SUMMARY
The 2011-2012 Ventura County Grand Jury (Grand Jury), pursuant to its responsibility for government oversight, elected to look into the methods and systems of the organization of curricula of the Ventura County Community College District (VCCCD or District).

There are approximately 35,500 students within the VCCCD campuses (Moorpark, Oxnard, and Ventura Colleges). The reduction of state funding caused a loss of over $11 million to the District’s budget. The District’s response to this deficit was to eliminate classes, programs, and employees. Students need to attend two or three campuses to achieve full-time status (12 units or more). The side effects of this reduction have resulted in the rationing of classes. This also has required many students to navigate through all three colleges of the District.

The Grand Jury interviewed administrators and employees of the VCCCD, researched newspapers, educational reports, and legislation with respect to consistency of information being presented to VCCCD students. The Grand Jury collected data from VCCCD community college catalogues to assess specific inconsistencies.

The Grand Jury found a failure on the part of the Board of Trustees in establishing a policy of consistency across the District.

The Grand Jury found that the three colleges of the VCCCD have different nomenclature, which causes confusion for students, parents, taxpayers, and at times, faculty. The Grand Jury found that the Articulation Agreements between VCCCD colleges and the California State Universities (CSU) are not consistent across all of the VCCCD campuses. They are not consistent with the University of California (UC) Articulation Agreement between the colleges and the universities. The Grand Jury found insufficient number of counselors at VCCCD.

The Grand Jury recommends that the Board of Trustees of the VCCCD establish a policy of consistency among the colleges for course nomenclature, number of units, and student assessment; the Board of Trustees to implement the counselor-to-student ratio proposed by the Academic Senate of California Community Colleges.

Go to the Grand Jury website to review the entire report: http://grandjury.countyofventura.org