 OTAN Outreach and Technical Assistance Network. Good morning, those of you out there. We're here to talk to you about our experience in adult education in our environment. I don't know how hard it is for students to get into your schools, but it's really hard for students to get into our schools. We have really high energy requirements. And if our employers and judges are elected to make the final decision, they're going to go to our school. Our school will all single-stack. Our schools are in gay communities. We have 33 campuses, a uniform, directly enforced. Our students are told what to do and when to do it. They have to be in the rooms at certain times. Great attendance. Great attendance. You would have. You would think. You would think. Our schools are all racist environments for the family. And it's not an interest. It's the students. So clearly, we are with the prison system. We know that from the catalog. My name is Patrick O'Neill. I am an administrator in the office of correctional education. What do they do? That's what we call our school district. I'm here with my team, most of them, wonderful folks who are passionate about what we do. Our district is actually the largest geographically in the state of California. Our northern most school, I don't know where north is, is on the original border. Our southern most school is Juana, Jason. The school church is just like pretty much in high school. We have our principal, vice-principal. We have our department. We have academic department. We have CTE. We have corporate faculty. We have theling department, counselor, students. We call those guys correctional offices. All of our students are convicted felons. But we simply call them students. And some of them actually want to read the CGN, January. at backgrounds you can't even imagine. When I was teaching transition through the entry course, we were working on filling out a job application. What are the questions? Every job application that I'm aware of is so scary now. Finally, one of my students said to me, Mr. O'Neal, my mother's soul type when I was four years, she needed my time. This is the story of O'Neal at the time. I want to tell you about one of my first students, his name was Sam, or we'll call him Sam. He was an energetic 25-year-old. This was his second round as a guest at the State of California. And he was eager to get back onto the streets because he had a son who needed his guidance. His son turned 13 and started running with a long crowd. Through the map, Sam was 12, and his boy was half a dozen. Sam never knew his dad. All he knew was that he was killed in a gang where I had blinded friends with a mystic. This is generational poverty. This is generational justice involved. Approach about social security members, most of them, 50% of them don't know it. 85% of a population is either HIV effective or have seen it effective. Few of our students even know somewhat about history and art. This is time. Any of you want them to go into the classroom flip on a computer and just ignore what's going on in your neighborhood in terms of who you normally battle with getting bangers? Let's talk about our educators. So most of us that go into education think about hope. They can't wait to sing the ABC song in the kindergarten or watch those fourth graders divide or have that intellectual discussion with our high schoolers. Imagine you're sitting, you're watching a nuclear family at a dinner in the soon to be college graduate analysis. I think I'm gonna get a teacher's credential because I went to stage at San Quentin for Folsom. Where I must dancers would fly at this analysis. I don't think any of us, maybe somebody over here did, I didn't start my career with the notion of teaching in a prison, even though my dad wanted me to. So I like to tell people that I went from being an administrator from all girls Catholic school to an all boys boarding school in the gay community. That's my reality. One of the other issues we have is because of the state law our teachers have to have a K-12 production. We can't hire adult educated teachers. We're working on changing that, but it hasn't happened yet. Our leadership legislature doesn't believe that online learning is real learning. So we can't count those instructional analysts. So we have some hurdles. But that's why we're really happy to be part of Eli learning what there could be. So I came in this dark ugly picture. Let me clean it up a little bit for you. Our students, they know the metric system better than any other. I have no idea what analysis something has been paid to. They are eager to learn. They're so eager that they will accept a smuggled cell phone so they can watch college videos. That can result in them being in prison six months longer. They have time, they have lots of time. They're very good at rationalizing things to justify and things and convincing people things to do. We get trained how to not fall for their stuff. They are creative, prisons are the greenest place you will ever see. I don't mean bushes and trees. Nothing goes unused. At one point I saw this little origami critter, this little round origami critter that called people. Amazing. For some weird reason they have the best penmanship I've ever seen in my life. All of them, all of them. They get a certificate. We have the ugliest certificates that come out of our computer. They'll trade five or six cup of noodles to be able to send it home. Cup of noodles is money in prison. Because we are committed to reducing the sickness, we endure, we thrive and we grow and what we do. We know that college or some college drastically reduces the chance of reciting. But we're not there in terms of technology. Our schools would tend to work. Window lets it wind up. Ever seen a preschool classroom? It was always good. It was kind of out of the open, but in the corner, that's our reality. We have to watch our people. Not fun sometimes. But before I introduce my colleagues, I do want to tell you that the past seven years have been the most rewarding of my career. I have never encountered more students who are more ready, willing and eager to learn and grateful for everything that we do. When we have a graduation, the pride on these