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Narrator: Otan Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Lynne Ruvalcaba: As Neda said, we are the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation with an emphasis on the "are." What we do is all about preparing learners to leave our community and come back to all of yours. And so our work is very important. And when we joined DLAC, we were one of a kind. We remain one of a kind. So our work does not exactly align with the work that you are all doing. It's a bit different. And our presentation today is going to emphasize how we've worked with some of those differences. So with that said, we are CDCR.

PATRICK O'NEILL: So good morning. You will see on the slide here, as soon as the curtain opens up, our mission and our value statement. I'll let you read that. Nothing's worse than reading a slide show to people. Basically, we are here to house an intake folks who haven't gotten along well in society and get them ready to return to society.

The misconception that we work at breaking down every single day is that folks are sent to prison as punishment, not for punishment. They're sent to us for rehabilitation. And that's what we do. The next slide you'll see is just a short video that's about us. It's very short. Well, medium short.

Narrator: As part of its mission to facilitate successful reintegration of people back to the community, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is deploying secure laptops to incarcerated people taking part in educational programs.

Speaker 1: In the meantime, in this class, there's a midterm to do.

Narrator: The laptops are distributed in phases. The first being provided to students in college programs, including Folsom State Prisons Partnership with Sacramento State University.

DR. DAVID ZUCKERMAN: The laptops are a godsend. The laptops are really transformative to what we can do. I really applaud the vision of CDCR and the ambition of CDCR to put these laptops in these students hands. So we use Canvas, which is a learning management system. It basically extends everything that happens in a classroom into the online environment.

Before we had the laptops, we were still face-to-face. But it was much more difficult for students to do work. And so they would get packets, and the packets would have all of their assignments in it, all of their reading, all of their work. And these guys would write out their answers in longhand. They would take all their quizzes with a pencil.

Narrator: These laptops allow students to work on their coursework in approved locations throughout the prison by accessing a secure internal Wi-Fi Network. Before the laptops, students were limited to doing computer work in the classroom only.

Michael Love: I would get off work at 2 o'clock. I would shower, come down to education, and I would get there around between 2:30 and 2:35. Then I would have about 25 minutes to enter whatever papers that I had into the computer before class started at 3:00. So what the laptop has done is that it has allowed me through Word-- to do all of my assignments in Word. And it doesn't matter if I can upload them then. I just upload them anytime I have access to Wi-Fi or two minutes before class. So it just makes it so much more better. And I'm also able to, I think, get a little better quality of work because I'm a little bit more alert because I'm not as tired as I was.

Robert Thomas: We find anywhere we can get Wi-Fi and somewhere for us outside of the building, outside of our cell, and we're able to log on to Canvas and do our work, submit our work, interact with the professors through our discussions. And it's very helpful for us because it helps us feel like we're a part of the real school, like Sac State, even though we're in here for us incarcerated. It's very important because it helps us to get ready for the world, for the next step because everybody's not going to be in here forever. This is rehabilitation. So we all have a chance to be home one day.

Narrator: This technology transforms the way teachers teach, allowing greater access to professional content, resources, and interactive lesson plans. It also creates a more engaged learning environment and allows teachers to incorporate different learning styles.

Ken Spencer: It has just been a absolute game changer for these guys that are in these programs. It brings their experience into a more real world experience when they have something they have to be responsible for and take care of and make sure it's working. And you got guys engaged in their education more fully for longer periods of time. They're concentrating on good stuff and the rehabilitation.

DR. DAVID ZUCKERMAN: We at Sacramento State are really proud of these guys. We had 26 students last semester in this program. It's now 35. 20 of the 26 earned dean's list for outstanding grades. And given all of the challenges that they face in this environment, that's extraordinary. So we're very proud to be here. We're thrilled with our partnership with CDCR. We're grateful for the support that we have and we are most grateful for the dedication of these students.

Speaker 2: Agency overview. So it was interesting when I was watching that and I saw someone in college. And I've seen students go from AB2 to AB3. And they'd be walking a big-- carrying a laptop. And you're like, you're in college now? You were just maybe two. So you can see the progression with some of your students has been really great. If we look up here, ABE, AB1, 2, 3, we have those. We progress students through those.

High school diploma through cyber high-- high school equivalency. That will be your GED classes we offer. Vocational education, which is great. If you walk through our voc programs-- I remember coming out of 15 years of regular ed, and I went to the voc programs, and the first thing I thought of was like, why don't we have these at regular ed?

I mean, the certification the hands on experience are getting is incredible. They're going through electronics. I see masonry, a host of things that you can see that they're doing that they're going out with real-life skills and being able to graduate with. College programs. We have a host of them up here.

They talked about Sac State. At our institution, we have Coastline and Feather River has correspondence. And they can get their two-year degree. We have a cohort right now going through Fresno State that's got face to face. We have Merced college that's face to face getting their two-year degree.

