From Private School to the Prison System: Teacher committed to game-changing education for incarcerated students

“Through the small successes, our students began to feel what it’s like to achieve and embrace their personal strengths, gifts and abilities”

— Kris Davison, Five Keys teacher

For years, Kris Davison served as Director of Academic support for a private school in Santa Rosa, CA. Seeking something new — and a little more socially responsive to racial disparities and opportunities for all people — she switched to prison education, becoming a high school teacher with Five Keys Schools and Programs at the Sonoma County jails. 

“I was dissatisfied with what I considered a lack of equity and social justice for struggling and atypical students schoolwide,” says Davison, who launched a search for an educational organization that shared her core values. “I found Five Keys!”

"It’s been over a year since she resigned from her previous position and navigated thetransition, and the prison hallways, determined to find a unique way to help educatepeople in the prison system and put into action her belief that education is a gateway tosocial and economic mobility. 

“I get to go to work every day and make a positive difference,” she says. “I get to help each individual I meet, see their personal gifts and areas of needed growth with no judgement. We celebrate successes and work together for improvement.”

What she has found at Five Keys are a group of students highly motivated to surmount obstacles to further their education. During the last year, she has worked with more than 200 incarcerated students who have gaps in their schooling and who may one day be back out in the world. 

“I have noticed that most (of the students) in no way lack ability,” she says. “They lack academic confidence, self-efficacy and self-esteem. Like most of us, they have experienced personal failure and disappointment — but in the extreme. 

“Part of our responsibility as Five Keys teachers, is to help students create a better future for themselves and their families.  We facilitate both hope and the knowledge that as they learn, they can do ‘better,” she says.

Davison says she has witnessed many of her students who have been released from custody make a beeline to continue their education with Five Keys through the community sites. Many have landed jobs. 

“They have discovered that they are capable and deserving of a better life,” she says. “To me, that is success!”

Installing hope and a new future

“Through the small successes, our students began to feel what it's like to achieve and embrace their personal strengths, gifts and abilities,” says Davison. “Through this growth, most students begin to have greater self-esteem.  As self-esteem increases, they make better choices, they can achieve more, and life is better. Isn't that what we want for each other as human beings?” 

To Davison, her life experience as wife, mom of five and grandma of nine is surprisinglyrelevant, teaching in prison. A first-generation college graduate, Davison was also thefirst female in her family to graduate high school. She has a bachelor’s degree in specialeducation and a master’s in education, with a special certification in autism." 

During the last five months, the COVID-19 pandemic has made teaching at the jails very challenging because of the quarantine. For one thing, the jails do not offer access to Internet and so unlike traditional high schools, they could not shift their curriculums online.  

“We met with the teachers and coordinators at the facilities — everyone we could — to try to brainstorm how are we going to do this when both the teachers are sheltering in place and the students are on lockdown?” she says.

“Covid has changed many things in our world,” she says. “What hasn't changed is our desire at Five Keys to facilitate learning and growth.”

At the jail in Sonoma County, Davison and the teaching team have continued to work with students (albeit with distance). With no access to the Internet, Zoom face-to-face meetings are not an option, but they still communicate “via good old-fashioned letters.”

“We write and send work into the jail for each student regularly,” she says. “Although this type of correspondence takes more time, we are all developing additional life skills.  We are learning to communicate more clearly. We are learning patience; we are better understanding the value of human connection. These are unintended consequences of the current challenges and I am so grateful for this opportunity! As we move forward, our hope is to safely begin meeting with students (through visiting glass) until we are again able to meet in person.”

Davison is passionately committed to the crucial role education can play in changing lives for people in jail. 

“What has become even more obvious to me while working at Five Keys is that human beings cannot DO better until they KNOW better,” she says. “If a person (through whatever background and circumstances they have come from) has not learned empathy, compassion or strategies and soft skills for life success, they are absolutely not able to fit into societal ‘norms.’’

“We expect that everyone around us has had the rights and privileges that we were afforded; things like a high school education, three meals a day, a supportive home, loving parents, etc.). The numbers do not lie. Many incarcerated students have not completed high school. They lack the basic knowledge or the diploma that will allow them to have meaningful employment. It is no wonder that the loss of hope has pushed them to a different path, one of self-destruction,” she adds.

At Five Keys, she says she and other teachers and staff are committed to helping each student they serve see their own greatness.  

“We work to help them become reflective practitioners and scholars,” she says. 

