all right well good morning everyone my name is Victoria Grooms and I am the director of admissions here at pcis and I just want to take this time to say thank you for choosing pascolis as your prospective training partner so pres skolis Learners and staff we remain resilient as ever for over 25 years our community has thrived despite some challenging circumstances but with unknown challenges ahead we're pretty confident that we will continue to impact the thousands of Americans and employers that need us most so today's agenda we will be going over some virtual housekeeping issues um you'll hear a welcome from our president and CEO you're going to learn a lot about for skols today our enrollment process the admissions process you're going to learn a lot about our tech training courses and our overview of our upcoming courses and then we'll follow up with next steps and I will end the presentation with a Q&A session so we'll spend about 45 minutes together so I want to make sure that we have a good experience so first and foremost I want to go over um this quick virtual housekeeping issue so we are utilizing what we call a webinar and what that means is that everyone is muted and you are not on camera during this session so how we're going to communicate with one another is by utilizing the Q&A feature at the bottom of your screen so I hope that you're going to have lots questions for me at the end of this presentation so please drop your questions in the Q&A chat and I will address each and every one of your questions at the end of this presentation so what sets us apart here at priscus well pascolis is a national nonprofit that has been advancing economic equity for over 25 years we believe a thriving Workforce starts with Equitable access to education and we're continually to work to create a tech Workforce as diverse as the customers that it serves so at this time I do have a short video that I would like to share with you so you can learn more about for scholas and how we can help you unlock your potential in the [Music] marketplace it's the biggest questions in the tech world [Music] today where are all the talented people and how do I keep and grow the Stars I have kind of people who bring creative ideas unique skill sets and new ways to solve problems and for scholis we have the answers we create Tech Talent Solutions to not only help companies find the new Talent they need but to upskill and reskilled team they already have so you can build a sustainable Talent pipeline in a way you've never been able to before you see pascolas has provided Advanced skills training to thousands of people hungry to work in Tech now you can build Talent toward experts in fields like cyber security data engineering software engineering and more Talent who also have the critical skills around Communications and collaboration that are needed to succeed at any company have a specific expertise you need to build the team around we're just the people to get it done we've graduated over 177,000 technologists that's right 177,000 and our alumni are working at some of the biggest and best Fortune 1000 companies in the country like Amazon and Capital One the result a new tech Force has verse as the customer it serves one that stays up to 50% longer than other employees this is the sustainable Talent pipeline you've always wanted to create and we're ready to change your business and the world let pcus show you how to stop buying talent and start building it today so not only are we diverse and I'm sure you're wondering about our outcome so let me go over them with you here so we have now trained over 20,000 Learners who have come through our training program 86% of our graduates um end up graduating from our training and 80% of our Learners earn some type of IT industry certification 80% of our Learners retain employment after they graduate for up to about a year in addition to the aform mentioned our learner population is very diverse so 87% of our Learners are people of color and 42% of them make up women 44% of our Learners are between the ages of 18 and 29 and 65% of them do not have a four-year college degree about 3% of our population are made up of active Informer military so let's begin with hearing from our president and C o pleno aala he's going to talk about how and why he got pres schola started and the impact that we are making across our communities across the country congratulations you found pcus we train people for careers and it careers that allow people to build amazing jobs and take care of themselves and their families going forward before I came to P schol is I worked easily 12 to 14 hour work days I was waiting tables and I really wanted to break into the tech field I drive for and it was really hard job before pcis the next week was just I didn't know what was going to happen I was born in the South Bronx I grew up right here in this building there was really lack of opportunities in my neighborhood and so I decided to do something about it I've spent my entire career trying to create opportunities for people who live in communities like the South Bron and so prcis does just that I actually heard about pascolis from my sister she told me hey there's this costree class that you can take it's fulltime I find pisas and it says tuition free I didn't believe but I just tried let me try my person experience it was great learning about hardware and different operating systems it came natural a lot of us had no background in technology the instructors made it seamless I never did well in other learning settings but pascolis really gave me a way to tap into my best self I got the AWS Network plus Security Plus a plus certificate with the help of peris scholas they gave me free training all of the materials that I needed and a seat at that certification exam all I had to do was bring the desire to learn for 26 years we have been providing IT training to thousands of Americans across this country allowing them to build the skills to enter into the amazing careers in companies all over the world I am currently employed and it is a direct result of person SCH is when I saw that there was an opportunity to join the team I jumped right on it I was driving over because I have to survive now I have this job which is my dream job you can imagine how how satisfying