Mountain View Library reports growth in adult literacy programs; council-funded stipend pilot supports 10 students

Mark Jack, the Mountain View librarian, told the Board of Library Trustees on Feb. 24 that the library’s suite of adult education programs — including an ESL conversation club, a one-on-one learners tutoring program and Career Online High School — has seen rising participation and new supports aimed at improving completion rates.

The Career Success Allowance pilot, approved by the City Council in September 2023 as part of workforce development and small-business assistance initiatives, provides qualifying Mountain View residents enrolled in Career Online High School with a monthly stipend of $720. The stipend requires successful completion of a two-week prerequisite course and two course sections within 30 days; meeting ongoing benchmarks of roughly two sections every 30 days triggers subsequent monthly disbursements. As of Feb. 1, 2025, the library reported $42,480 distributed to the 10 students in the pilot, the maximum number the program was budgeted to support.

The stipend is administered by the Community Services Agency of Mountain View and Los Altos, Jack said. The Career Online High School curriculum itself is provided as a scholarship through the California State Library for qualifying participants; Mountain View’s stipend is an additional local payment that the pilot ties to monthly progress checks.

Jack described the library’s ESL conversation club as a long-running weekly session that moved to a hybrid model after the pandemic. The club now averages 18 to 20 in-person attendees and seven to 10 Zoom participants, supported by three volunteers. The learners program, a roughly year-old adult literacy tutoring initiative, matches trained volunteer tutors with adults 18 and older who struggle with reading and writing in English. Jack said the library currently has eight tutor-learner pairs meeting regularly and expected three more pairs in the coming weeks. Tutors complete an online, self-directed training from ProLiteracy that Jack said takes about eight to 10 hours.

Career Online High School has run at the library since November 2020. Jack reported nine graduates to date and eight students currently making progress. He said the library uses the California State Library’s roles-and-goals framework during intake and that the initial "R U Ready" self-assessment provides a metric of community interest: Jack cited 79 total surveys with 21 completed after launching the Career Success Allowance, and he said the program’s conversion rate from initial survey to enrollment rose from about 24% overall to roughly 40% after the stipend began.

Two recent students who spoke in a recorded segment told trustees the monthly allowance helped them budget time and complete the program more quickly; one said the stipend allowed her to pay for a $5,000 trade-school program and the other said it funded an expensive credential exam linked to a new job. In the recorded comments, one graduate said, “The financial incentive… allowed me to actually budget my time and actually put together a strict timeline to finish.” (The graduate is identified in the meeting transcript only as a Career Online High School graduate.)

Jack described the stipend as unrestricted cash and said students may use it for childcare, groceries or test fees. He also said the pilot was funded from workforce development funds and that he believed those funds were federal, but he did not provide a statutory citation or written funding instrument at the meeting. Jack said he hoped the city would continue or expand the stipend beyond 10 students but that renewal would depend on future funding decisions by the City Council.

Board members asked about program capacity, participant outreach and staff time. Jack estimated onboarding a single tutor-learner pair can take up to three hours of staff time, and monthly stipend administration requires roughly an hour per month for check-ins and spreadsheet reporting to the Community Services Agency. He said the library’s promotional channels and partners — including a local community services agency and the city’s news releases — have driven referrals.

The pilot’s financial terms were described at the meeting: a full 18-month stipend at $720 per month totals $12,960 per student; early completion unlocks remaining payments so participants who finish ahead of schedule receive the full allocated amount. Jack reported no students had been dropped from the pilot and said several were exceeding benchmarks; two recent graduates finished the 18-month program in under six months, he said.

What’s next: trustees discussed whether the stipend could be renewed or scaled; Jack said he would welcome more funding but had no confirmed extension to report. The Career Online High School pathway and the library’s learners and ESL programs will continue to be promoted to Mountain View residents and students through existing outreach channels.