Crowded Prison Tries to Make Room for the 3 Rs Behind Bars

The old state prison perched on the rocky San Francisco Bay shoreline here is known for innovative inmate programs in the arts and academics.

But the state’s new Bridging Education program is a radical departure because education never before has been offered to newly arrived inmates, let alone in cellblocks.

“I tell the teachers, ‘You are going where no one else has gone,’ ” said Jean Bracy, the prison’s superintendent of correctional education. “For 20 years, it was: ‘Do your time.’ We let [the inmates] come in and vegetate.”

The logistics for delivering education to housing units are as difficult at San Quentin as anyplace else.

The North Block has five tiers of cells accessible by stairways. Sweating inmates do calisthenics on the landings. Corridors below are crammed with bunk beds because the prison, like others, is severely overcrowded.

Laura Bowman, a former middle school teacher from Novato, recently got her on-the-job training there under the eye of superiors.

“It’s not so different,” Bowman said. “You have to convince people it’s good for them if they resist, and there are overachievers who want to please the teachers. Some have a million reasons about why they are not able to do the work.”

Peering through steel mesh and bars, Bowman talked to Robert White Jr., 44, of Richmond about his homework and about preparing a resume. White has welding and construction skills, plus a high school diploma, but he also is a recovering addict who reckons he has been in prison five or six times.

“I need help, not to be locked up,” he said. “Bridging will give me refresher skills.... It’s OK. It’s better than nothing.”

One San Quentin “classroom” is a gym that has been converted into makeshift housing for 380 inmates.

At a table to one side, Theresa Hillman sits with one of her students, Arthur Quinones, 32, of San Jose. The former auto loan officer is serving a 16-month sentence for child abandonment.

Quinones enjoys writing essays for the Bridging Education program and says he is taking away a positive attitude. “You have lots of time to think,” he said. “I chose to make the best of it.”

Hillman, who has a doctorate in education, came to the prison to continue her work with at-risk students, she said. “No one knows what’s effective, but we’re doing our best.”