A Day at Osborne School

Abstract

MEN CLAD in green drift slowly across the yard on their way to classes. They are enrolled in academic and vocational courses at Osborne School, located inside Auburn Correctional Facility. Auburn is a maximum-security prison for men in upstate New York. The prison was originally built on the edge of the city of Auburn, but in the last 189 years, bustling neighborhoods have grown up around the 25-acre facility. Inmates can hear the sounds of children playing and the melody of the ice cream truck outside the 40-foot concrete walls. Many of the inmates look forward to being released, while some will never leave. Meanwhile, each morning, they report to their assigned programs at Osborne School. Program requirements for inmates vary by state. New York requires all inmates without a high school diploma or a GED (general education development) certificate to attend school and to work toward acquiring a GED, unless security or other issues take priority. According to the New York State Department of Corrections, the state has a prison population of nearly 63,400 men and women, with approximately 45,000 enrolled annually in educational programs. Auburn typically houses up to 1,750 inmates. About 700 of them participate in academic or vocational classes at Osborne School. Auburn Correctional Facility is the oldest prison still operating in New York State and has housed inmates since 1817. Though today it is an all-male facility, in the past Auburn housed both men and women, and schooling has always been an important element of incarceration here. In the 1840s, the first insane asylum inside a prison in the U.S. stood on the site of the present-day school. As early as the mid-1800s, priests and clergy from a nearby theological seminary taught basic literacy classes inside these walls. From 1893 to 1932 the site was used as the first women's prison in the state. Osborne School, a compact, two-story brick structure built into a hillside, opened in 1962. The school is named in honor of Thomas Mott Osborne, who served as warden of Auburn Prison almost a century ago. Warden Osborne enacted many reforms at Auburn, including the expansion of education programs. Today, Osborne School operates an ambitious, multilevel GED pathway and an array of vocational training programs, including computer repair, building maintenance, masonry, barbering, welding, floor covering, computer operations, drafting, electrical trades, and custodial maintenance. Corrections teachers are a highly diverse group of professionals. Some teachers get their start in corrections by teaching inside during a summer session and becoming fascinated by the unusual teaching challenges they find. Others are retired from traditional school settings and start new careers teaching inmates. (1) There are several avenues for certified teachers who decide to take up employment behind bars. Most jobs in correctional facilities are county, state, or federal civil-service jobs. Each state has corrections and civil-service websites where current job openings for officers and civilian personnel in correctional settings are posted. Sometimes openings for teachers are advertised locally, and people are hired off the street, though they still must meet the necessary civil-service requirements, including a background check. County jails often operate GED programs for minors through contracts with local public schools, in which case applications for teacher openings are processed through the local school district. Classes at Auburn are organized into two, 3-hour modules per day. Students may be enrolled in one academic module and one vocational module, or they may come to school for just one class and have jobs or assignments elsewhere in the facility. As inmates near their release dates, they are scheduled into additional, required pre-release programs. Many of these special programs are also housed within the school. In New York State, programming for inmates is geared to aid with reentry into society and designed to help prevent recidivism. …