Mo Charnot
Student Parent Success Program Manager Rachel Kutcher conducts class for parents seeking a path back to school at Santa Fe Community College.
When Jenelle Lovelette first began learning at the Santa Fe Community College, she had no idea where to start. Motherhood delayed Lovelette’s entry into college until after her child enrolled in a Head Start program.
“I think the biggest barrier preventing people from starting the process of going to college is just childcare,” Lovelette tells SFR. “I think time is another big obstacle because we always hear, ‘Oh, everyone has the same 24 hours in a day.’ Not really. Not when you have kids that need to be put down at a certain time or need to eat dinner.”
As a student-parent and part-time worker at SFCC, she also became involved in helping SFCC Student Parent Success Program Manager Rachel Kutcher construct the college’s College Ready Series, which held its first series of workshops in the spring of 2024.
The College Ready Series is a five-week workshop series for parents in the Santa Fe community without a degree who are interested in enrolling in a certificate or degree program at SFCC. The fall class wrapped up its session in mid-November, and the upcoming spring class dates have yet to be announced.
In the program, parents explore careers and majors, complete their admissions and financial aid applications, tour the campus and learn about the college’s resources and support for parenting students. Parents who complete all five sessions also receive a $125 gift card.
Kutcher tells SFR that for the past few years, she has been working to build more support for student-parents through creating a welcoming environment for them, and the College Ready Series is a way she hopes more parents can get their foot in the door to apply and enroll at SFCC.
“What we were hearing from a lot of our current students is that the process was really confusing,” Kutcher explains. “A lot of our students are first generation college students, so they didn't have enough folks in their families or in their circle that could support them.”
She adds that student-parents also reported difficulty finding community with relatable peers.
“We really wanted to create an environment that felt more like there was also peer support—like, this is specifically a class for student-parents,” Kutcher says. “Student-parents often feel like they're the only one, even though a huge percentage of our students are parents.”
Lovelette says in designing the program, she used her experience as a student-parent to advise what fellow parents most needed to learn before they enrolled at SFCC.
“It gives people a chance to know what to do,” Lovelette says of the series. “It gives them a starting point.”
The second cohort of the College Ready Series wrapped up its final session on Nov. 13. At the final session, a cohort of 18 parents (along with some of their children) heard testimony from SFCC student Dulce Ortis-Gonzales, who completed the spring program.
Ortis-Gonzales explained she previously had difficulty with enrolling as a mother of four children but found support through Kutcher and the program. She got help applying for scholarships and finding child care, and now is enrolled in three classes at SFCC. Ortis-Gonzales is majoring in early childhood education and works with the SFCC Kids Campus through the college’s apprenticeship program.
“It was overwhelming at the beginning because I had no idea what I was getting myself into,” Ortis-Gonzales told attendees. “But there's all kinds of help here…In the end, it was all worth it.”
The final session also included information on childcare options, including early childhood education centers, licensed home-care providers and after-school programs. Kutcher showed parents how to find local child care options to suit their needs using the state Early Childhood Education and Care Department’s Child Care Finder.
One parent who completed this fall’s College Ready Series, Saturn Anderson, tells SFR her experience with the College Ready Series has her feeling “much more ready” to become a student.
“They adapted the curriculum and whatever course material they were teaching to help fit our questions or whatever we needed,” Anderson says as she bounces her baby on her lap. “That was very helpful.”
Anderson, a parent who dropped out of college shortly before giving birth, says her mother informed her of the College Ready Series. Now, she’s receiving support from SFCC to help her through an appeals process to get back a scholarship she previously lost so she can afford to attend school again.
“Timing is a little bit harder—like scheduling—because so much of my time goes towards [my daughter] now. I want to go back,” Anderson says, adding that while she’s unsure about a major, she has an interest in taking art classes. “I believe education is absolutely positive.”
For more information about the series and keeping up to date with registration for the spring class, visit the SFCC website.
Editor's note: A correction was made to the spelling of parent Dulce Ortis-Gonzales's name. SFR regrets the spelling error.