family members' faces is incredible. And our pay is better than most by a thousand dollars per second. Just saying. Never think. So I'm here with my colleagues. Two of my teaching colleagues are here. One, we have a video. Another member of our team is from our Enterprise Technology, BIS. And then we have our grandpa. And then we have our grandpa. So I'm going to let them introduce themselves. Thank you. Exactly. Thank you. We practice this a lot. Practice makes perfect. My name is John Richings. I'm a correctional educator at Pelican Bay State Prison. I was a public school teacher for roughly 18 years in an alternative setting. And then I ended the program in the public schools. And so then I became, fortunately, a correctional educator in Sousaville, California at a California Correctional Facility. Mr. O'Neill mentioned that we have 32 institutions. They all have different missions. They're all different levels. They're level one, two, three, and four. You have to get promoted from a one or two to get to a three or four. So not only do you violate on the street, but then you come into a facility and then you get promoted into a more restrictive environment. And even though the public education code called the least restrictive environment, by the time they get to me in Pelican Bay in Crescent City, over five yards are in level four. Two are in addition to level four in the restricted custody, so they don't get to come out and play with others. We have approximately 1,800 inmates. We call them students. And of the students in our facility, about 800 of them are without a high school completion. So we have AB 1, just like the adult schools. We have AB 2, just like the adult schools. AB 3 might be adult schools. ASC, CTE. Then we have college. We have two year college and then we have four year college. What I do is I take them from AB E3 to a high school diploma. And I use multiple ways for them to get there. My reality is on the five yards in Hart prison, we are basically satellite schools within a single school within a facility. We have an admin that is a hub and then we have our five yards and our teacher located on all five yards and we don't see the other teachers day-to-day. We might see them once a month. So you have four teachers on your yard in my area, one AB, one two, one two three. Then we have a college teacher and then we have a CTE teacher. We also have a couple other teachers that have come online in the last couple of years, Mr. O'Neill talked about with his transitions. Our entire goal is to re-enter them into society in a pro-social manner. So when I talk about a promotion going from a one, two yard to my yard, they picked up another case. Sounds kind of cool, sounds really cool, but what they did is on the inside, they made either another mistake or they were told by somebody else to do something and they needed to do it. It's their reality. And the game politics stops at the school's doors. They all work together in our facility. Doesn't matter what color, what race, what religion, they will help each other in my classroom. And then they might be enemies out on the yard and then rinse and repeat. They come back in the next day and they all work together. It's magic to watch these people work together. You then have tutors and clerks that sometimes if a student doesn't pick it up, my students have failed their work. They failed in the public schools. They failed in YOP. They failed in the lower school levels and then they come to me and they say, hey teacher, I'm not very good at this. And I say, look, I'm not very good either. I'd be at heart. I'm not. I'm here with you. But we started what happened. We had an interaction. We liked sports. We talked about the Warriors. Most of them are from L.A. so they automatically hate the Warriors. Now we have pro-con essays. They don't know what they're talking about. It doesn't matter as we go through discourse versus debate conversations with these people. Once they start talking, they realize they're just like everybody else. They have goals and dreams and hopes. And I tell them just like Mr. O'Neill said, if we don't allow them to enter society and pro-sorcially, they're going to come back. We have to transition them to the outside. 74% and two years of college don't come back. That's a big number because if they don't get into this case, 75% do come back. That's a real problem. So we have lifetime by committee, which is when they come in for five years, 10 different times, we try to stop that cycle. Now we're here for D-Lag. We're here for distance learning and technology. We have a plethora of riches. We are running over when it comes to hardware and software. They're everywhere. Smartboards, dumpboards, monitors, computers. What we don't have yet, and then we are probably six to 12 months away, is a blended learning model where we can teach. They can learn a little bit before they get there with a laptop. We can give them an assignment. They can come back in and they do have a ton of time. And some of these people want to get out and they want their diplomas and they want to be able to return with a skill. Technology is going to allow us to do it, but we have to be restricted because of our population, which is what causes most of our issues right now. It's not a lack of, it's the inability for us to be able to use it in a pro-social manner where they're not out getting in trouble doing things with our machines. EIS people are working overtime because they have 24 hours a day to figure out how to break it. And these people only work 8 to 10 hours to figure out how to lock it all down. So they have a two to one advantage over us, but the ones that want to learn, I mean, I've been responsible or near responsible for hundreds of GEDs in high school diplomas. I always say in my last lesson that I gave to the immigrants before I retire, I'm going to say, I stayed at the stage of millions of dollars. They got $60,000 a year to house these guys. If I can get them on the streets and they don't come back, I say 60 grand a year plus, they get an incentive of six months off to get this high school diploma and a lot more incentivization to finish their college. That is so they don't come back. As