Running an apprenticeship in California? You'll need an LEA.

In our recent post on apprenticeship partnerships, we mentioned how California has a special requirement to work with an LEA, or Local Education Agency. Let's talk about that a bit more since it's important if you want to register with California's Division of Apprenticeship Services (DAS).

What is an LEA

A local education agency (LEA) is any public education agency authorized by law to provide related and supplemental instruction. Technically, this includes any 4 year institution, community college, K-12 school, or any county office of education. However, practically, you'll find that the vast majority of LEAs are community colleges and county offices of education.

To start, a good place to look for an LEA is going to be the Eligible Training Providers List (ETPL). Many states have these. Calfornia's ETPL can be found on on EDD's website.

Who needs an LEA

If you want to register in California with DAS, you'll need a LEA.

California is a bit of a special case where its both an SAA and OA state so you can register only with the DOL if you choose. However, if you're at all interested in state apprenticeship funding -- which California is great for -- you'll want to register with DAS.

Do you need an LEA if you're a union training center? Yes. Do you need an LEA if you have online training? Yes. All DAS-registered programs need an LEA. Their involvement may vary (more on that later), but LEA's serve as the related instruction accreditors of your program.

Finding an LEA

Finding an LEA isn't as simple as merely grabbing an organization from the ETPL list. You want to find an LEA that is accustomed to working with apprenticeship programs, and not all of the ETPL organizations are. One way to do this is to keep an eye on public postings of California apprenticeships. DAS registered programs are publicly posted to the DAS website 30 days before they can be officially approved (the reasons for why are beyond this post).

If you view those public postings, you can dig through the proposed standards for programs and find which organization is the LEA for that program. Sometimes its clear; other times its not. The next challenge is going to be figuring out who to contact at these organizations. Ideally, you can find someone in a work-based learning office, career and technical education, or workforce development office who can be your main point of contact for being a potential LEA.

Role in apprenticeships

So what does the LEA actually do for your program? In some cases, they're a close partner delivering your related instruction curriculum as defined in our recent partnerships post. However, what if you're not looking for an education partner, they're really just an accreditor of your curriculum. This is the case if you're using some third party online training or if you're a union training center running your own program. In these cases, LEA's are simply a sign off for DAS that says your curriculum is up to par for your industry. Regardless of whether they're delivering or simply signing off, what you'll need to get is a ultimately an MOU from a contact at the college stating they're the LEA for your program.

Examples and Suggestions for DAS

What does this MOU look like, you ask? We sincerely wish this was more clear from DAS. In fact, in writing this article, we combed through DAS website looking for one. Not only could we not find an example MOU, we could not find even a specific description of this LEA requirement. It only comes up when you're registering your program and working with your ATR. (If there's one ask we'd have for DAS, it'd be to make this LEA relationship and process a lot more clear for potential programs.)

That's it! Now go forth and work on finding your LEA!