it is as of today I was just offered a position from intern to engineer that's what I love about it in general is the unlimited potential for growth to be a woman in this field and to also be a person of color a black woman I know that I am breaking barriers it's empowering to show my Learners a different face in Tech or broaden their idea on what a person in Tech looks like they don't get you a certification get you a job and then say hey take care good luck they'll say hey here's more what else do you need the most rewarding part of being an instructor is putting someone on the path towards a new career and being their biggest cheerleader often people are worried about how do they pay their rent tomorrow or put food on the table you can't be Forward Thinking if you're worrying about the moment right now and so once you build these careers once you're able to land these great jobs you can think about your future you can think about your family's future you can be part of the community in ways that perhaps you were in before I hope you give us a chance because you deserve that opportunity so for skolas we continue to drive positive impr proven social change in our communities across the country as of the beginning of this year we are now operating in 21 locations including the most high volume Tech employment markets in the US through multiple randomized control studies that proves that our model Works what we do is take a three prong approach so through Technical Training pascolas teaches technology skills that are tailored to business's needs and to highly motivated Learners from diverse communities and through professional development about 20% of our training focuses on communication collaboration continuous learning and giving and receiving feedback as well as career navigation skills that are going to be critical to Landing that first job or moving up in your Tech Career through direct connection to employers we match our talented graduates to employers by providing career coaching throughout the process our Talent Solutions team they work with over 500 employers Nationwide to help Source candidates for Tech roles across sectors and they help support our learners for up to two years postgraduation all of our courses here are tuition free at pascolas they are full-time immersive in demand training cources 20% of that classroom time like I mentioned before is going to be dedicated to professional development and career coaching to help you thrive in the workplace we also have a learner support team to help with financial coaching and wellness services so that you can succeed through your full-time training with us there have been over 850 companies that have hired our graduates in various different Tech roles here at pascolis we have modern facilities that are led by leaders in the field and we provide you with that professional development and personal growth opportunities as an alumni of pascolas you will have access to upskilling Opportunities and we will support you in that for up to two years postgraduation so that you can continue to grow and thrive in your Tech Career so P skolis we follow the adaa which is the American Disabilities Act and these are policies and procedures regarding a accessibility and accommodations so if you are ever in need of any type of accommodation throughout the learner life cycle we would like to invite you to email accommodations prc.org to discuss any accommodation needs that you may have that's accommodations pros.org so here at pascolas we live by six core values we consider ourselves to be ambitious we try to operate with the utmost integrity and be professional in everything that we do we're committed to a very high level of service and we've persevered through some challenging circumstances if you think back to when the pandemic hit we were only doing predominantly in-person training and we had to quickly shift our in-person Learners into a remote environment we saw how we were able to reach so many individuals by offering remote training that this is now part of our Core curriculum we've also been very resourceful with the opportunities that have been given to us these will be the same characteristic traits that we will be looking for in each and every one of you as you come through the admissions process to support a thriving Workforce our program expands the course of two and a half years to provide you with expansive and a diverse level of Education as well as upskilling support as you launch your Tech Career so here's a snapshot of our learner life cycle the first step is that you begin to explore the various different training tracks that PR schoolis has to offer step two is where you take that plunge to complete that eligibility form and to become an applicant from there you were directed to register for this admissions overview so that you can learn more about the admissions process once you've completed the admissions process and we want to accept an off ex extended offer for a seat in one of our training courses this is where you become a learner we call each and every one of our students Learners because in the field of Technology you're forever learning and growing in this field as a learner you begin to Embark Upon Our rigorous boot camp training in step four stage we consider you to be a graduate once you've completed our training course we want to celebrate your huge accomplishment because it is a huge accomplishment step five is where after you've graduated from pascolas you are now considered to be an alumni and as an alumni there will be additional upskilling opportunities that you can take advantage of and I'll talk about those in the next few slides all of our alumni here at Pras have access to upskilling Opportunities which provides additional skills and certifications across delivery channels we have Micro cohorts which are one to three we instructor programs that focus on enhancing skills and Tech tools there's self-paced courses that are available to our alumni immediately after graduation we also have instructor leg courses that are available to alumni 90 days post completing an immersive training course now these courses are offered in the evening and in the weekends which lead to Industry certifications our team will help you determine your next upskilling opportunity once