a good educator with our technology available to us, my entire goal every day when I go to work is for them to learn something. We do discipline not at all. We do classroom management every day and we teach them individual lessons like how to network for you. I don't know. Last time you tried that, this is what happened. You think it's going to be a difference. We try to teach them to think that somewhere along the way they've lost that cause and effect, but this distance learning program is going to empower them through some of our Canvas programs to make better choices. If we are successful, we are going to be able to help roughly 105,000 people after that don't have their diploma and the other part, we're trying to get to go through college. Our director of BRP, Brand Show said anybody without high school diploma is illiterate. We need to end the literacy in our correctional facilities. That is what this small group is trying to do. We have a plethora of riches of hardware and software we need to implement. That is where we're going next for our blended learning, and I think we can do it. It's just going to take a little bit of time. Thank you for your time. Thank you, John. Our next speaker couldn't be with us today, so he's done things. Hi, I'm Brian Bull, academic teacher for Valley State Adult School. I'm going to introduce you to the role technology plays in our academic environment. Located in Chichelic, California, there are just under 3,000 incarcerated men. Within the walls of ESP lies Valley State Adult School, a campus that covers educational needs from adult-based education classes to career technical education and even a bachelor's degree program through Fresno State. About half of the population attend classes at the school. Here on our ABE classes, students use technology to supplement direct instruction from the teacher. Each classroom contains desktop computers with the appropriate level academic software. ABE 2 classes utilize the CHI 3000 while the ABE 3 and GED classes use Aztec software. Our CTE classes work hard to keep up with the advancement of technology outside of these walls. For example, in the electrical program, students have a reference code book to answer technical questions related to their program. These are large paperback reference manuals that trade workers outside of the incarcerated setting house on their laptops. However, the electrical program is piloting an CHI 3000 math program to help build the foundational skill level of the students. Students in our college courses are issued a laptop for use with their class. We're said college in Fresno State utilize canvas to post lectures, instructional materials and to receive homework from their students. These are the first students at the institution to the opportunity of a blended learning environment. Unmased houses at Valley State Prison also have the ability to access supplemental educational material. Every inmate is issued a tablet that contains an open stacks library of educational materials and Khan Academy videos that can be accessed for free. These tablets utilize an institution-wide network so these materials can be accessed within the individual's housing unit. There has been an incredible change within the technological environment within CDCR in the last few years. But while this is a start, our foundation is far from solidified. One-to-one laptop distribution is only occurring with post-secondary students at the current time. Plus, the inmate network isn't accessible in the housing units. College students must take the laptop outside and situate themselves on the far end of the yard to catch the network from nearby buildings. They can be hindered at this access at any time by yard recalls, weather, or any other custody security concern. Teachers have also been tasked with the responsibility of remediating lower-level technical support functions such as enabling accounts and resetting passwords. However, ongoing training is needed to build the capacity of staff so this becomes a natural process. As you can see, VSB has introduced technology to our population. But ongoing security concerns, training for both the students and staff, the purchase of additional laptops, and the installation of an institution-wide inmate network are all necessary to move forward in the process. I hope this gave you some insight to the education and the correctional setting here at VSB and the foundation being laid by CDCR. Hi, I'm Brian. So, we started up north. We're in the middle. Now we're going to go down south. Before we move on, a couple things I do want to say about Brian's particular case. Valley is what we use 90% of the time to model new things. So if there is something in our system that is out ahead, likely to be tried at Valley. So some of the things he talks about, particularly the information available on those tablets, is not widely available in our system. His prison is out ahead. If it works there, then we will load it out elsewhere. But just I wanted to put that into a little context. Thanks. Good question. The tablets that they're using, I have a question. Hi, my name is Yura. I teach at Lancaster, especially prison. It's in LA County. And when they're saying, now we're going to go down south. What you saw there on the video is like, oh, wow, look at all this technology. So, I've only been to CCR for a year. It's my one year anniversary. And I never knew about the education system within the Department of Corrections. And basically I moved and went to the prison because it was close to home, because I was community two and a half hours one way to a school of public school where I had been working and I had bought a property and I could only afford a property out yonder, right? So I was driving a lot. And that's when I found out about CCR and I thought, well, let me check that out. And everybody I talked to, they said, I really like it. It's really great. We don't have young parents. Okay. So I taught 82, 83, a GED and I can say they're high. And I have taken a group of students from 82 to GED this year because I kind of changed with them, which has been great to see them. When I stepped into my classroom at CCR, so I am at a level four prison and I have