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For Tina Shermeister's students, school is without question the best part of their day.
She teaches juvenile inmates at the Public Safety Building and supervises others who attend regular school through work-release.
On one recent afternoon, she had four young men in her classroom at the Dane County Public Safety Building, all wearing jail-issue navy blue jumpsuits and plastic sandals.
They worked quietly on booklets to help them prepare for high school equivalency degree exams. Shermeister moved from student to student, working with one on a math problem, with another on a resume- preparation worksheet.
This group had less than two hours in class before they returned to their pods, and Corey Irvin, 18, said the stimulation is welcome.
"We're not just in there sitting around and watching TV," he said.
They take homework back with them, and Jeffrey Dale, 18, said older inmates sometimes take interest in it, too, as he works in the pod.
Both Dale and Irvin want to take classes at Madison Area Technical College once their sentences are over, and Irvin said he looks forward to a time when he will have a job that pays enough so he will not have to worry about coming up with rent or car payments.
The students' interest in schoolwork is one of the job's bright spots, Shermeister said.
"Sometimes even more than academic success, it's seeing students make progress with life skills that makes teaching in the jail rewarding." |
The students she sees in the jail are similar to those she taught as a special education teacher at La Follette High School for five years, she said, but added that there is a key difference: Circumstances outside the classroom are tightly controlled. Her students come to class fed, sober and ready to learn.
As a result, she can move through a lot of material in a short time.
Shermeister said her father "just about hit the roof" when she took the job last year, but it is actually quite safe. Students are on good behavior because class time is such a welcome change. Sheriff's deputies stop by the class from time to time, and if there are behavior problems, she can summon a deputy with a walkie-talkie she carries on her hip.
Shermeister, 28, said she thought long and hard about taking the job in August 1998, but decided that she wanted to be on the ground floor of the project.
She is the first teacher to be based in the Public Safety Building, although the Madison School District has hired teachers for inmates (not counting those in juvenile detention) since fall 1996.
That's when state law changed, requiring 17-year-olds to be waived into adult court automatically. The revisions to the juvenile code also allowed judges to waive children as young as 10 into adult court for serious crimes.
But state law also requires school districts to teach all of those age 18 or younger within their borders. And those with special education labels are eligible for school services through age 21. The result was the establishment of jail programs for students across the state.
Deb Anderson was the Madison School District's first jail teacher, and she used to shuttle back and forth between the Public Safety Building and the maximum-security floors of the City-County Building until Shermeister began her stint.
Shermeister was once Anderson's student teacher, and Anderson praised her former protege for getting the new program in order, adding that before her arrival many of the inmates were unable to handle the less restrictive atmosphere of the Public Safety Building.
Anderson now teaches exclusively at the City-County Building, where juvenile inmates await their sentences. Anderson estimated that she and Shermeister have seen about 100 students so far this year.
Those contacts can range from two hours to more than a year, depending on legal circumstances, and the students' skills vary widely, Shermeister said.
Some struggle to do basic math, while others could easily get a high school equivalency diploma without further study.
Shermeister tailors the academic work according to the students' abilities, but she works with them on decision-making skills, too, and health-related topics such as depression.
Sometimes even more than academic success, it's seeing students make progress with life skills that makes teaching in the jail rewarding.
But Anderson said that one of the great downsides to the job is the heartbreak of seeing those students who will begin life sentences and will not get a chance to use what they have learned anywhere outside prison.
Crimes must be punished, she said, but she added, "You can have empathy for someone who's done something very bad."
Posted December 15, 1999