Community Partners
“What lies behind us,
and what lies before us,
are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
 San Mateo County Probation Department
 San Mateo County Private Defenders Program
 Superior Court of California, San Mateo County Branch,
Juvenile Justice Judges
 San Mateo County Office of Education
 Nonprofit Organization: Court Appointed Special
Advocates (CASA)
Influencing Models
Preparation
Bridge
First-Year Support Partnerships
•National Youth Employment Coalition: Promoting
Postsecondary Success for Court-Involved Youth, 2013
•American Youth Policy Forum: Building Postsecondary
Pathways for Opportunity Youth, 2015
•Berkeley and Stanford Law School: Degrees of FreedomExpanding Opportunities for Currently and Formerly
Incarcerated Californians, 2016
•U.S. Department of Education: Reentry Education ModelPromoting Reentry Success Through Continuity of Educational
Opportunities, 2017
Access, Equity, Achievement
“The engaged voice must never be fixed and absolute but always changing, always
evolving in dialogue with a world beyond itself”
- Bell Hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as Means for Freedom
Enriched
Preparation
Postsecondary
Bridging
First-Year
Support
Project Change at CSM
Students
Bridge
Support
• Population: Court-involved and incarcerated youth in San Mateo County
• Location: Juvenile Hall, Camp Kemp, Camp Glenwood, and Gateway
Community School
• College-readiness workshops at juvenile youth facilities
• In-person/online college courses in juvenile youth facility (Keys to Success,
Sociology, and Writing Workshops ) 2 each semester (Fall, Spring)
• Welcome Day on Campus at College of San Mateo
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Faculty and staff mentors
One-on-one counseling and curricular pathways
Student-led weekly meetings and events/activities
Jobs on campus
Comprehensive Pathways
Transition
support to
campus
College
courses in
juvenile hall
First-year
support at
College of
San Mateo
Support Services
Financial Aid:
 Free Tuition on campus and in the juvenile hall
 Book stipends and material costs covered
 Assistance with financial aid (workshops and one-on-one
support)
Academic Support:
 Designated counselors with case-load model for Project
Change students
 SMCOE staff to assist with enrollment and student selection
for courses at the juvenile hall
 CASA Volunteers in each “Keys to Success” class
Technology:
 Computer lab and laptops available for college courses in the
juvenile hall
 Individual laptops provided to students on campus
Student Profile (Access and Equity)
 First-time college student: 100%
 Enrollment status on campus: Majority part-time or less
 Students served 2015/16: 122 students have participated in
Project Change Programming
 Average class size inside juvenile hall: 25 students for “Keys
to Success,” 5-10 for online and writing workshop courses
 Persistence 2015/16: 79% of the 28 students enrolled on
campus completed one semester or more of courses
 Gender: 61% male, 31% female, 8% undisclosed
 Age: Range-18-24. Majority younger than 20
 Ethnicity: Representative of the county, majority
Latino(a)
2015/16 Highlights
Students toured UC Berkeley and met with Underground
Scholars
Three Project Change students currently serve as Youth
Representatives for the San Mateo County Juvenile Justice
Delinquency and Prevention Commission (JJDCP)
Students attended the Umoja Conference in L.A. and the
NCORE Conference in SF
Students spoke on multiple panels in the county to highlight
ways to best serve youth in the justice system
Students established their own club on campus
Students hosted a screening of the debut documentary about
the justice system, “They Call Us Monsters” in SF
Awards, Reports, and County Impact
•Project Change was honored to receive “Partner Organization of the
Year,” from San Mateo County Probation, 2015
•Project Change was highlighted as a model program for California in
the Youth Law Council report
• http://www.ylc.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/EDUCATIONAL%20INJUSTICE.pdf
•The Superior Court of California, San Mateo County Court Judges,
identify Project Change as a key program for providing educational
services to incarcerated youth:
https://www.sanmateocourt.org/documents/grand_jury/2014/juv_education.pdf
Activity
•First fifteen minutes: Unite
Gather with your county group. Ex:
representatives from Alameda County
(Probation, Office of Education, and community
college). Identify as a group three top goals you
have regarding serving incarcerated populations
and three top challenges you face.
Activity
•Next fifteen minutes: Mix
Contra Costa and Alameda County
Representatives join together. In collaboration
with San Mateo County, identify possible
solutions and expanded goals based on previous
discussion.
Activity
•Final fifteen minutes: Share out