a lot of life without the possibility for all students. I do have a few that do have some dates for release upcoming maybe in 20 years or 10 years. So we have it divided into yards and I'm in what's called B yards and currently I'm the only teacher there. So it is pretty isolating. Isolating. You're supposed to have students isolated and you're supposed to have three classrooms and we have a shortage of teachers. So I'm teaching 83 GED and cyber high currently. When I walked into the classroom I started teaching, I'm dating myself, I started teaching in 1995 and I felt like I had stepped back to 1995 because there was complete lack of technology in my classroom. I use my whiteboard all the time and that's basically all I am using. There is a smart board installed on one of the walls that has never worked because it was supposed to be with a laptop and I only have an old desktop. But the exciting news is that I now I have six functioning desktops in my classroom and I was finally able to get my password and it took several months to get my password to get myself situated into great student accounts and to teach some of the students how to get on and we still struggle with what's my password. I've gotten my law on the difference between capital and lowercase letters. How do you operate a mouse? Wait, it's locked, what do I do? I don't have attention for the students. So we've gotten the six desktops going. They use Aztec. They use Achieve 3000. They use the Kaplan. There are some online courses that can pay to prep for their GED. The good news is I was told that we're getting laptops next week. So I'll be getting them in my classroom and I'm thinking that how do I get 18 students locked on at the same time when we don't know how to use a keyboard? So they all know how to use smart phones because they all have them, even though they're not supposed to and if you get caught with a smart phone that takes more months of incarceration. Last week we finally got our tablets and it was like Christmas, Monica birthday, weddings, everything rolled into one. I have never seen so many happy people at one time and they love it. And you know what really got me so excited is they came, you're not supposed to bring the tablets into the education but they smuggled them. They get them in and then they're sitting in my classroom and they're like, I can study. So they weren't even so excited about watching sports or listening to music. They were like, oh my god, there's any patient stuff on here. So most of my students, I can say are motivated learners. There are some hardcore guys that will just absolutely refuse to go to education and I usually go to the housing units and I talk to them and the funny thing, we record it, right? The funny thing is somebody cursed me before and flipped me off and told me to get out of there. He was never going to come to education but the fact that I went to see him and said you need to be in class, guess what? He has the best attendance on. So they're really, really motivated and they really want the technology. They all know how to use cell phones but they don't know how to use a keyboard. They don't know how to use a computer but they really, really want to and what's exciting for me with the technology being slowly incorporated, so I see it over this one year span. Now when next week I'm supposed to have laptops, that's so exciting. I used to see the technology being rolled out and I could tell them, it's like, look guys, we're working on a splendid learning because they want to go back to their cell and they want to learn more. We have a program it's called PLMP where they have tutors. We're tapping into some of the inmates who are further along in their reputation that can be tutors and we have some real map with us on the yard that will sit with my GED students and will tutor them so they're really excited to be able to use their computer and I've shared the time with my inmates. I said here's what we're working on. So the plan is you're going to be able to take your laptop and tap into some additional videos say maybe you didn't understand the map lesson from the day. Well, there's such a thing as comment on me, you can go into the videos and watch the videos and further your education that way or repeat some assignments or do some additional assignments to see whether it's your knowledge and they're super excited about it. The ones that have the possibility to get out they're they're really focused on I want to get my degree I want to get an accounting degree or I want to become a barber or I want to get an electronics repair person so they have goals and one of the things that in education in the prison system what I really love about it is that they still like wow I can do this you know when they get an assignment back from me I also put smiley faces on or a little comment and they're like wow I forgot the smiley face before you know that's the little smiley face I taught second grade that was what I was teaching on the streets and I'm like you know people say how is the teaching of the prisoner it's no different than teaching second grade you know I use the same motivators you know I had you know putting a smiley face on the paper and saying well done or you know I have little stickers I put on showing their paper so they took the little smiley sticker and put it on their hat and they'll walk around the yard you know so they're really no different than regular students in terms of technology is a bit of a challenge because you know just getting some of the basics done you know done like how to operate the mouse how to operate the mouse keypad how to keyboard I'm really looking forward to doing some keyboarding with my students you know putting some of the stuff aside because when they do their GED tests I have quite a few students who haven't passed the reading language art course and because they couldn't navigate they have to say they but they can't type it so they're all this one out of time and I'm trying to coach them into okay visualize this because we didn't have the computers to really practice visualizing you're going to get the laptop and you're going to have to type your essay so don't write them on a piece of paper