2. Educational Programs
• Frequent moves, truancy, inconsistent parenting, and a lack of
parental support for education and physical or psychological
disabilities or substance abuse make it difficult for students to
succeed in community schools
• They must provide these youth with an educational program
that best meets their needs in classroom settings that leave
much to be desired
• Teachers often have inadequate resources and very high rates
of turnover
• Educational experiences should facilitate improvement and
growth, not simply repeat earlier school experiences
• Students placed in correctional classrooms experience a much
higher level of learning and behavior problems, oftentimes
unidentified in their prior K-12 classroom
• Male juvenile offenders have lower academic skills than female
juvenile offenders
3. Education Staff in Youth Corrections
• Educators often come to the field of youth corrections prepared as
elementary school teachers or subject matter teachers – this
preparation proves inadequate
• Many do not consider life-long careers in the field - they are only
there until a better job comes along, making turnover rates very high
• Correctional educators need to learn how to adapt the curriculum and
how to maintain their own educational excellence in the environment
of a juvenile facility
• A juvenile facility educator “develops, implements, supports,
coordinates, researches, and assesses educational programs for
students in juvenile correctional facilities emphasizing the creation of
a safe, secure and supportive educational environment
• It is essential for a correctional teacher to have a sense of humor, not
to take oneself too seriously, have interests outside of work, and
continue to learn and study so that the difficult environment does not
make one jaded and disinterested
4. Training for Educators in Juvenile Corrections
• Educators come to corrections with licensure in elementary
education, secondary education, special education, or with vocational
certificates
• They rarely, if ever, have been trained to work in the environment in
which they find themselves
• A system of pre-and in-service training must be developed to facilitate
skills in teaching in a correctional environment
• For most K-12 public schools, the emphasis for instruction is on
knowledge, skills, and attitudes – consistent with child development
• With juvenile youth, a different approach is needed – they need a
curriculum that first emphasizes attitudes, and then skills, and
knowledge
• Correctional educators must understand that these students have had
life experiences that they bring to the classroom or clinical setting
• Correctional educators also need to adapt the curriculum to the
student and the environment and not simply repeat instructional
strategies that were not successful the first time around
5. Special Education Teachers and
Related Services Provision
• Youth correctional facilities often have difficulty hiring qualified special education
personnel
• This is an area of shortage for community schools, so the two systems are often
competing for those same professionals
• It does take some time to become accustomed to working in an institutional
environment and turnover rates of juvenile justice staff members are high during
the first year
• Related services in special education include counseling, speech services,
occupational therapy, and physical therapy
• Correctional schools often do a poor job of providing the appropriate services
because they are unsuccessful in hiring and keeping qualified specialists, many of
whom are very marketable
• Some places have developed some innovative ways to overcome constraints –
such as having a traveling team of professional working at several school sites,
hiring public school professional to come in after their regular workday, or
contracting with local agencies to provide services
• There is a significant problem with collaboration between agencies and disciplines
• Outside agencies are often reluctant to work with an institutional population or to
provide quality services after a youth’s release
6. Educational Programs in Youth Corrections
• The school programs offered in juvenile schools feature academic and career exploration
• Schools may take many forms: classes held in (a) alternative settings managed by the
community school system; (b) the local juvenile hall; (c) state correctional schools; and (d)
alternative settings once a youth is released and often follows the K-12 public school model,
centering on hour-long academic courses with movement between classes
• These programs often focus on prevocational skills development and adult education models
rather than vocational training and high school degrees
• There has been very little research about the programs that are available , what programs
are effective, and the quality of instruction
• 83% of facilities screened all residents for grade level prior to the end of their first week
• Some facilities almost administered written tests (70%), or conducted an education-related
interview with an education specialist (62%), intake counselor (43%), or guidance counselor
(27%)
• 89% of facilities reported that at least some youth in their facility attended school
• Residents in smaller facilities were less likely to attend school than youth living in larger
institutions
• Most facilities also offer special education services (79%) and GED preparation (70%) and
some provided vocational or technical education (38%) and post-high school education
(25%)
• There is no assessment of the quality of these programs
7. Complying with No Child Left Behind
• The Improving Teacher Quality aspect of the legislation requires that
educators be highly qualified in the subjects that they teach
• Many correctional educators, however, teach three or four subjects and would
have to take years of additional coursework in order to meet the requirements
• Correctional education administrators are faced with a no-win situation – if
they support the needed staff training to comply with NCLB, as they must by
law, they are faced with the likelihood that they will lose this teacher to the K-
12 system
Programs for Juveniles with Disabilities in Corrections
• Education of All Handicapped Children Act (EHA) in 1975
• Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) of 2004 and 2007
• The number of students in juvenile corrections with identifiable disabilities is
much higher than in the community population
• K-12 schools report between 11% and 13% of the school population
possesses educational disabilities, while incarcerated populations is from
30% to 70%
• 33.4% of youth in correctional schools had some type of disability
8. Disability Categories in Juvenile Corrections
• 13 categories of disabilities identified by the IDEA legislation are all
reflected among juveniles
• The most frequently occurring are “The Big Three”: specific learning
disabilities, mental retardation, and emotional disturbance
• There are also juvenile offenders with oppositional defiant disorder,
autism, those who are deaf and hard of hearing, and those who are
visually impaired
• Correctional systems sometimes have difficulty providing appropriate
services for these residents
• Residents with specific learning disabilities (SLD) often do not
appropriately understand social situations
• A significant challenge is that misreading social cues in a correctional
facility may lead to problems with security staff or dangerous
consequences with other youth
• It can be a matter of life and death to misinterpret an interaction with
other wards in the institution
• Residents with learning disabilities should be given special
consideration when they are placed in housing units.