Statistics underscore the importance of what Davison and Five Keys are doing. Getting a high school degree reduces a person’s likelihood of re-incarceration by 43 percent, according to a report by the RAND Corporation

Davison says she has been humbled and is extremely grateful to have the opportunity to teach her students. 

“Being a teacher and a member of the Five Keys community has changed me and helped me to grow,” she says. “I, like many, was a bit apprehensive about teaching at an in-custody facility.  Worries of safety were forcibly expressed by family members and friends.

“What has happened though, is that I have learned so much through this opportunity. I have developed even more empathy for my students. My passion for social justice has only increased. Yes, I work with accused ‘criminals.’  I teach murderers, rapists, thieves, etc., and they know me by name and ask me for help. They allow me to see them and be a part of their lives at their lowest and perhaps most vulnerable. I don't live in fear, I live in gratitude for this opportunity,” she says.

Lessons learned on the frontlines: “My vocation is to facilitate learning; I am no longer burdened to judge.” 

Teacher provides care, support and education to inmates and upon reentry

“Enrolling in school gives our students the opportunity to focus on something productive and positive, to keep their minds and hearts occupied with something that gives them a sense of hope and personal accomplishment. Over and over I’ve seen these incredible shifts in attitude.”

Growing up in Santa Rosa, CA, Rose Kleiner had a challenging time in high school and for numerous reasons, wasn’t on track to graduate. At 17, she moved to San Francisco and completed her high school education through an independent study program and then through attending an alternative school. 

Grateful for the people and opportunities that shepherded her through that time in her life, Kleiner said her hope was that in some way she could reach back and help others dealing with similar struggles to push others to challenge their boundaries and struggles and pursue their own educational success. 

That’s exactly what she has been doing for the last almost five years as a teacher for Five Keys Schools and Programs at the San Francisco County Jail #4 and the Learning Center in the Adult Probation Department, both located at 850 Bryant, San Francisco. Since 2016 she has taught hundreds of inmates and community members seeking to earn their high school degree.

“One thing I really enjoy about teaching at Five Keys is you get to see all kinds of successes,” says Kleiner, 34. “Watching my literacy students making huge strides in their reading skills or my ESL students improve their English is so awesome, and you can see how it immediately changes their lives for the better. High fiving a student when they pass their final GED test, handing a student their diploma, or helping a graduate enroll in CCSF literally never gets old.”

She says one of her most gratifying moments as a Five Keys teacher has been when the students she worked with in custody show up at the community site where she teaches. Carrying the plastic bag with their belongings after being released from incarceration, they have told her they wanted to continue their education. 

“Being able to provide that sense of continuity and support during the incredibly challenging period of reentry is such an honor and a joy,” she says.

After earning her Bachelor’s Degree in Comparative Literature at San Francisco State University and a Master’s in the same subject from the University of Colorado Boulder, she became an English teacher and worked for two years at Lisa Kampner Hebrew Academy in San Francisco. 

“I had gone to graduate school with the intention of completing a PhD in literature and I ended up getting a funding package that included a teaching assignment,” she says. “It turned out that academia wasn’t for me and I left with a Master’s degree, but I realized I loved teaching adults. A friend of mine was working for Five Keys and suggested that I apply, and here we are.” 

Thanks to the creativity of Kleiner and the teachers and staff at Five Keys Schools and Programs and local Sherriff’s departments, they have not let the COVID-19 pandemic stop them from educating and serving up their mission. 

There is no stopping Five Keys Now “The pandemic has been so tough on everyone — students and teachers, incarcerated and in the community,” she says. “People are really struggling to fulfill their basic needs, which means education can move to the back burner. Many of our students are still working on their technology skills, which can make distance learning an extra challenge. And it is just hard for everyone not to have that face-to-face interaction and relationship building component, especially in custody where communication options are very limited.”

But, they have been able to continue serving students both in the community and in custody during shelter-in-place with online learning, mailing/dropping off work, phone calls, and just generally getting creative.

“I know that it’s meant a lot to our students to have this tie to normalcy and something positive to focus their energy on,” she says. “For my incarcerated students especially, just knowing that Five Keys is still there, still caring for them and still working for them, has helped them stay grounded and positive during an extraordinarily difficult time.”