because they'll write the whole essay out by hand and then they try to type it and they're like this you know so a lot of my Christmas have or a lot of my students have been incarcerated 20 years, 20 more you know they've never seen a computer on the streets when they were out so this is all really really new for them and some of them are saying I think I'm too old for this or you know and I'm like no you're not and then you know when you see them I have my oldest GED student he's 68 years old and he was like Miss V that's what they call me I don't know old man over here I don't know how to use that now so I can sit with him and say look look he's just moving and now I'm looking and he did his first lesson on ASAC and he called himself old man old man I can do it it's kind of really funny they're just missed a word and so they really are motivated and I think that with the introduction of technology it's going to really open up a new world for them and it shows them too we believe in you it's not just us saying that you can do this you can do this and in terms of being able to enter back into real life after incarceration I think this will give them the tools to really be able to function I'll give you a job application how to do a training program online how to function in a real world on the streets we call it on the streets thanks so how often do you hear educators talk about when they were on the streets such an odd term our next presenter will be on a video she is from our enterprise information system I got it right that time again our district is the whole state and we're dealing with buildings that were never intended to deal with school and rehabilitation they're built to house people who want to leave so lots of challenges but this is Aaron and Aaron is amazed how he gives them I'm Erin Case IT manager with CDCR's Enterprise Information Services incarcerated population and community solutions team I appreciate the opportunity to participate in DELAC and TDLS I apologize I cannot be there in person with all of you our team is responsible for collaboration coordination and project management when it comes to all education technology efforts for the department as with all agencies changes to our work environment leading to 100% telework has changed the way in which we conduct business let's discuss some of the efforts and issues currently impacting our progress in October 2022 we completed the inmate domain redesign project which was a significant IT infrastructure effort requiring resources from multiple divisions within CDCR the project team consisted of approximately 40 people with the capital expenditure of about $16 million the goal was to significantly increase the number of incarcerated people participating in rehabilitative programs the successful implementation of this effort allows for more than 30,000 incarcerated students to access the online curriculum and allows the environment to be expandable able to support up to 1 million end point devices we have deployed over 6000 laptops to provide improved educational resources for face-to-face college students over the next 18 months we will provide laptops for correspondence college students and evaluate providing to GED high school diploma and ABE 1, 2 and 3 students this will be effective in providing technologically advanced tools for higher education of the justice involved we are also providing laptops for instructors and providing interactive whiteboards for all instructors to use to enhance their teaching and the content provided with the improved technology we are working to provide more professional development and training for both instructors and students through electronic methods reducing our overall output of printed paper products we are working with several other divisions to provide wireless access in all areas within our institutions this project has been hampered by supply chain issues as well as competing department priorities creating resource constraints taking information provided by DRP we have identified the first 11 sites which include bachelor program expansions for priority construction and installation of the wireless access points our team is small consisting of 12 people including our chief with support from local IT to handle onsite institutional activities we do not have dedicated IT staff to manage inventory, evaluate potential breaches or breakage or handle onsite issues without competing for resources for the rest of the institutional needs as of today our biggest concern is identifying and eliminating security breaches by incarcerated individuals in the community to circumvent security measures and violate policies for their own gain technology in the hands of the incarcerated poses unique concerns we chose to provide an internal solution which came with its own issues we are working to identify physical security measures to apply to the laptops as well as more stringent software security to alert IT, educational and custodial staff of the breaches and who is conducting them due to these security concerns DRP is forced to take another look at the deployment schedule to determine what we can do to provide better security, inventory management and investigative resources prior to handing laptops out to more incarcerated with less incentive to follow the rules and use the resources as intended security requirements limit the type of technology hardware and software we're allowed to provide and to use for example, Chromebooks are considered disallowable hardware for incarcerated students and Google Docs is not approved for staff use. The security measures put in place to enhance public safety and promote successful reintegration through education treatment and active participation in rehabilitative and restorative justice programs can also create roadblocks for educator students and IT we have to be creative in our decision making and focus on the business on providing specific needs and not the name brand solution they think will solve their problems it is the mission of EIS to be the catalyst that drives transformation across this department. EIS leverages technology innovation and process improvement to support the security, safety rehabilitation and