9. Services to Students with Disabilities
• One of the challenges with special education implementation is the
availability of programs and not all children with special needs are served
• The EHA and IDEA require that special education services be provided
and cannot be limited because of financial constraints
• School districts must actively attempt to locate and serve eligible special
needs students through a process called Child Find, where school
systems must actively search for student who need special education
and do not simply wait until a student or parent comes forward to request
special help
• Students in any setting are eligible for special education, including
custodial facilities
• Once a student is identified for special services, the development of an
educational plan specific to that child’s individual student needs must be
developed
• This Individualized Education Plan (IEP) has strict guidelines and
timelines for service delivery and a built-in process of reevaluation
• Students with special needs required extra help in transitioning from the
school to community led to requirements for transition programming
before leaving the school environment
10. Free Appropriate Public Education
• Requires that proper education and related services be
provided to each student identified as eligible for special
education services
• Students in special or restrictive housing are often not provided
appropriate education
• Student may receive reduced or no educational service
• The movement makes continuity of services very difficult
• A particular problem is providing the total amount of service
indicated on the student plan, which may be caused by
employees absences, competition for student time, or school
closures
• Disruptions such as the following in an educational program
make it difficult for the youth to stay engaged in his studies:
• Class being routinely canceled when teaching staff are sick/on vacation
• Over six months, an average of 27% of classes were closed
• Class cancellations due to security issues, teacher absences, and lack of
available substitute teachers
11. Parental Involvement
• Corrections agencies must have parental consent to evaluate a
student for special education, for IEP development, and for any
changes in program, however, some systems are not rigorous
in efforts to find the natural parent or legal guardian
• It can be difficult to find parents because they may be
incarcerated or not involved in the youth’s life
• Unless parental rights have been removed legally, attempts
must be made to find parents
• When the efforts to find a natural parent or legal guardian have
been exhausted, a surrogate parent must be appointed
• A student may serve as his or her own parents after the age of
18 years and can then sign themselves out of special
education if they wish to
12. Least Restrictive Environment
• Students with special education needs will not be educated in
environments that are more restrictive than their non-disabled peers
• As long as students with disabilities within the institution are not housed
in more restrictive environments than other correctional students
because of their disability, the obligation of LRE has been met
• Where this continues to be a problem is for students with mental
illnesses or severe emotional disturbances – the behaviors exhibited by
this group often place them in more restrictive housing units and
educational opportunities are often limited in these settings
• Students with severe mental illnesses may need to concentrate on
therapeutic efforts rather than formal educational experiences for a
period of time
Confidentiality of Records
• Corrections may overlay its procedures to the point that access is
restricted to youth correctional educators who should read these records
• Public schools often are not forthcoming with student records
• Youth corrections often have to wait a long time for records and, in some
cases, K-12 public schools do not recognize correctional schools as real
schools, so they are unwilling to submit records
13. Timelines
• Corrections systems commonly fail in meeting timelines for special education implementation
• Special education requirements, by both federal and state statutes, have clear timelines for
when evaluation, identification, IEP program development, and services must be
accomplished
• Timelines were developed so schools would not drag its feet because of expense or the lack
of services
Assessment and Evaluation
• Assessment for eligibility for special education and progress in the program often is not
comprehensive in youth corrections
• Inappropriate assessment materials may be used
• When a student is identified and the educational program is developed, the services
articulated may be influenced by the knowledge of what services are available at the sites
instead of the actual needs of the residents
Continuum of Educational Placements
• Requires that students be provided those services needed to meet individual needs in the
most appropriate setting
• The student is required to be served in the environment least restrictive to meet his or her
specific educational needs
• When considering low incidence disabilities such as services for the deaf or visually
impaired, providing qualified educational and support staff becomes even more difficult
14. Community Transition
• Transition services, in spite of being one of the most important efforts
for the correctional student, remain poorly implemented in many
systems
• Rather than preparing students for a postsecondary education or
employment setting, correctional facilities often need to prepare
incarcerated juveniles for return to their respective community
settings, and possibly prepare them to return to their respective public
education setting
• The school in the institution usually is not funded to provide any kind
of transition service beyond a short prerelease program required for
all residents
• Transition services are generally considered a function of the
custodial or casework staff
• Indicators that leas to success after release: planning prior to release,
an emphasis on community member support, follow-up educational
services, and recognition of differences in gender needs
15. Promising Programs in Youth Corrections
• Most days, students in youth corrections attend classes and
have the opportunity to change their lives through education
• There is a growing body of research that demonstrates the
effectiveness of educational programs in juvenile corrections
• Participation in correctional education is one of the main
indicators of success after release
• The more the student participates in education, the less likely
he or she is to return to the institution
• Education provide s one of the most significant opportunities
for change and this change also extends into the community
• Nine elements of successful programs:
• Pedagogy/andragogy Vocational education Technology
• Social education Cultural education
Inclusion
• Access to libraries Administrative organizational structure
• Shared responsibility for decision making
