Broadening Education Access for Incarcerated Youth
The Echo Glen Children's Center in Snoqualmie, Washington, is a juvenile detention center with a mission to rehabilitate and educate. Its educational programs are technology driven, but implementing them comes with a multitude of challenges, including cost, security, and remote locations with limited IT support.
To address the challenges that come with broadening education access in detention centers, World Possible uses the offline Endless OS to provide safe, learning-rich Securebook Laptops for incarcerated youth. World Possible, a nonprofit that develops technology solutions and supports social entrepreneurs who help bridge the digital divide in communities that lack internet, works with Endless OS to purchase and distribute offline-first laptops. Endless OS comes preloaded with apps and tools that support learning with engaging, fun and creative programs. Ryan Trudeau, a Program Manager at Echo Glen, explains a “Securebook is a great tool because It can help keep our residents entertained, distracted, and productive, whether it be playing chess, recording lyrics to songs, or even doing guided meditation or TED talks. There's a big educational factor to them.”
Many students at Echo Glen are working on coursework for a GED or Associate's Degree as part of their college program. “We have nine guys graduating with their AAs, and I don't believe they would have achieved that in a two-year time span if we didn't have the laptops,” says Paige Baldwin, Program Manager for the Transition Reentry and Vocation Programs. From Intercultural Communication to Nutrition, residents are engaged in courses they’re excited about and motivated to complete. Andre Robertson, a resident at Green Hill School, a detention center in Chehalis, WA that provides educational and vocational training, reflected on how the perception of college education has changed: “Being in college is now a necessity to everybody. Everybody wants to finish high school and get their GED so they can hop into the college program. We went from 8-9 people in college to having 44 now. And that's just been the past two years.”
Alongside the educational benefits of the coursework, students are also learning what it feels like to be in college. The “useful side about the Securebooks” says Joseph Burb, a college instructor and academic advisor at Green Hill, “is that the students are in a class, and it doesn't really seem different than anything that a normal experience would be on our main campus . . . The success, I will say, is by the time they're in their second or third quarter, they are indistinguishable from our students on main campus.”
“College program saved me,” says Robertson. “Being in there actually helped me develop the skills that I needed to last and to actually be able to see a life outside of the gang.”
Outside of educational coursework, the Endless OS offers students an opportunity to engage in meaningful extracurricular and enrichment learning, including things like coding education and meditation.