efficiencies needed for a safer California through correctional excellence we are working in a collaborative manner with executive leadership directing priority of efforts, technological method of delivery and funding sources in addition to laptops we are deploying tablets to all incarcerated people statewide in all institutions and fire camps these tablets are intended to provide incarcerated people with enhanced communication and entertainment as well as rehabilitative resources the tablets allow incarcerated people access to incoming and outgoing electronic mail outgoing telephone and video calls incoming video messages and photos additional users have access to e-books, audio books podcasts, FM radio movie and music subscriptions department materials and mental health and rehabilitative resources we are working on a list of nearly 50 requests for more access and content by providing resources through multiple methods and for all incarcerated people to access we are able to decrease incarcerated violations, recidivism and generational incarceration to increase opportunities for higher education, work experience and preparation for life outside the institution we are providing opportunities to develop skills and abilities for the incarcerated population leading to a more successful retention of their freedoms and reduced societal impact from criminal activity and incarceration thank you so much for your time thank you Erin and now our queen our leader I'm just here to wrap it up really quickly can you come back to either your slide or John's slide where we have a picture of one of our institutions yes so my part of this to wrap it up is to talk about where we're going it's important to go back to where we are and where we've been and how we got here so our keynote speaker presented a list of things yesterday of how our students succeed what do they need to be successful and it listed a number of things supporting their family and their schools and as she went through that list it struck me and I leaned over to my partner and I said if they don't get those things she asked what happened if they don't get these things and I said they come to us that's how this works right that's that school to prison pipeline that is so talked about so how do they get here which you can't see in this picture is that I'm it's your magnetic personality here which you can't see in the picture there's my little red mark is there is what we call an LEF in our business we talk about the LEF a lot it's a lethal electrified fence lethal that goes around that and as Patrick said to get inside to get to us it takes a lot of work so they've come to us because they lack the things that they need to be successful they've come through that pipeline and when I came into my first role which was at a prison as a principal I walked on the yard and having spent a number of years in public education my first thought was this is what we've done by not providing the right things and the right ways and one of those right things in the 21st century is access to technology that will allow them to be successful and it's not we can't say it's you know oh we can point to the exact cause but this perfect storm comes together for most of our residents that just it shuts doors to them before they even know they exist so where are we going where is CDCR intending to go and take the school to prison pipeline and change it to what I term the prison to profession pipeline not just a job you give a guy a job he doesn't like it he doesn't find something to fill the gap you give him a profession you give him a skill and you give him the ability to feel proud about what he's doing he's never coming back to us he's got many more things to do on the outside but you can't do that you can go forward to my slide please yes you can't do that unless you set him up for success and our teachers are doing exactly that and they have been doing that for groups like this with golf pencils and paper for years and now they're getting their computers and they're starting to give them these access skills if you will but we have still large goals in what we're doing Patrick works on what we call our e-learning skills that we aren't addressing in the class just before you all walked in here he and John were talking about a wealth building of course how do you teach an individual who didn't have any means of generating their own income other than criminal activity to actually understand what it means to build wealth and find success these guys stood here in five minutes and germinated that course that will be provided through campus initially any student who wants to get it we are headed in the near term to a point where our institutions are covered with wireless in housing units so that they can take those passions that they have for learning and the time that they have for learning and extend it beyond the two hours of day that they can spend with us or if they're in CTE they're six hour gay they are passionate they ask all the time on the side of the wall that's not a staged photo that happens all over at this point they'll carry their laptops until they watch Canada catch so in our institutions they have a laptop that is very limited it was not intended to do anything other than to be a thin client to reach the cloud but because of some changes after COVID it now has to have doesn't exist right now that system is no longer available so they'll walk around they can't see we don't have the youth connected here's your wireless strength or the Starbucks sign so they use the Starbucks model simply by carrying it and waiting until Canada starts to move and then oh I'm going to sit right here until that stops and then once there are more guys inside that classroom and my signals weaker I'm going to move closer and they are going to have to get this done it's amazing to watch so we are going forward with as Erin has mentioned more wireless we're hardworking the first 11 institutions our plan was to have it done 18 months for all our institutions budget limitations it's going to take a little longer but we're going to get there we're also heading into an area where we're going to use more online educational resources we have a process