Education is critical for the incarcerated“Being in jail is just such a difficult time — the worst combination of boring and stressful,” says Kleiner. ‘People are separated from their families and unsure of what their futures hold. Enrolling in school gives our students the opportunity to focus on something productive and positive, to keep their minds and hearts occupied with something that gives them a sense of hope and personal accomplishment. Over and over I have seen these incredible shifts in attitude. Watching our students move from a sometimes really negative place to a mindset of goal setting, feeding their intellectual curiosity, and really building their practical skills never stops amazing me.”As a Five Keys teacher, Kleiner has learned that the human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to us. “I think teaching at Five Keys has made me more patient and empathetic,” she says. “It’s also just brought so much joy into my life. It’s such a privilege to get to form these relationships with my students, to really get to know them as people and to feel like a positive force in their lives.”Along the way, Kleiner, who lives with her husband and cats, says she’s learned a lot of lessons from her teaching experience at Five Keys. “I think I’ve learned how to meet people where they are with warmth and non-judgment,” she says. “I’ve learned that it’s essential to really take time to listen and form a relationship with every single individual student, no matter what. And I’ve learned that it’s my job as a teacher to never stop learning how to be better!”

Five Keys Helps Former Inmate Rebuild Her Life

Shonta Montgomery is now 36, and she has spent much of her life living in Watts where gun shots, police sirens and fireworks ring out and senseless killings and gangs reign. Since she was released after serving six-and-a-half years in prison with no money and no place to live, she’s fought her way on the streets, trying to stay out of the way of gangs and drug peddlers who mark their turf along the streets and parking lots of the South Los Angeles neighborhood. 

Fighting addiction, unemployment and homelessness, Montgomery, who grew up one of 12 kids, says she was ill-equipped to embrace life after prison. Though she resolved to get her life back, incarceration stripped her of her identity and a lack of a high school education daunted her attempts to get a job and get back on track.

Until, she says, a social worker connected her with SHIELDS for Families, a non-profit in South Central Los Angeles, that offers people like Montgomery a family-centered approach to addiction treatment and recovery….a model that has success rates over three times the national average for substance use disorder treatment. Through SHIELDS, she was introduced to Five Keys Schools and Programs, where she has been studying for her high school diploma. 

“I didn’t want to live on the streets, and I didn’t want to die,” says Montgomery, who also has recently been reunited with her 15-year-old son. “I begged them to help me to get off the streets and go to school.” 

Montgomery’s experience speaks volumes about the thousands of students who have been served by Five Keys, since it was founded in 2003 by the San Francisco Sheriff's Department as the first accredited charter high school in the nation to provide diploma programs for adults in county jails. Teachers, staff, and supporters are committed to the belief that pursuing higher education is an excellent way for ex-offenders to re-enter their communities and live productive, fulfilling lives. 

Montgomery traces her journey from prison to recovery to SHEILDS and Five Keys. 

Today she lives in a one-bedroom apartment and is working hard on her schoolwork and rebuilding her relationship with her family, and especially her teenage son. She is also taking socially distanced Salsa dancing in her backyard. 

She knows that education is especially critical for her efforts to seek employment, beat her prison rap and leave Valley State Prison, in Chowchilla far behind her. She wants to become a physical therapist.

“I’m really working on rebuilding all my relationships and my life,” she says. “I don’t want to ever go back to the life of popping pills and addiction. I want to be somebody special. You know I started studying art history. My teacher asked me to do an essay project on it and I love it. It’s been hard, but I’ve learned not to give up, no matter what you lose, no matter how dark a place you’ve been, don’t give up!”

Teacher inspired to educate prisoners to give them — and their communities — a shot at a better future

““He shared with the class that it was the greatest accomplishment of his life.””

Pictured left to right: Gayle, Woody, Judy, and Oprah

Over the years, Judy Square has been blessed to spend time teaching in the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, Alameda County, CA. Some of her most inspiring conversations have occurred in those rooms. In her conversations with incarcerated individuals, a common thread is that access to adult education offers them a chance to process their past and envision a new future. 

“Many students have told me that no one ever believed in them before, or thought they were smart,” says the San Leandro resident.  But working with Five Keys, they feel someone finally believes in them and is rooting for them.”

During the last 17 years she has taught at the now-closed North County Jail in Oakland and Santa Rita jail, one of the largest jails in the United States. Square says her favorite students to teach are inmates. For 13 years she worked at the jail through the Tri-Valley Regional Occupational Program and the last four through Five Keys.

“I've had a few students who have worked 8-10 hours a day on their schoolwork in their cramped cells, no desk, with stubs of pencils, sometimes with no erasers, pushing through all the obstacles and discomforts to earn their diploma,” she says.  

Of the about 200 students she has taught through Five Keys, one student, Nathan, especially stands out. 

