Tuesday, March 19, 2024
The RP Group
Who We Are

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We are a non-profit, non-partisan team made up of a dedicated Board of Directors and staff, working together with a shared and resolute goal: to increase the success of California Community Colleges and beyond. Through collaboration and commitment to authenticity and quality, our work is focused on promoting inspired futures for California Community College students in important areas such as equity, success, completion, and employment. 

Our Origins

The RP Group: An Evolution Through Time

The RP Group: An Evolution Through TimeThe Research and Planning Group for California Community Colleges (The RP Group) was formed in 1992 in order to advocate for and support the use of data and evidence to illuminate effective policy and practice within our state’s community colleges.

Many might not know that our non-profit also has roots dating back to the 1960s with antecedents including two main predecessor groups: The Southern California Community College Institutional Research Association (SCCCIRA) and the Northern California Community College Research Group (NORCAL consortium).

More than two decades later, the above networks came together to form a nascent iteration of the RP Group, which incorporated in 1994, two years after it formed. This decade was marked with the necessary heavy lifting of forming an organization and the passing of the Student Right to Know Regulations legislation, both of which had an impact on the priorities and goals of the organization.

The mission of the RP Group was born out of these events as well, and also from the three main purposes of the NORCAL consortium: conducting cooperative research; providing resources to individuals and colleges in their research efforts; and exchanging research ideas and results.

Today, the RP Group primarily supports institutional research, planning, and effectiveness (IRPE) professionals in our California community colleges (CCC), but also CCC practitioners and administrators as well, in order to help make data accessible and to bridge silos for all educators in our system in order to improve outcomes for — and the lives of — all students.