called whitelisting and what that means is from the teacher to their administrator to DIS to me to people above me it takes that many people signing a piece of paper saying this is a worthy site and it's a secure site and the student can have will give them access well you can imagine that bureaucracy that wheel is slower than you know trying to roll a rock uphill we're trying to streamline that process and have more online educational resources when they've got that device when they can log in from their data room, sit around do whatever they want, watch videos and have access to just yesterday I had a fantastic conversation with the Aztec people about getting their e-pups right on our computers right and on those tablets that shall not be named as Erin mentioned if you request for putting things on the tablets vast majority of those requests are not the entertain itself they want education they want to be able, can I get to my college can I get, can I take classes on this tablet can I get my textbooks I'm not trying to carry around 15 different things can I, it's all that type of request now the other side that education doesn't cover it is the substance abuse mental health supports we're putting mental health supports on those tablets so that those late night let's be realistic late night I need drugs I need a fix and I can get it in this prison and I know it are being replaced with I can get on this tablet and remind myself of my coping skills remind myself that I can not do that our philosophy is the busier we keep them the less they have time for stuff like that so we are prioritizing putting a vast library of things on the tablets that are available to our general population the reality is with 13,000 students currently there are multitudes more than our weight for us so where are we going we're expanding the ability to deliver some blended learning some e-learning, some online activities to bridge the gap until they can get into one of our formal programs now beyond that we have this visionary in charge of our department and he runs around the world dropping what we call CVIs crazy brand ideas he embraces it but he is like the hit and run guy on the freeway he'll walk past you and say that's a great tool make it happen and then he leaves and then tell recently, 17 months ago those ideas were dropped in various gardens and they started sprouting using roots in different places but there wasn't a way to benefit if we're born in starberries here and starberries there and you've got fertilizer and I don't you're going to get two different results so in one of his crazy brand idea moments I think he had an idea that they needed an ad tech person to sort of start to correct all of this and make it happen and that's how I ended up here so Dr. Chopin I talked about things like virtual reality headsets right how do you teach someone the world if they're in the middle of an alien how do you inspire a guy like Ms. Lee said who's going to be with us the rest of his life having to sort of watch for doing something other than bear inside crime or nothing right we want to inspire him because there's never in California there's a never say never attitude one of my very posts runs an internal program for therapy docs he was the first person sentenced to multiple life sentences without possibility under the three strikes law in California as he'll tell you I wasn't a bad dude I was just multiply and awful I ended up here for 190 years what kind of inspiration can you have facing 190 years his inspiration came from dogs his inspiration got into the point where the governor signed the first order to get him out 13 years 190 went to go home and make life no skills nothing other than his passion for dogs his inspiration comes from his passion for dogs his inspiration comes from his passion for dogs but there's a never say never attitude he can get out so can it ruin us and it's our responsibility to make sure you send them away with the best possible chance to do that they need to be able to get online fill out applications they need to understand social services they need to have a connection they need to strengthen that bond to say oh you're going to class are going here are some resources reach out to them in that spirit we started early conversations providing a tablet of sorts that will enable them to continue having access to specific resources for 30, 60, 90 days whatever it is it's still in a very crazy idea stage but instead of just handing them money that will be used and gone we want to hand them something that says you recognize you're probably going to get a stable for the first few months and share out we recognize that that's going to be the most critical period in your am I going to recidivate or not and we're going to give you this so that you can continue to find those resources you can have internet access to a life or jobs you can get a hold of any of the services you need right there and maybe some of those most of the points that we gave you will continue on as well just to keep you going so those early conversations are really where we're headed we're trying to again change the dynamic of our students can succeed maybe to our students will succeed and not only will they succeed but they're going to thrive they're going to go out prison to profession and then to come back and stand up next to us and talk to you guys next time because we do that at some of our conferences and tell you what role technology plays for them in being successful because as Patrick has pointed out there are ways to put together virtual ATM machines virtual services on the web nothing is impossible and thankfully for us we have a leader who really honestly believes that and amazing folks who are like that's an idea that's where we're headed I hope that you've gotten some insight into what we do and what these guys do I don't do anything except listen to what they ask and go make it happen so my job is just with the fertilizer I'm sorry thank you very much do you have any questions I want to write so just a little deeper on Achieve 3000 so Achieve 3000 are they doing diploma coursework in there or is it more remediation for like English and math skills so and the sites