For Some Inmates, Jailhouse Is Also a Schoolhouse

The students are analyzing a character in the gritty autobiographical writings of best-selling author Dorothy Allison. “She’s in the process of reinventing herself,” one of them observes.

A fellow classmate interjects, “I want to tailgate on your idea

A lively discussion ensues, so sophisticated that when the class ends it’s startling to see the students -- in their all-orange uniforms -- stand and thrust their wrists down to be handcuffed in a six-man chain gang.

Many jails offer educational courses. But the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department has the nation’s only charter high school in a jail, according to Gary Larson, spokesman for the California Charter Schools Assn., who has researched the subject.

San Francisco’s jails, one of which is in nearby San Bruno, had received educational funding from local city colleges and the Milpitas school district for nearly a decade. But those funds dried up and Sheriff Michael Hennessey knew he would have to be creative to revive jailhouse classes.

A short, stocky man who has been sheriff for 23 years, he remembered that his daughter has a friend who attends a charter school. Out of desperation, he thought, why not a charter school for inmates?

The inmates weren’t exactly “on anyone’s hit parade,” said program administrator Sunny Schwartz. The Sheriff’s Department had to start the school, develop a curriculum, and present it to the San Francisco school board for approval. Charter schools in California receive state funding but are excused from many regulations, which is intended to allow greater innovation.

To those who contend that criminals should not be offered education, Schwartz replies that inmates “need to hold up a mirror, not kneel in pebbles ... “

A high school diploma, the sheriff says, can help inmates escape “the cycle of arrest and jail.”

Last spring, the school board signed off on the program. Earlier this month the school opened. Hennessey named it The Five Keys Charter School to remind inmates of the importance of five things: education, employment, family, community and recovery.

The program is receiving $1.3 million this year from the state to educate 260 inmates with 10 teachers. The school’s principal is Mary O’Mara, a former kindergarten teacher and also a principal at an exclusive Marin private school.

To satisfy state requirements, the Sheriff’s Department must prove its students are learning. With an average jail stay of 90 days, a September and June test schedule wouldn’t work. Five Keys will test students every month.

“They’re committed to breaking the cycle of recidivism by closing the achievement gap,” said California Charter Schools Association’s Larson. “It’s a very innovative solution that sets them apart.”

The new charter school provides classes at one of the men’s jails, one of the women’s facilities and outside jail walls in downtown San Francisco -- for inmates after they are released. Schwartz said she expected continued school attendance to become part of sentencing and probation for many.

Most of the inmates are awaiting trial on various charges. Others have been convicted and are doing time for such crimes as drug possession, prostitution and domestic violence. Those facing the most serious charges -- murder, for example -- are not permitted to enroll. But for those who do, motivation is not a problem.

A middle-aged man with a bushy mustache and an orange jail suit scans a page of faces with a word under each to describe the expression. “I am excited,” says Soriano Catarino haltingly. The class is English as a second language. “I don’t have much education in Mexico. I went to school for five years. This opportunity is why I want to learn.”

In the morning’s math class, older men have trouble grasping addition with decimal points. “Whatever skills they had,” said teacher Tyson Amir-Mustafa, “have been lost.”

In another classroom, Sheryl Corke is teaching the old stumper, plural possessive. A onetime middle school teacher, Corke said she feels safer teaching inmates than she did teaching youngsters in San Francisco’s public schools. Her inmate students aren’t that different either. “Substance abusers,” she explained, “are the social age they were when they started using drugs.”

Looking for ways to reach their pupils, history teacher Meredith McMonigle leads a discussion about parental guidelines on CDs and cassettes. Her class recently completed a New York Times black history month crossword puzzle for high school students with clues such as “Civil Rights heroine Parks” (Rosa) and “Where Charles Rangle and Maxine Waters serve (Congress).

The charter school incorporated a previously successful jail program, called Resolve to Stop the Violence Project (RSVP). Its courses stress offender accountability, and victims of rape and other violent crimes visit the jail to tell inmates their stories. Offenders come “to understand the grave consequences of their horrible actions,” Schwartz said.

Dr. James Gilligan of Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Bandy Lee of Yale Medical School compared the San Francisco inmates in RSVP with a control group of equally violent inmates not in the program. Over a year, those enrolled in RSVP had a 79 percent reduction in violent rearrests, compared with the control group.

Which is not to say that everything runs smoothly. After teacher Sarah Morris stretched her wrist in class, which made a popping sound, one student called out, “You pop!” Then another inmate uttered a sexual innuendo, and was shouted down by his fellow students. Later that night the dispute escalated into a fight. By the next morning, seven of the teacher’s students had been transferred to the high-security jail.

Before she came to the jail school, English teacher Alice Hargis taught the troubled children of wealthy parents at a “therapeutic boarding school in Costa Rica.”

In contrast, she finds her new students refreshingly motivated.

She has given each a black and white marbled composition book, the kind that students have written in for generations. The men are proud of their essays.

But because the notebooks are considered potential weapons, the notebooks must remain in the classroom.

In the back of the notebooks, students have written words they want to learn. One page read “gentrification,” “mutable,” “able,” “letaraly,” and “deploma.”