Our COVID-19 Response

Timeline:

• March 2020: At the start of the pandemic, the Department of Corrections shut down all volunteer programming. The DOC leadership deemed educational programming to be essential. This allowed FEPPS staff (who are education contractors) to go inside, but volunteer professors could not. This forced us to halt in-person learning. We worked with professors to finish out the term with paper-based distance learning, building a program model that we continue to use now.

• Summer 2020: In the summer, we chose to offer limited classes via paper packets, focusing on what was needed for people closest to graduation. We increased extracurricular programs and made them available to everyone in our learning community – current students, former students, graduates, and those who had intended to begin FEPPS in 2020. Many yearly and long awaited events were postponed - our annual graduation ceremony, the start of the new Bachelor of Arts program (set to begin Fall 2020) and the admission of a new cohort of students. These decisions were challenging, but we did not feel we could adequately support BA students and new students with paper-only instruction.

• Fall 2020: By fall semester, we were in the groove of paper-based learning. Packets and student work were distributed and collected weekly for four courses. We started supplementing written materials with recorded lectures that played on a loop on the prison’s internal television system, and began offering weekly study halls again. In October of 2020, we celebrated the admission of 17 students to the University of Puget Sound Bachelor of Arts degree. In December we were able to hold a small commencement ceremony for the nine students who completed their AA degree in 2020. Even though we couldn’t invite outside guests, each graduate brought a friend, and professors sent video messages. And there was cake!

• Spring 2021: In 2021, we had planned a limited return to in person learning and increased study halls. However, the DOC unexpectedly implemented new constraints in February which made it impossible to gather students in a classroom. Students persevered, and competed another term via paper packets. Bachelor of Arts students took their first class, an introduction to the study of liberal arts taught by our own Dr. Erzen. We partnered with our colleagues at Tacoma Community College to assemble care packages with food, hygiene supplies and reading material for everyone incarcerated at WCCW and MCCCW.

• Summer 2021: Summer 2021 was the first time we were able to bring professors back inside since COVID! We offered one BA and one AA class and a math refresher course. To do this, our dedicated instructors had to become credentialed as contract DOC staff, like FEPPS staff – a much more extensive process than volunteering. The DOC made limited video conferencing available in classrooms and after a year of effort, we distributed specially approved student laptops, to be used for coursework and provide access to academic journals and library catalogs.

• Fall 2021: This was our first full in-person term in two years. We offered four AA and two BA classes and held orientation and assessment events in preparation for admitting new cohort in Spring 2022. December saw our second COVID graduation ceremony. A small group of staff, professors and friends of the graduates gathered to celebrate the Class of 2021.

• Winter 2022: In January 2022, WCCW experienced its first facility-wide outbreak of COVID-19. All programming ceased and the prison went into full lockdown, with people quarantined in the gym and chapel. This forced us to postpone the start of our Spring term. We met with professors and solicited student input where possible as we developed a plan to restart classes. After a few months, active cases dropped down to zero and FEPPS staff began entering the facility on a limited basis. Our hearts go out to everyone incarcerated at WCCW and their loved ones.

• Summer 2022: There were once again active cases among the incarcerated population. For the foreseeable future, the prison will use a "cohorting model", wherein incarcerated people cannot mix with anyone who is not in their immediate living unit - four different cohorts in total. Under this scenario, it is impossible to hold in-person classes. There is simply not enough space at the prison, staff/professor capacity, or hours in the day to hold each class four times a week (multiply that out to include all other education, religious, mental health, re-entry programming etc. etc. and you see the problem!)

  So... we returned to correspondence courses! We offered two AA courses this term in humanities and math. The BA is on hold for this term as those classes cannot be taught via correspondence according to policy at the University of Puget Sound.

• Fall 2022 (updated 9/2/22): We are making a limited return to in-person learning with two BA classes this term! We are able to gather students from the two largest living units in a classroom with the remaining students attending via Zoom from their units. We are excited to pilot this model and hope to expand to AA classes in the future. For this term, we are still offering AA courses via correspondence.

Challenges:

• FEPPS professors are typically credentialed as volunteers, meaning they cannot enter the prison to teach.

• Students do not have access to the internet and we have extremely limited ability to host virtual meetings via Zoom.

• Students are often separated from their classmates if they are in different living units, meaning they have to learn in isolation from both professors and peers.

Solutions:

• FEPPS professors are undergoing a far more rigorous process of becoming temporary contract staff (including all-day in-person trainings at the prison) in order to be able to enter the facility to teach when we are able to gather students.

• Paper packets are created, printed, individually distributed and collected, and returned to professors on a weekly basis by Program Manager Mia Lawrie.

• Professors record lessons that play on a loop on the televisions in the living units - this was especially helpful in foreign language classes (we were teaching Spanish and German in 2020!)

• At the times it has been allowed, we have held in-person study halls to allow students to meet and study with their peers.