“When I informed him that he earned his High School Equivalency Diploma, he jumped out of his seat and pounded the wall in celebration,” she says. “A deputy rushed in to see what was happening and I had to explain that everything was OK, and that Nathan was simply happy. Then the deputy left, and Nathan shed some tears in full view of his classmates even though that is usually avoided at all costs in jail culture. He shared with the class that it was the greatest accomplishment of his life.” 

For Square, teaching through Five Keys seems to be a natural extension of the ministry she shares with her husband Woody, who is pastor  and children, youth, and family minister at San Leandro Church of Christ.  The couple, who are parents of two young adults, spent six years in Papua New Guinea helping run a church leader training school.

When the pandemic hit the nation in March, Square and her teacher peers and principal were forced to rethink how they would provide service. The team quickly pivoted to salvage education for their students. 

Before the summer break, Square and other teachers typed letters every week, personalizing them for each student and sending them packets of educational materials to work on. An Inmate Services Deputy acted as a courier. He would deliver the letters and packets and bring back completed ones for Square and her fellow teachers to grade and record on the student's record. They also included feedback forms with their letters so the students could write back with questions or updates. 

“However, once things shut down, many students fell off the wagon and stopped completing schoolwork,” she says. “Because all of our students are high school dropouts and have struggled with their educational journey in the past, they really need the structure of classes and face-to-face interaction with teachers to keep them progressing.”

Teaching in COVID-19 has taught Square and other teachers how important the Five Keys mission is and vital to the future of inmates. 

Armed with a “yes-we-can-do-this,” they are planning to be back better than ever in August.  They will continue to deliver the packets of educational materials and keep the education going. 

“I can't wait until I can go back and work with my students in person,” says Square.

 Sidebar 

A Walk in the Woods with Oprah

It’s not every day that campers at the Yosemite National Park run into talk show queen Oprah Winfrey on the trail.

But that’s what happened to Five Keys teacher, Judy Square, and her husband Woody, a minister, about 10 years ago, when they were on a visit to Yosemite.

The seasoned campers bumped into Oprah and her best friend Gayle King when the duo had hitched a pop-up camper to a Chevrolet Tahoe hybrid and hit the road to do a story about Shelton Johnson, a black park ranger who complained that few African-Americans were campers.

Not so, Oprah discovered. Oprah and Gayle ran into the Squares at their first stop in Yosemite and thought it would be fun to fly them out two weeks later to be in the audience when Oprah taped the Yosemite episode. At the end of the show, Oprah called them up on stage and surprised them with the keys to both her camper and the SUV that was used to pull it! Both vehicles were shipped from Chicago to San Leandro, and Judy and Woody still use the camper about three times a year and enjoy riding around town in their "Oprahmobile."

Five Keys Opens a Window of Opportunity for Mom, Son and Extended Family

Leticia Ramirez knows firsthand the meaning behind the expression, “when one door closes, a window opens.”  

About three years ago, Ramirez had just lost her more than decades-long job when her employer retired. She was feeling afraid and discouraged when she waited in line at the unemployment office. 

But that is when the North Hollywood, CA mom was introduced to Five Keys Schools and Programs and the idea that she could transform the loss into an opportunity to return to school and get her long-delayed high school diploma.

“Five Keys has helped me and my family so much,” says Ramirez. “If it weren’t for them I would not be planning to go beyond my high school diploma.”

This summer, the 50-year-old received her high school diploma (albeit in the mail and is looking for the COVID-postponed ceremony later this summer). Working full-time at a podiatrist’s office, it took her three years of part-time study. 

Two years ago, her son earned his GED through Five Keys and her nephew and his wife are currently enrolled in the Five Keys distance learning program. 

Now, she is poised to enroll in college this fall. 

“It took about three years to finish, because I only went once a week and math was very hard for me,” she says. “But my teachers, Karen Henderson, and Nicole Sanfilippo, were extremely supportive. I would have not been able to accomplish my goal if it had not been for the two them. They were very patient and gave me all the resources available to complete each course.”

She also has become a champion of Five Keys and is encouraging family and friends to take the opportunity during these times of social distancing to make time for education. 

“I am the first of my siblings to get a high school diploma and I am going to do all I can to encourage all my family and friends to pursue their education,” she says. “We are in very uncertain times now. Education plays a big part in helping our country to continue being the greatest country in the world. “

Her advice for those considering attending Five Keys: “Really value and appreciate the opportunity it gives you and give it your best,” says Ramirez. “Attend class as often as possible. Do not give up when things get rough. Communicate with your teachers. They are great and they will do all they can to help you.”

