Renewing Communities Year One Award Recipients 

March 22, 2016 | Opportunity & Justice

  • Bakersfield College: Bakersfield College lies in Kern County, an agricultural area of the state with many prisons, a high concentration of jail inmates, and on-campus students who struggle with poverty and associated challenges. This innovative new partnership pairs Bakersfield College with two nearby prisons, the county jail, and community reentry organizations to provide in-person transferrable credit college classes to students inside prison and jail, to build a bridge from the prisons and jails to Bakersfield College, and to support justice-involved students on campus so that they can persist to an Associate’s degree. Amount: $359,272
     
  • Cal State University Los Angeles: CSU LA will be piloting the only in-person Bachelor’s degree program in a California prison. Hundreds of students in California prisons earn AAs but this will be the first time any of them have had the opportunity to earn an in-person BA from a public university. Amount: $256,984
     
  • Chaffey College: Chaffey College will be replicating its highly successful in-person AA degree program, now at the California Institution for Women (CIW), at the California Institution for Men (CIM) in nearby Chino. The Chaffey program, which has worked within the community college system for an unprecedented 10 years, can be a model for other community colleges located near the state’s 35 prisons. Chaffey will be covering a large portion of the staffing for the CIM program through state apportionment. Amount: $140,000
     
  • Five Keys Charter School: Five Keys operates charter high schools inside jails and in justice-impacted neighborhoods in San Francisco and Los Angeles counties, and is expanding to additional counties in the state. More than 97% of Five Keys’ funding comes from public sources. Students who already have a high school diploma or GED, however, have been unable to receive additional educational services from Five Keys. This grant will allow Five Keys to pilot a partnership with City College of San Francisco to build links from high school to college and to offer in-custody college courses and pathways that can be continued on the college campus when students are released. The goal is to develop a model that can be replicated in other counties in which Five Keys operates. Amount: $300,000
     
  • San Francisco State University: SF State will be replicating its highly successful Project Rebound program, which has helped formerly incarcerated students enroll in SF State and persist through to a college degree for 40 years. The program will be replicated at Sacramento State, CSU Fresno, CSU Bakersfield, Cal State Fullerton, San Diego State, CSU San Bernardino, and Cal Poly Pomona. The replication is being co-funded with $200,000 from the Office of the California State University Chancellor and expects to expand to all 23 campuses of the CSU system within three years. Amount: $500,000
     
  • Shasta College: Shasta College is located in a rural Northern California county, two to three hours from any public four-year university. The Shasta County jail generally operates at or above capacity. For this grant, the College and the Sheriff have partnered to expand an innovative pilot program that releases students convicted of non-violent offenses from the jail and enrolls them in Shasta College programs for career certificates and degrees. The College works in partnership with the Sheriff and community organizations to support the students with their reentry needs and educational successes. Amount: $215,600
     
  • Street Scholars:  Street Scholars, a non-profit organization based at Merritt College in Alameda County, has been a successful peer-mentoring program for students under parole supervision seeking to complete their AA degree and transfer to a four-year university. Alameda County has one of the highest concentrations of formerly incarcerated people in the state, and there are four other community colleges in the district. Street Scholars will expand to the other four colleges with the goal of having all five programs self-supporting and supported by the district at the end of three years. Amount: $196,725