White woman with long dark hair sits at a round table, teaching juvenile offenders, whose faces are not fully shown, inside a New Jersey juvenile facility.

At detention facilities offering high school diplomas, college classes are seen as a next step

By |

Four years ago, a social worker from the Middlesex County Juvenile Detention Center asked English professor Alexandra Fields, of nearby Middlesex College, if she would be able to provide college programming for youth incarcerated at that New Jersey facility. Beyond helping them earn their high school diplomas, it offered nothing more  educationally to those graduates. In mid-February 2022, 20 young men across eight of the facilities started working on an associate’s degree from Middlesex, becoming the first such cohort in New Jersey to be on a path toward a college degree.

Reducing Gang Violence and Saving Money

By |

Scott State Prison, in Milledgeville, Ga., was originally built as a hospital during the Great Depression. I was there for a few years, until it closed in 2004. One of the unique features of this place, for a prison anyway, was that it had porches attached to the dormitories. These made a nice spot to go hang out in the heat of summer, and they provided a place for smokers to light up. It helped make up a little for the run-down conditions.

Gwinnett Online Campus

Georgia’s First Online High School Looks To Reverse State Educational Trends Through Technology

By |

The students at Gwinnett County’s newest high school don’t have to worry about missing the bus or forgetting their locker combinations. They don’t have to worry about hall passes, finding a seat in the cafeteria or making it to their desk before the tardy bell sounds. In fact, these students don’t have to worry about showing up to the school at all. In August, the Gwinnett Online Campus became the first virtual high school to open in the state of Georgia. The charter school, located in a suburb just northeast of Atlanta, is the latest addition to the state’s largest public school system that wrangles with more than 150,000 students each year.