Back to the Future: Former teen mom heads to high school — three kids and almost 30 years later

Rosemary Gallegos Martinez was 14 when she had her first son, Luis. Two years later, her second son, Daniel, was born. At the time, the Mission Hills, Los Angeles-area resident struggled to juggle high school with two jobs. She and her then boyfriend, now husband, Juan, were determined to be self-sufficient, to support themselves independently, not relying on welfare or their family members to care for their young family. Her husband also worked as many jobs as he could to support themselves and their two sons.

Times were tough and unfortunately, juggling two part-time jobs, ⁠— at a clothing store and a warehouse  ⁠— and a new baby, Rosemary had to let something go: She ended up dropping out of high school.

Fast forward 27 years. This June, Rosemary, and her husband who have been together for almost three decades, celebrated the high school graduation of their youngest child, Alexander, 17, from John F. Kennedy High School in Granada Hills, Los Angeles.

At the same time, Rosemary, 41, is working her own way through high school at Five Keys Pacoima, located in the northern San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles. A full-time student, currently in the unusual year of the COVID pandemic, Rosemary attends classes remotely through the independent study program and Zoom. She is also taking care of her mother who is undergoing cancer treatment.

Rosemary’s goal: to become a registered nurse. She plans to keep up the educational momentum and is exploring nursing school options for when she graduates high school.

“It was hard raising a child and also still being a child,” says Rosemary. “I tried to go to school at first, but it just didn’t work out for me. I went to work part-time at a clothing store and a few warehouses to support my son. 

“We didn’t want to have to raise our children in our families’ homes, it just felt like it was more complicated so we both worked and cared for our kids. So, going to school was not really an option even though I did try to go back a couple times, but it just became too much,” she adds.

Thanks to Five Keys and her own determination and hard work, the dream Rosemary has longed for since was a young teenager is coming to fruition. She is especially grateful to teachers like “Ms. Nicole,” who are walking the journey at her side cheering her along. 

“Ms. Nicole has shown me that I can do it,” says Rosemary. “Five Keys has made education and learning fun for me. If you do not understand something, all the teachers are there to help you.” 

Most significantly, she says the teachers at Five Keys and her determination to graduate from high school, even if she had to wait until her three sons got their diplomas and have set their own course, have bolstered her confidence. 

Ten years from now she hopes to have graduated from the College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, CA with a nursing degree and working for the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles. 

“Going back to high school has given me the ability to dream and see that I will soon be able to live out my wish to be a nurse,” says Rosemary.

The Domino Effect: How Five Keys and Other Programs like Five Keys Inspire Generational Change

As a young child, Romina Bonilla, along with her parents and four sisters immigrated from Oaxaca, Mexico to South Central, Los Angeles in 1989.

It did not go unnoticed to Romina’s parents that education was a lifeline in underserved communities of color. Her parents took advantage of the ESL courses offered locally. They were both able to obtain their GEDs that essentially forged a new path for her parents and launched the five sisters on their own successful career paths.

Education had a domino effect on Romina’s family. Once their parents made the first move, there was a chain reaction with her sisters.

Today, inspired by her parents’ resilience and grit — and the educational opportunities that turned their American Dream into a reality, Romina is an ESL teacher for Five Keys. Her oldest sister attended UCLA’s medical school and is an anesthesiologist. Another sister is an electrical engineer, another a social worker, and her youngest sister just graduated high school with a 3.8 GPA.

“Programs like Five Keys give people a second chance at reaching hopes and dreams they might not have been able to reach at a younger age due to life circumstances,” says the 34-year-old mother of two young children. She is married to Jose Sanchez, who is also an employee at Five Keys. They live in Downey, CA. Romina currently teaches at Five Keys’ Weber Community Center in South Los Angeles, while her husband works as an Assessment and Technology Specialist out of Five Keys’ main office in Boyle Heights.

After obtaining his GED, Romina’s father, Vincente Bonilla, opened a TV repair business. After hard times, he closed his business but still remains employed full time as a technician. Her mother, Araceli Gorostieta, chose to stay at home to raise her five daughters but also became an active volunteer at the Hope Street Margolis Family Center, a health, education and recreation program of Dignity Health California Hospital Medical Center. It has been recognized as a national model for integrating healthcare within its community of downtown Los Angeles. At Hope Street, her mom immersed herself with parenting courses, eventually becoming a parent leader and mentor.

Romina paid close attention to her mother’s role modeling. The organization also caught a young Romina’s attention because she realized she wanted to give back to her community as she saw Hope Street’s mission guided her mom to do. This drew her closer to Five Keys and how it partners with the Homeless Outreach Program Integrated Care System, El Nido Family Centers, and the WorkSource Centers, all in Los Angeles County, to help students with their goals.