you've gained that first placement they can help you decide what classes best support your experience in career objectives once you become alness you can also work with our Talent Solutions team and they can help individualize a career plan for yourself I mentioned earlier that we have what we call a learner support team which is also known as LST and they partner with our Learners in a number of different ways they help build Wellness wealth and work Rhythm through collaboration strategy share and skill skill building the learner support team is part of our comprehensive strategy for our learner success in each one of our campuses they have a lead support manager as well as a financial coach who partner with our Learners in a number of different ways they lead quarterly expert panels they facilitate weekly wellness and wealth building Series where our Learners can identify strategies they strengthen skills and they build a reflective professional practice for themselves they also can take advantage of opting into one of our one-on-one coaching sessions and these sessions are structured around your goals and building strategies to achieve them all of our courses here at pcas require that you have strong internet connection if you're participating remotely and if you would like to learn more about the affordable connectivity program um this is where we can um assist you in getting connected with affordable internet connection so the the benefit of this program is that you can get up to $30 per month towards your internet service or you can take advantage of a one-time discount of $100 to purchase a laptop or desktop computer for yourself if you're interested in learning more about this program please go to www.fcc.gov slac that's www.fcc.gov slac now that you've learned more about pascolis our mission the impact and our core values I'm sure you're interested in learning more about our upcoming courses but before I go into those details I want to flag our minimum qualifications for all of our courses so you must be at least 18 years of age and hopefully have a passion for technology to participate in our training you must also possess a high school diploma or equivalent and be eligible to work in the US fulltime we would also want you to commit to full-time training for the duration of the course now unfortunately we do not have any part-time or evening hours available if you enroll in one of our immersive courses you need to be available Monday through Friday from 9:00 to 4: you must also live within a commutable distance of our campus everyone is required regardless of their educational background to take our Baseline assessment if all goes well with the Baseline assessment you be invited to interview you must also meet our pre- income policy criteria if you have questions related to that you can reach out to your admissions representative and we can have a conversation as to what that looks like you also must be able to read write and speak English proficiently so here is a timeline of our ad admissions process the first step is that you completed that eligibility form and from there you were directed to register for this virtual admissions overview so this is the stage that you're in right now each and every one of you will be getting in your email to take the Baseline assessment by the end of the day once you've completed that Baseline assessment and all goes well you'll be invited to participate in a behavioral interview if all goes well with the behavioral interview you'll get extended an offer to participate in one of our training tracks once we receive your confirmation of acceptance is when you'll get your onboarding guide and there will be some steps that you'll need to take as far as fulfilling that process as a reminder you must meet our minimum qualifications but I want to elaborate a little bit more about our course specific requirements in these next few slides so our learner profile is such to participate in any of our training courses you must live within a commutable distance of your local campus you must also be able to attend in person or remotely the entire duration of the full-time training we also want you to be able to want to look actively for searching for an it um job once you complete the training and be available to work full-time after you complete the training so first up is our it support course this 13-week course provides our Learners with hands-on experience with desktop it technology our Learners will perform troubleshooting exercises with PC Hardware networking equipment systems Administration Cloud Technologies and it security Concepts while preparing for their A+ certification tests now this course focuses on building strong foundations and hardware and software systems and it allows our Learners to confidently diagnose and resolve technical issues now the curriculum covers the fundamentals of systems Administration enabling our Learners to support Windows server and its corresponding Services graduates that come through this program will be Adept in the following professions and capable of delivering comprehensive it support in a diverse range of Enterprises now the remote course of the it support portion is uh it just gives you the flexibility to do your work asynchronously and it provides a great virtual experience that allows our Learners to gain the experience of it it Enterprises from the comfort of their own personal environment now the course includes robust tools that enhance the training experience and it allows our Learners to gain the skills necessary to succeed in an IT Enterprise whether you're doing this course in person or remotely now the inperson training course is 13 weeks long and if you opt to do remote only it support it will be 15 weeks long for it support there are there is there is no experience required to do this training the only thing that we ask is that you are computer literate that you're you know pretty fluent with navigating on how to work a computer we don't have time to teach you the computer Basics um you do need to have an understanding of being computer literate and we'll teach you to rest for software engineering this 15we comprehensive software development course offers a structured journey through key Technologies and Concepts in the field starting with foundational