that I've been associated with we just got the Achieve up and running we have cyber hide for our high school diploma program so and they really are looking at the at risk throughout the state trying to incorporate everybody into that we most of the staff that I know use as an at-stack and then at a lower levels of reading horizons and the Achieve is just starting Spark 3000 just starting to come into its own so we use it for remediation depending on where you are in the reading horizons environment or the at-stack it's just one or two choices we have a lot of resources we have a lot of breath and the only depth I know of our reading horizons and at-stack currently but we are starting to work on the others so I'll throw some out I'm listening to you talk and just talking about the literacy, digital literacy so we're incorporating North Star Torrance so we signed up with OTAN our agency and I just I heard listening to you and I know how your plan is going but it was just you sounded so bright to implement North Star I wrote it into the part of the family awesome I think it's really cool it's on a personal level but my wife has a cousin who just got out after 28 years and we've been out for almost four, almost five years now but we spent and they kind of grew up together and they were very young and just watching him come back so he did connect with some organizations in the area that just kind of have those basic supports and I know he got his diploma while he was inside but he didn't do college work he didn't roll in at the community college when he got out and I just remember he did have this deep struggle to connect online and there's just the online interface and it's just and also this is going to make it real simple but I'm going to say simple is keyboarding just his ability to type and I was a man he was just I feel like he just kind of had that stronger digital literacy piece he may have had it very smart well read just so I just kind of just wanted to share back to you guys that you're doing great thanks Hilton it's very inspirational it's always been an interesting thing for me talking to students who've been in the system there was a man I dealt with he was 49 getting ready to go home he'd been in the system since he was 13 and he had no concept of you know I'm going to go to a movie I'll just get a newspaper sorry dude I need to call my grandma I'll just go to the payphone sorry dude I mean yeah it's it and so what you're talking about I'm hearing strongly they need to know things like keyboarding we move from giving them $200 to a card when they get out that was a paradigm shift what do I do with this card some things just like management money management society has changed so much for somebody that really hasn't been integrated and just all the stories you would share about being inside those things you guys already know have those things that happen inside or those things that were commodities that they could make if there was anything that could be reshaped into something that could create best chefs from the simplest my clerk when I was at a site was the first to pilot the video visiting during COVID now that if you want to talk about something that he had been down 28 years at that point and so just the video visiting they have cell phones so they know that you can do that but just the fact that now as opposed to someone coming in his environment and sitting in a room like this where they can sit across the table now he's in someone else's environment so he comes back and he's sitting there and he's not really doing much this day after he's piloted so it's kind of the thing in his thoughts and I said hey what's up he's got a piloted video visiting yesterday and I said how'd that go I kept this video inside my sister's house and she had been a child the last time he came here and he I absolutely really I just, this guy was great very, very great personality he's sitting on these books and he goes she walked me around her house and I'm wondering why this is a problem for him and I'm like well was there something wrong with her house or he goes did you know some people had two ovens two, two ovens she opened them they were both real working ovens did you know people have two ovens that happened and you could just see on his face he realized it's fine suddenly now that hit him in the face the time his house all had been here stuck, stagnant and his implied message to me was you have to help me because I'm not ready for that if I'm not ready for two ovens I am not ready for not having a bus schedule that I pull out of my back pocket and Ryan points out some some things we don't talk about here there was a lot of dark humor gallows humor the funny stories on the inside if I tried to tell those at a party at night they wouldn't think I would have a great funny but I would look around and go well this is a reality for some people I had to also get out after 27 and 37 years in education isn't just to get the GED they don't know how to speak to the or they don't know how to speak to an officer they have to code switch they have to be able to understand and they can learn it in Canvas we can help them in so many ways in the virtual reality I was in a program and there was a welding program they never had a stick of metal in their hand it was all virtual and they came out with four certificates out of the vibe and they could make $80 an hour when they got out and all I had to do was go get the aluminum on the outside that you couldn't do virtually and these guys were like okay so teach, what do I call you teach what do I do and I go get a small business loan you're going to get a van you're going to figure out who needs you know you to work for them and if you can do those things you'll never see me again and they go I have no idea to do those things I don't know much of our GC people they will fail GED occasionally because they're not done learning from you yet so in my class we talk about real-world situations so funny thing is hey you're 46 years old you got to go to the doctor bad things are going to happen you get too much worth of medicine what are you going to do what do you want me to do I go down the med line we're over, thank you folks