 “Five Keys looks at students in a more holistic manner than your traditional school setting. We see people as wholes and understand that you cannot instill true intrinsic change by simply giving students packets of homework to complete and get graded on. You have to provide them with meaningful educational experiences that spark them with moments of reflection and eventually personal growth,” said Romina.

What she especially loves about teaching at Five Keys is the strong relationships teachers build with students and connecting them to opportunities they might not otherwise know exist during school and even after graduation. From helping students apply to college, to connecting them with scholarship opportunities, to offering the welding training program at Weber Community Center which serves as a great start to a potential new career path for students, she says.

Romina, who graduated from California State University LA, worked for the adult division of education for the Los Angeles Unified School District as an ESL teacher in 2009. She joined Five Keys in 2012 and taught ESL at Pitchess Detention Center.

“My experiences teaching in-custody molded me into a better teacher,” she says. “Learning about restorative justice taught me about empathy. I really think that before I began working here, I only knew what sympathizing is. But after engaging and continuously learning at Five Keys and having other interactions with the diverse student and teacher population I work with, I truly began to understand and appreciate other people's feelings and experiences.”

She adds: “I love what I do because I see the effect we have on students who are used to people merely sympathizing with them and walking away instead of empathizing and actually lending them a hand up,” she says. “This is what Five Keys does and this is what Hope Street did for my family. Without this support I have no idea where my family and I would be. We will carry our experiences with us in our hearts with lots of gratitude for the rest of our lives.”

Her advice for people considering becoming students at Five Keys?

“Just do it! Five Keys is a door. All we need from students is to open it and our teachers will guide you with the rest! Who knows, maybe making this move will be the domino effect to a better future for their family and future generations to come.”

Vital Signs of Success

Five Keys first stop on lifetime dream to be a nurse

For Ileah Ruffinelli-Tatum of Lancaster, CA, Five Keys is a family affair.

Growing up in South Central Los Angeles as one of 10 kids, she and her siblings didn’t have the opportunity to finish high school. But now, at 30, she’s a semester away from getting her diploma in December 2020, right behind her sister who graduated in March, and two of her brothers who are working and attending Five Keys.

Her study buddies: daughters AJ’Sha, 12, and La’Ryah, 10, who are super excited about their mom’s plans to transition from working in a nail salon and her dad’s construction company to her dream since she was 10 to become a nurse.

“My girls are very supportful of me and we all do our homework/classwork together at the table,” she says.  “Some days I do get discouraged, or overwhelmed and my daughters along with my husband, parents, and siblings, quickly remind me to stop over thinking, stop being lazy and finish. They tell me I have greatness in me and they believe in me. My daughters say the very same encouragement that I give them daily and it always bring tears to my eyes and my heart starts to flutter.”

Since she was a child helping to care for her grandmother who had Alzheimer’s, Ileah has wanted to become a nurse.

But an abusive marriage, and the pursuit of many gigs to support her children – stylist in a nail and hair salon, massage therapist, car mechanic, seamstress, painter and construction work for her father’s business — showcased her myriad talents and made her a jack of all trades, but never fulfilled her yearning to pursue a nursing career.

Remarried and hoping to be a strong role model for her daughters, just as her parents and grandmother were for her, she says she feels blessed that her daughters and new husband are championing her full-time enrollment in Five Keys.

“I started caring for people at the very young age of 11 when I helped my mother take care of my grandmother, feeding her, cleaning and changing her, anything you can think of we did it,” she says. “We had help from my great aunt and siblings — even my dad. Also, I helped my ex father-in-law before he passed away. He was on dialysis — both legs from the knees down amputated and had many other medical conditions.”

At one point she worked in an assisted living facility for the elderly, but had to leave due to some of her own medical issues at the time.

“Five keys helped my siblings and myself gain our confidence back that we can have a second chance in life,” she says. “We can gain our diplomas and still be able to pursue a career, and not just get a low paying job just to get by. We all have children and it helps us to tell our stories and they can watch us firsthand, how we all detoured but still found our way back to the starting point but is now able and have crossed the finish line.”

She says an acquaintance told her about the program.

“I'm so grateful because I struggled for years trying to work and go to school,” she says. “I never found the right school for me but Five Keys is.  I would recommend Five Keys to anyone who wants to make a step to bettering their life or just to have that closure that you finished something they started.  It’s crazy that a piece of paper validates a person's life.  But it is all worth it in the end. It's never how you start but it's all about how you finish.” 