Actually, I had some paperwork that a person brought me in my mentoring program. He goes, I think I'm going to be able to get a master's through this on something. And I hadn't researched it. And I'm like, great. Now we're going to figure out how to get a master's.

And I think that it's just tremendous. Obviously, we have a transitional education and some life skills, financial skills before they on parole. And we're doing that through about 1,000 staff members and that's throughout the state of California.

PATRICK O'NEILL: We've built in think and reflection time.

Erin Case: Yes, absolutely. So our team members. Obviously, there's more people up there on the board than are here today, but Dr. Lynne is really our gatekeeper, our glue. She's the coordinator or collaborator between the business and IT. It's really important to identify the technology needed, but not duplicate efforts.

So we have Patrick and Bryan. John and Vera were not able to come today, but these four are our experts. They're out in the field. They're at headquarters. They know the institutions. They know the programs. And they're helping build the plan for our unique environment.

I am IT, so I am not an educator. And I'm not the one that makes the decision on yes or no either. I take the information that they all come to me with. And then I can present it to our agency. So CDCR's Enterprise information services is a thousand member team of various IT folks who handle all things IT for CDCR.

In a year, we have several hundred projects that we work on. So we're battling and lobbying for resources. And that's kind of my job is to fight for those resources so we can get things done.

And then, of course, we have Mary Ann, our coach.

PATRICK O'NEILL: So we're going to do this a little backwards. We're going to start with what we've accomplished and then explain to you what it took to get us there. So these are our major accomplishments. Are we on the right slide? I apologize.

CDCR was not a perfect fit for this program. You all are looking at one site. We're looking at a site of 33 schools. I hesitate with that number because it changes the governor's closing things.

Otan CDCR, we needed to have our own pathway. And so that was a lot of the work we did. We focused on our needs, distance learning, creating a vision for it. We dance in front of the legislature a lot.

And the legislature can only do little tiny nuggets of information. And they have to be really shiny little nuggets. And so that's a lot of what we do is sell the nugget and then kind of come up with a vision.

We've created three site plans and then a strategic plan for all the sites that will move us along and prepare the big framework and then give them something to work through as they stand their programs up. We were able to take a new approach to Ideal. We don't know if it's liked or not, but it's what we had to do to-- we talk about a square peg in a round hole sometimes. But it's really what the star-shaped peg into the rectangular hole. So it's pretty difficult, but we got there.

Bryan Boel: And expound on that is when we talk about a site plan, we're not talking about a geographic area and just a school system. We've got 31 different sites within California, and they're all at different custody levels too. So what would happen is something that could-- and we're talking about level one, which is your least restrictive environment, all the way to level 4, which is maximum security.

So what we might be able to do at a level 2 that would be there no way is going to happen at a level 4. We're not giving a person a power cord at a level 4, where we might at a level 2. And so hence, we couldn't just do one.

It was a pretty daunting task when we first looked at it. And we said, OK, we're just going to write one site plan. And we went, wait a minute. This isn't going to work.

Erin Case: And then you add in the complexity of the fact that each institution is run like its own little kingdom. And the administration at that institution is not part of DRP. They are division of adult institutions. So they are custody. And they run it. They get to make the rules. So each one has to be slightly different and tailored towards that administration.

PATRICK O'NEILL: So think in your district, you have somebody, superintendent speaks and people listen. Our wardens ask, what's a superintendent? And they hire and fire and make all the decisions.

Lynne Ruvalcaba: One last thing I'll throw in is for those of you in public systems, anyone who's been in a public system ever, think if you had one school, and it was a non-public school, a residential treatment facility and a K-12 all on the same campus. And you're being asked to make sure that what you're putting together meets the needs of all your learners. And that's what you're looking at.

PATRICK O'NEILL: And they're felons. Just saying.

[laughing]

Lynne Ruvalcaba: They are criminally challenged individuals.

PATRICK O'NEILL: I don't know if they're challenged.

Bryan Boel: I can go to this one. That's fine.

PATRICK O'NEILL: Accomplishments. OK, this is the one I thought I was doing. So I apologize.

Bryan Boel: That's OK.

PATRICK O'NEILL: We have three-- we have three individual sites, each represented by the teachers at the three sites. We've created a draft strategic plan. And the other piece that we saw is we needed some advisory folks around us to guide us. So in our system, we have leadership groups around the content areas.

So we're developing an edtech leadership group of folks who have a heightened interest in this area who will advise and frankly, do some of the work as we have different challenges or different pieces that need to be looked at, like how are we going to address the lack of digital literacy amongst our students and teachers? How are we going to do that?

Erin Case: All right. So team building. As you probably know, most of us are working remote. Most of us, being me, I think Lynne and Patrick and not the teachers, not those that are on site.

PATRICK O'NEILL: You don't phone in a lesson plan.

