a regional education partnership in Long Beach, California, has taken on a vital task: to develop a seamless education experience for students from kindergarten through graduate school in a state where public K-12 school districts, community colleges, and universities operate in separate policy spheres. The partnership began garnering national attention in 1994, when the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD), Long Beach City Bridging the Gaps for Students in Long Beach: Cross-System Efforts to Institutionalize Dual Enrollment EDUCATION INSIGHTS CENTER AT CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SACRAMENTO 2 College (LBCC), the California State University Long Beach (CSULB), and the City of Long Beach came together to support the economic and educational needs of local residents in the face of widespread job losses in established industries, major changes in workforce needs, and demographic shifts, including an influx of immigrants from Southeast Asia. Early activities of the Long Beach Seamless Education Partnership, as it was known then, focused on aligning standards, curricula, and assessments. The partners doubled down in 2008 by creating the Long Beach College Promise to increase affordable college opportunities, including a tu

FAQs

What question does the brief focus on regarding cross-system partnerships?

It focuses on how a long-standing regional education partnership works across systems to institutionalize efforts that increase college readiness for broad student populations.

How did Long Beach’s BtG team institutionalize dual enrollment?

The team institutionalized dual enrollment by identifying gaps in academic and support services, building a professional development plan for faculty teaching dual-enrollment courses, and creating a data warehouse to track students across institutions.

Which institutions were involved in the Promise and the BtG initiative in Long Beach?

The partners included Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD), Long Beach City College (LBCC), California State University Long Beach (CSULB), and the City of Long Beach, aligned through the Long Beach College Promise and BtG efforts.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Jacob