Pomp and Pandemic Circumstances Behind Bars

Graduating the Class of 2020 Incarcerated Students

Five Keys continues educating incarcerated adult high school seniors amidst COVID-19

As high school seniors across the country hold drive-through, ZOOM and other socially distanced graduation ceremonies, Tiara Arnold, 27, celebrated her own graduation milestone, albeit alone in her cell at Alameda County Santa Rita Jail, in Dublin, CA. She’s been quarantined since March to reduce the risk of a coronavirus outbreak. 

“I’m super excited and I keep saying to myself, ‘I did it. I did it,’’’ said Arnold, who was arrested at age 17, placed in maximum security at Santa Rita, moved to a prison and is back on appeal. “When I got arrested, my life was really going in the wrong direction. I was really distracted and made a lot of poor decisions. But while life was progressing for everyone else, I didn’t go to prom, I didn’t graduate from high school and I didn’t get to do the one thing my mom asked me to do which was to get my high school diploma. I was in the worst place my life could be. But now, since people invested so much in me and helped me believe in myself, I am determined to lead a life that is meaningful and helpful to others. I plan to go to college and hope to help my mom with her business and help other at-risk kids who are struggling.”

Thanks to the creativity and exceptional adjustments of our teachers and principals at Five Keys and local sheriff’s departments, Arnold’s experience underscores that of other incarcerated students who are graduating from high school at the Alameda County jail and custody facilities in San Francisco and Sonoma County. This is despite COVID-19 challenges to education and roadblocks exacerbating the disruption: prisoners do not have access to the Internet, so unlike traditional high schools, they could not immediately shift their curriculums online.  

When the coronavirus started to spread, teachers, principals and corrections officers faced a dilemma – how to continue educating incarcerated students as jails shut down and education for most students in traditional schools moved online. It was a significant pivot, as getting a high school degree reduces a person’s likelihood of re-incarceration by 43 percent, according to a report by the RAND Corporation.

“It’s an amazing accomplishment for the students who really took on the extra challenges, like being locked down in their cells and not being able to meet with their teachers on-site, to push through and get across the graduation finish line,” said Lillian Stables, principal at Five Keys for the Alameda County jail site. 

For nearly two months now, our teachers have engaged students through self-paced programs and alternative learning, by delivering packets of the curriculum to the jails and pushing incarcerated students to study independently. 

“We just had to get creative and sent in letters of support and homework and in my case, I just told my students that they can call me when they needed extra help so we can get them into this home stretch,” said Rose Kleiner, a teacher at San Francisco County Jail #4, at 850 Bryant Street in San Francisco. “Even in the best of times, it can be daunting for them, but now the teachers can’t come in and they can’t see their families and are confined to their cells. That makes it pretty tough.”

But the inmates who are defying the odds and graduating this month “are a tenacious and resourceful bunch,” said Lisa Paoloni, a teacher at Sonoma County’s two jail facilities, which typically hold 1,050 to 1,100 inmates. 

Five Keys teachers sprang into action to figure out how to provide remote learning for students and most teachers scrambled (and continue to) to create a detailed COVID-19 overhaul of their curricula.  

“We met with the teachers and coordinators at the facilities – everyone we could – to try to brainstorm how are we going to do this when both the teachers are sheltering in place and the students are on lockdown,” said Kris Davison, also a teacher at Sonoma County’s jails.

At the Alameda County jail, principal Stables and an administrative assistant are admitted into the jail to bring the educational packets to students who are in the high school program. In some cases, like in the San Francisco jails, the custody facility staff arranged for phone calls where individual students could meet with their teachers and for course materials to be dropped off for students, then picked up to be graded by teachers — an elaborately staged system to meet COVID-19 safety standards. The packets undergo a thorough content screening process and are given to the representative at the jail where they sit for three days (for safety issues) and are then handed over to the inmates.  Each student receives a personal packet tailored to his or her educational curriculum.

The response from the inmates has been powerful. 

“One of my students sent me a letter in return that said, ‘You have no idea how much it meant to me to get your letter and to know someone cares,’” said Davison. 

Five Keys offers secondary education at jails across California, in “normal times,” sending faculty to teach in-person classes. Unlike traditional high schools, classes are held year-round, because the life of inmates/students is so transitional. To accommodate short sentences, classes are offered year-round in intensive, one-month semesters, allowing students to earn credits more quickly.

