An interview with Jennifer Sanders, Superintendent of the Ohio Central School System (OCCS) at the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections (ODRC)
The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections (ODRC) is responsible for a population of more than 44,500 prisoners. Their average age is a little older than 40, and the average stay in prison is 2.6 years.
That means most inmates will get out of prison while they’re of working age. “It’s important for people to recognize that. The people who are incarcerated, not just in Ohio but everywhere, a lot of them are coming home,” said Jennifer Sanders, Superintendent of Schools at the ODRC’s Ohio Central School System (OCCS).
“It’s our job to enforce the sentence given by the courts. But when they leave us, we should have made them better.”
Prison education correlates with reduced recidivism. One study of 30 states found that three-quarters of released prisoners were rearrested within five years. But only 14% of those who obtained an associate degree before getting out were rearrested. The number drops to 5.6% for bachelor ’s degrees and zero for master’s degrees.
Connected Education
Education has long been a priority for ODRC, which has 30-plus-year relationships with colleges and offers a robust selection of technical training programs, literacy education and three paths to a high school diploma.
When Sanders became superintendent in 2019, she and ODRC leaders agreed that they needed to educate inmates for 21st-century opportunities, with 21st-century tools.
“It’s important for us to make sure we’re delivering education in a way that makes sense today,” she explained.
They’ve launched a program providing one of today’s most easily recognized educational devices: Chromebooks. OCCS has distributed the minimalist laptops to about 10,000 students. They are also available in prison classrooms and libraries.
The devices give students the flexibility to study on their own schedules. “We have adult learners, who benefit more from setting their own pace,” Sanders said. In addition, the Chromebooks are used for ACT WorkKeys assessments of work skills that can help students earn a high school diploma, and they’re used to connect prisoners before their release with the state’s job resources programs.
The security and user protections built into Chromebooks for K-12 education have been adapted for similar concerns with incarcerated students. The devices link to a specialized student wireless network and can’t be used outside it. “We can build connections to the internet and strip out the things that we don’t want our students to have access to,” Sanders said.
The Future Is Bright
Pandemic-era funding helped set up the system, Sanders explained, but the program also got a vote of confidence in Ohio’s most recent biennium budget, when state legislators approved funds to continue providing devices.
Although the program is new enough that it’s not possible to correlate the Chromebooks with educational achievement, in fiscal year 2022-2023, ODRC students earned 3,247 college certificates and degrees and 1,484 career technical certifications. Its three high school programs graduated 1,040 students.
“A lot of people think of corrections as fences and gates and doors and locks. But in reality, corrections is a people industry,” said Sanders. “We work very hard to make sure that the people that leave us can and do become your neighbor, your coworker and a person you [could] call a friend.”
This article appeared in our guide, “State and Local: Making an Impact.” For more examples of how governments are using technology to improve lives, download it here:
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