Valencia County Literacy Council

Since 1987, the Valencia County Literacy Council has been helping people reach their goals in their personal lives.

Whether it’s earning a GED, passing the test for a commercial driver’s license or being able to communicate with their child’s teacher more easily, VCLC and its volunteer tutors are there to help.

The mission of the Valencia County Literacy Council is to support adults in achieving personal goals in developing pre-literacy skills, and learn reading, writing, math and computers. All the literacy services offered by the council are free of charge, “to ensure that financial limitations are never a barrier to education.”

In order to support those adults, the literacy council needs more tutors, said Kathleen Pickering, VCLC board president and library and museum director for the city of Belen.

“We always need tutors, either interested in English as a second language or adult basic education for reading and math,” Pickering said.

Right now, the literacy council has a waiting list of about 30 students, said Devon Hoffman, VCLC administrative director, and with not having enough tutors it makes recruiting students difficult.

The adult students served by VCLC and its tutors are usually in need of “more remedial help,” Pickering said. “They went through the (education) system but didn’t get what they needed.

“The vast majority of the students have been looking for English language services but we are trying to expand our outreach to the potentially adult basic education population. Those students are a little harder to identify. It gets a little emotional and private when you’re asking someone, ‘Can you read or not?’”

To address that fraught scenario, Hoffman said in the literacy services realm, language is changing.

“We want to know if students have particular goals in mind. Most adults have an ulterior motive. Many of their goals have to do with workforce readiness,” she said. “We have a student working on their CDL and we have brainstormed ways to use AI to create lower literacy sample tests so they can get familiar with the tests.

“The practical idea is to equip them with practical stills that are literacy adjacent or involved; to use literacy to give them something practical to work towards their goals.”

An instructor at the University of New Mexico-Valencia Campus and board vice president Karen Walter said students want to be able to communicate with their children’s classrooms.

Cecy Rodriguez, VCLC program director, said children will act as interpretors for their parents during educational conferences sometimes.

“And sometimes parents want to talk to teachers without the student there,” Walter said.

This year, VCLC is re-entering “outreach mode,” Pickering said.

“One challenge last year, because of all the concern around ICE activities, places like libraries and schools and hospitals were no longer considered safe from these kinds of investigations,” she said. “That was another reason we kind of wanted to pause (student recruitment.) We didn’t want to attract people into harm’s way without knowing our rights and their rights.”

Hoffman said the council has developed procedures for the program, including signs on the doors of the community centers they work out of, clearly designating the spaces as private classrooms and private offices.

Students aren’t asked about their immigration status, Rodriguez said, a situation she is coping with presently.

“I have to carry my certificate of naturalization (with me) because I sent my passport in to renew it,” she said. “Right now, I don’t have anything besides this to carry until I get my passport back.”

The main offices for VCLC are at the El Cerro Mission Community Center, 309 El Cerro Mission Blvd., with offices at the Meadow Lake Community Center, 100 Cuerro Lane. Program leaders are talking to Valencia County about establishing offices at the Jarales Community Center.

Tutors meet with students at local public libraries for sessions, as well as the UNM-Valencia Campus or other public places that are convenient for both the tutor and student.

The program teaches “all the literacies” a student may need, Hoffman said.

“We like to think about multiple literacies, or teaching one that is imminently practical in the workforce, life and American society,” she said. “It’s not just English literacy. It’s awareness of Spanish literacy and other types, like digital and financial literacy.”

The curriculum developed for tutors by Hoffman begins with students coming to class and the tutor and students “getting to know each other at a level that helps both of them in their quest, their goal,” Walter said. “I would say it’s more student focused rather than tutor focused.”

Materials for tutors and students are available through the program, Hoffman said.

“In our literacy library, we focus on high interest, low literacy. When we need something with a lower literacy level, we have children’s books, but for adults that might be kind of annoying,” she said. “We have lower literacy books about adult topics such as finance and current events, history, even comics.”

The program also provides workbooks and worksheets to tutors, as well as basic supplies and resources, at no charge, in addition to technology needed to better serve the students.

“One of the applications of AI is to take complex texts and reduce the literacy level,” Hoffman said. “That’s one way we can create bespoke literacy materials.

Having a literate community goes beyond reading musty tomes of Shakespeare.

“There is an economic connection, with job growth being the link between the elevation of the community and attracting outside resources in all types of areas,” Walter said. “There’s literacy and then the economic component, and the broader picture of the Valencia County community and raising its status.”

Without basic education people cannot participate effectively in a democratic process, Pickering says.

“So, our act is not political in the contemporary sense of the word but in the traditional sense of the word,” she said. “That people need to be able to educate themselves in their context to participate meaningfully in civil society.”

Just as COVID made people realize the importance of technological literacy, Hoffman said the current “era” is also teaching lessons, “now we’re gong through the period of crackdowns from ICE.”

This era is making people aware of “all kinds of freedoms, which is huge for the people we serve,” Walter said. “At all different levels — the people who tutor, who are our partners — are all facing their own challenges.

“I’m also an instructor on campus and there’s academic freedom in the classroom. These have all kind of come up through our focus on basic literacy as being a big part of the language.”

Through the challenges, VCLC has remained a constant, Hoffman said, with “the continuity we have as an organization over the years, we’ve earned the balance we’ve built. One of the symptoms when someone experiences low literacy would be isolation.

“Being able to be aware of what is happening in your community and in a larger context with a trusted person you’ve been working with for years, we want to build those relationships. Regardless of the level gains that do happen — people getting their GEDs and more — we also allow for connection between people.”