Erin Case: Yeah, exactly. So we aren't in the same location, though, either. We have people who are in the farthest South to the farthest North and everywhere in between. So our ability to team build for this effort has really been done through technology. A lot of Teams, IMs, emails, calls, and then in-person events like this.

PATRICK O'NEILL: And tears.

Erin Case: And a lot of tears. Yeah, that's true. But it's built on that trust, open communication, and mutual respect. So if they bring me an idea, I'm not going to just shoot it down. We have a really open conversation about it. I let Lynne shoot it down. But we just have that open conversation amongst all of us to really understand our needs.

Lynne Ruvalcaba: And before we go to the next one. That's fine. You can keep moving forward. I just want to add that one of the invisible partners that we should have probably included here that I didn't is our custody side. And we keep alluding to the fact that we are looking at little cities or little kingdoms. The custody side is essential. They have to partner with us.

And while they're not here at DLAC, everything we do has to work with them. We can't just simply assume they're OK with us deploying a computer, or adding a program, or asking our students to do something that they don't do. We're talking about human beings that control the actual physical movement of other human beings. So our custody partners are always our silent partner.

We have to do everything that we accomplish hand in hand with custody and get their blessing, if you will, to make it happen. So while they're not here, they are definitely part of our effort.

PATRICK O'NEILL: Yeah.

Bryan Boel: That's a good segue into handling conflict. And so I would say to put it to you in a different perspective too, you could be walking into, let's say, your class. And I do a mentoring program outside of the educational complex. And you can be walking in expecting to get something done. And alarm could go off on one of the buildings or somewhere, and they have to deploy.

And you're not having class. Everyone's back. Send everyone back now. So there's no class today.

So safety and security is number one, and the custody runs everything. So they're going to dictate, whether you're there or not or you're going to be able to provide instruction. And so with that being said, when we said handling conflict, it was really handling conflict between us as six people, and it's really hasn't been prevalent because of the nature of, I guess, the institutional environment we're in.

At any given time, something could happen. And I remember being on one time, I said, squad just walked in the room. I got to go. That's it. They walk in, they're walking in for a reason.

And so we're cognizant of everyone's schedule and what happens. And it doesn't matter if it happens on an institution or not. If it happens and it's a security issue with a laptop, Lynne is going to get a phone call or something, and she's going to be pulled away immediately on something.

And so with that, it's really been minimal. We've been able to reschedule. We've been able to use technology. We've been able to do things and just cognizant of everyone's schedule and just because we do get pulled away a lot for different reasons.

Communication. Communication here. Imagine this a couple of years ago, and you wouldn't believe this is-- us is just even as educators on their had red zone computers. And red zone computers were desktops, not laptops.

You couldn't get on the internet. You were very restricted on what you could do, and it was shared. And so if you weren't there, and you walked somewhere, you might not be able to even email, or check your email, or get a hold of anyone. And that's the way it was.

So the introduction of laptops, even for technology on the staff side, has been a big improvement because I can even just send files or do whatever I can. When you think, that's very mundane. But for us, it was just like a lifeline. And it was huge for us to be able to communicate because we're all hundreds of miles apart.

We're not even within-- we're in the same district, but there's a pretty big distance between us. So being able to just do that-- or I know on Teams, each one of these members at various times, that has been huge for us be able to move this project forward because I can send a quick Teams message and say, are you available on a half hour or whatever, and I can grab 10 minutes of your time? Where before, we wouldn't be able to do that at all.

And so just communication between those two with Teams and there. And then every person can contributes and leveraging strengths because we do have different custody levels. We didn't look at that as a hindrance, but we looked at that as kind of a diversity of ideas. And it really just added some depth to each one of our plans going forward.

Oh, yeah. Here we go. So challenges, barriers, and setbacks. So here's your star in a rectangle or we said round peg in a square hole here. First and foremost, custody runs everything.

So when we first started doing this, and we looked at this trying to write this site plan, imagine this. And we talked about custody running things. We wrote a site plan or had to write a site plan for 31 different institutions or 31 different superintendents because they run it.

So that was our biggest challenge on doing that and getting it. So once we got our three site plans, they used that as foundation to manipulate those on how they see fit to best fit their needs for their institution and their security level.

Speaker 3: Thank you very much, [ INAUDIBLE ].

PATRICK O'NEILL: So we're passionate, so it's hard to keep us quiet because we're not used to having people to talk to. So Lynne will bring us home.

Lynne Ruvalcaba: I'll just take a real quick second to say that this experience has really been something that we've valued. We've found our voice in a way that we didn't think we could before because we thought we were so very different. We found commonality through working with OTAN between us and you, but we've also been able to overcome our differences.

Our team does not have a leader. Our team has six very, very competent leaders. And we've all worked to step up and step back as we need to. And as the next year comes on, we're very excited to put together the remainder of our plan and publish that and move forward with sending truly digitally literate people out into the communities to your adult schools, where you will assume responsibility for polishing them up and putting them on their way. So thank you.

[applause]