Above and Beyond: Homeless Center staffs are the Unsung Heroes on the Front Lines of COVID-19 in San Francisco

On a Saturday afternoon in the time abyss known as COVID-19, one of the homeless guests at the Embarcadero SAFE Navigation Center went into labor and was transported to a San Francisco hospital to give birth to her new baby. The next day, a long-time couple stepped out in the courtyard between the two gray bunker dormitories at the waterfront center to say: “I do now.” They tied the knot to the cheers of a handful of (socially distanced) guests. In the two weeks that have followed, the staff at Bayshore Navigation center and at the city’s temporary hotel quarters for the homeless have raced to the rescue of two different guests who were overdosing outside on the street. Administering CPR and Narcan, they reversed the overdoses, giving both patients more time for paramedics to get them to the hospital. They saved their lives. 

At a time when a terrorist called COVID-19 has stopped the world in its tracks, the staff at The Embarcadero and Bayshore Navigation centers and other SF CBO city partners are answering the call to care for the community of unsheltered homeless. 

Currently, Five Keys Navigation Center staff have been deployed to four additional shelters across San Francisco. As of June 8, 50 more employees will be added to man shelters at three hotels and the Moscone Center, in addition to the Bayshore and Embarcadero shelters. Of Five Keys’ 600-plus employees, 200 of them now serve people experiencing homelessness.

The silver lining: the glimpses of light that shine through in moments big and small — a new life in the birth of a baby, love in a time of coronavirus, and the saving of two lives. 

“Our navigation team and our fellow CBOs are not just staffing these emergency shelters, they are literally saving lives,” said Steve Good, executive director of Five Keys, which has became a SWAT team tapped to work alongside San Francisco’s public health supervisors and homeless advocates to dramatically reduce density in crowded shelters.

Call them homeless first responders. “When we talk about heroes, our navigation team and the city’s workers helping the homeless are full of them.”

Good called Five Keys‘ navigation center employees and others manning the homeless shelters in San Francisco “the unsung heroes of the pandemic.” 

In the best of times, providing food, shelter, and safety to San Francisco’s homeless population is a challenge. But as the COVID-19 outbreak continues, efforts have become more extreme. 

But through San Francisco’s safety efforts, more than 900 homeless people have been moved into hotel rooms and a pop-up shelter at Moscone West, as the city struggles to keep the pandemic from racing through its 8,000-strong unhoused population. Specifically, Five Keys was named by San Francisco city leaders to supervise operations at Site 10, a 450-room hotel in the city’s center that is housing 360 guests that were formerly in shelters but are most vulnerable to COVID-19 because of age or preexisting medical conditions. 

“Unlike many of us, our residents experiencing homelessness cannot simply close their doors to this disease, and that’s why San Francisco has ramped up efforts to de-escalate transmission of this disease within shelters, and ultimately save lives,” said Good. “Though no one is immune to COVID-19, this pandemic has all too clearly revealed the voids in our society and serves as a wake-up call on the life-and-death urgency of taking care of the most vulnerable in our population.”

 Like nurses and doctors, the individuals on the front lines of San Francisco’s homeless centers and now the hotel shelters, are risking their lives, said Good. He says from the start, the can-do attitude among Five Keys employees has been: "Whatever it takes. Sign me up."

It is no surprise that Five Keys and other service providers were called in by city public health leaders to aid in the massive efforts to marshal safety and shelter for the homeless in the face of this deadly terrorist, COVID-19.

Since 2003, we have been committed to getting the lives of people on the margins of society back on track — behind the walls of 23 county jails, in economically isolated communities, at two navigation centers for the unsheltered homeless, and more than 100 sites throughout San Francisco and Southern California.

Five Keys’ navigation center directors like Meg O’Neill, who has been deployed to head operations at Site 10 hotel and the more than 100 other Five Keys employees who directly serve the homeless are true COVID-19 first responders. At the hotel and the navigation centers, they supervise teams that not only feed, shelter and provide education for guests, but respond to fights, seizures, overdoses, and episodes tied to addiction and mental illness. They de-escalate each situation and stabilize people until medical personnel arrives, when necessary. 

In many ways, the Five Keys’ team’s nimbleness and ability to race toward the chaos of COVID-19 is because of the staff’s firsthand experiences in confronting trauma and the resilience and grit they have gained in their personal lives, said Good. 

“Many of our staff in our navigation centers have spent serious time in prison and bring a very unique calm and ability to get through during a time of crisis like this,” said Good. “At the same time, they are putting their own lives at great risk. But they do it because they have a tremendous passion and determination to give back and serve.”