Version Control and agile methodologies Learners can gain essential skills in collaboration through project management a strong focus is going to be on web development covering HTML CSS JavaScript and even including Doom manipulation and a synchronous programming you're going to also learn a lot about node and express which explore the server side of development react which will introduce building Dynamic and user interfaces and our Learners also delve into State Management with Redux and typescript enhancing coding quality now the database management portion of this has covered through mongodb and cicd processes ensuring a seamless development pipeline so by the end of this course um you will be able to hopefully get a role in either like full stack developers on the front end or backend as a developer or even in quality assurance now for software engineering although we say technology ex uh is preferred um the reason why we say that is because you have to have an understanding of coding maybe you've um dabbled in coding uh before on your own you're self-taught um and so you will have to have a basic understanding of coding in order to be successful in this course but you don't have to have any experience in the field now for software engineering and like some of our other training courses you do have to be able to pass the Baseline assessment and the pre-work that will be required for the course next up is our cyber security course um our Learners gain experience working with Enterprise grade security tools in a remote setting and the course work and the labs utilize what we called security investigation and event management tools and strategies and this allows our Learners to get the experience of working with technologies that they're going to actually see in the workplace now this 15we cyber security course is an intensive comprehensive Hands-On Technical Training and a Learners will explore essential cyber security Concepts and develop critical technical skills to help protect systems networks and programs from digital hacks now very similar to software engineering for this course we say you know technology experience prefer but it is not required um you do need to pass our initial Baseline assessment and the pre-work that will be associated with this course in order to secure a seat in the class and lastly is our AWS Cloud practitioner um certification course this course includes robust tools that enhance the training experience and it allows our Learners to gain the skills necessary to deliver Cloud Management Solutions to Enterprises our Learners gain the necessary skills in networking and in Linux and Gain real world experience working with an AWS Council to build Cloud Solutions not this 15we AWS Cloud practitioner course is powered by AWS restar course and it focuses on the two key technical areas first being it fundamentals and second AWS Cloud now the it fundamentals covers topics for support operation and automation roles for Linux networking and security programming as well as Python and databases and the AWS CS um Cloud fundamentals highlights the AWS core services from introductory levels to more in- depth Hands-On operational procedures very similar to cyber security you must be able to pass our initial Baseline assessment um and pass the pre-work that is required for this course So based on the information that I've shared you may realize that you need additional technical knowledge in order to be adequately prepared to successfully complete our training program so this slide here provides a visual presentation so that you can feel free to take a picture of this if you need to and I'll pause and allow you time to do that now for AWS software engineering and cyber security like I said there is pre-work associated with this course so you don't have to have a ton of experience but if you can do the pre-work associated with the course then you will be um eligible to secure a seat in the training course so one day out of the week we provide you with professional development and during this training you begin to develop the business essential skills that employers desire what we do is help prepare you for a career in technology and we help you set professional career goals for yourself so that you can succeed in advancing towards your career so regardless if you're doing our course in person or remotely the schedule is the same Monday through Friday typically from 9:00 a.m to 400 p.m. 4 days a week will be dedicated to your technical instruction and one day a week is professional development training you can expect to spend anywhere from 15 to 20 hours of individual study time outside of the classroom most of our training courses require that you do a lot of reading there's going to be homework and there may be even quizzes and tests to make sure that you are ascertaining and understanding the information that's being taught all of our training cours have a attendance policy associated with it so the example that I'm going to give here today will be for a 15we training course since most of our training tracks are 15 weeks long for a 15we training course we will give you three absences and four tardies that you can utilize during the course of the training that's not a lot of time so you're going to have to look at them as emergency purposes only because whichever you exhaust first will be grounds for dismissal from the training we do this because there just is so much information that we cover in a short period of time that if you're not in class participating doing the work it's going to be very easy to fall behind and hard to catch back up now let me Define how we um designate what a tardy and an absence is a tardy is missing fewer than three hours in a training day and an absence is missing more than three hours in a training day so for example if you report the class at 1:00 in the afternoon even though that seems like a tardy because you showed up late that essentially will be counted as an absence against you with all of our training courses we expect you to arrive at least 15 minutes early if you're joining us in person double your commute time if you're joining remotely make sure that you are sitting there ready to go in the waiting room to be let into the um Zoom or um make sure that you you know make sure that your your