Cerro Coso in Tehachapi is booming since expanding its academic offering into the area in 2014 filling a critical and growing need.
The college started offering an evening program at the Tehachapi High School in the fall of 2014 with 5 general education classes and an enrollment of 65. At the time, classes were held at the high school as the school districted renovated the Tehachapi Education Center. In the fall of 2015 Cerro Coso moved its offerings to the Tehachapi Education Center with 6 classes and 93 enrollments. Also, that semester the college finalized a dual enrollment agreement with the school district and began offering calculus-level math and the first classes of an entire medical assisting program at the high school. Those sets of courses helped 58 high school students get college credit.
Offerings for the Administrative Medical Assisting program were completed in spring 2016 with another 4 classes; fourteen students completed the coursework and became eligible for a college certificate. This fall the college is offering 9 courses in the evening with 153 enrollments, and for the first time, Cerro Coso is offering short-term workforce training classes in the Emergency Medical Technician program in the evenings. This program allows students to take the national EMT exam and enhance career opportunities in private ambulance, firefighting, law enforcement, and others. At Tehachapi High School, the college is offering 13 sections of dual enrollment classes with 230 enrollments in such courses as medical assisting, business offices technology, mathematics, career choices, and Spanish this fall.
The college submitted a substantive change proposal with ACCJC to establish the Tehachapi Education Center as an official campus location of Cerro Coso Community College in the spring of 2016. In terms of students served, the East Kern campus has become the second largest physical campus at the college (after the main campus in Ridgecrest) due in large part to the outreach, recruitment, and development of relationships in Tehachapi. Knowledge brings the opportunity to make a difference!