technology is working properly so that you are ready to go so we are wrapping up here um before um I close I do want you to hear from uh one of our alumni in her own words her name is Katherine ASO and she'll talk more about her experience with coming to pascolis and the impact that it has made on her life I graduate High School in 2010 and um I dive into work I wasn't sure of what I wanted to go pursue it in um college so I just decided to work and so I decided I had more an idea of what I wanted to do I was just working in restaurants and then it got to the point that I realized that um this is not where I want to be and I need to find something to make it a career I noticed that I did enjoy working with computers a lot so I was looking for something with computers and the manager there he told me about pascolas you should look into this school my friends graduated from here and they have great jobs and I said okay I'll give it a try I'll see like I'll apply and see take it from there it sparked a a fire in me because it was like oh well this is a really good opportunity like that it could really change my life I know I understand the computer the technology is the future so I really want to go with the future I don't want to stay behind it was tough I'm not going to lie um I was from 9:00 in the morning to 4:00 Monday through Friday then on weekends we had three four chapters to go it was like a a challenge but it also I feel like it grew us closer we understood that we all wanted to grow and just better our lives and I feel like that really gave us a drive to that even the days that we were like I cannot do this it was like looking back and it's like you've been you've already done so much why would you turn back now our teacher also like he made sure that I understood and I feel safe and always gave us that confidence that you guys are going to be okay our Career Development with Allan he is great he made himself so available to us he made us feel like he cared for us that he just always wanted to coach us to the be to the best we always feel like we can reach out to him and he'll help us with a resume with a job with a cover letter he was really there for us and he still is there for us I graduated July 15th and I started working August 15th in nagaro as an associate engineer I'm I'm grateful to have a job and the fact that I literally started working within a month of graduation it's amazing I'm definitely um thinking about taking some alumni classes I want to keep um getting as much um certifications as I can keep growing as a person and um you know try to get back back as much as I can like with PCA is like any person that I know that it might change their life I try to like put them onto the opportunity because it is a real life changing opportunity and the fact that it's free it's like if you can do it just please do it so I really try to encourage a lot of people for that and the fact that they offer um offer other courses they give you the information they give you they give you the tools you just literally have to put in the work if you can do that within 15 weeks then I can only imagine the other potential you have within [Music] yourself so you've learned a lot about us this um hour so if you have questions I am ready you know to accept them and I'm ready for you to take the next steps toward a career in technology so I'm assuming that you are ready to um know what the next steps are so as a reminder um the admissions process has multiple steps to it you've attended today's virtual admissions overview so I'm assuming that you're interested in advancing toward the next phase of the admissions process so the next step is going to be taking that Baseline assessment the Baseline assessment is comprised of three different sections it's comp comprehension critical thinking and digital literacy skills now the comprehension section includes watching a video so before you begin completing this assessment please make sure that you watch the video so that you can complete the comprehension section correctly in each section there will be 10 questions and the assessment is timed at 30 minutes so as soon as you begin the timer will begin counting down also the assessment invitation will be coming to each and every one of you in an email this afternoon so please check your spam or your social box um in your email sometimes it can reside there because it is an automated email that gets out sent out today I am asking that each and every one of you um be able to take this um Baseline assessment and submit within 48 Hours of this session today in admissions um representative my or someone else will be reaching out to you within the two bitzen days and letting you know what your next steps are which is typically the interview so I am going to be dropping um the uh signin sheet it's a link that I will be dropping and if you are not able to assess this link in the Q&A feature there is a QR code here at the screen that you can place your camera to and um get connected to that link basically I need you to take a few seconds to sign in by utilizing this questionnaire form so that we can record your attendance and assist you in the next steps so I am going to drop that currently right now that is now in the Q&A feature and then also remember that you can um scan the QR code and get connected to that link as well but we really would like for you to record your attendance today by doing so so that we can assist you with the next steps so I just want to say thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules today to learn more about Bolas and hopefully I'll have an opportunity to meet each and every one of you in one of our upcoming trainings whether it be in person or remotely and please like us on the following social media platforms we love to hear from you we are on Instagram LinkedIn Twitter YouTube and Facebook so at this time I will open it up to any questions that you may have if you need to reach out to me directly you can give me a call at 513 3572 2006 extension 3023 I am based out of Cincinnati um but I can assist with any questions that you may have um for the Chicago or the Cincinnati market and um I can be reached at VG Grooms firstus.org that's VG Grooms firstus.org so thank you and I will begin to entrain any questions that you may have