Vanessa Butler (right) and Tamra Schmidkunz work Tuesday at She Brews Coffee, a Claremore nonprofit organization that helps women after incarceration. GARETT FISBECK/Tulsa World
CLAREMORE - While serving a 1 1/2-year sentence for drug and burglary convictions, Vanessa Butler knew prison was a second chance.
"I was just ready for a change," said Butler, who is eager to start her second year at Rogers State University in Claremore. "I wanted to do something productive while I was there."
During her time at the Eddie Warrior Correctional Facility in Taft, Butler earned her GED and started Career Tech classes. She also met Kyle Davis, an educational specialist with the Educational Opportunity Center based out of RSU.
"(Davis) helped me file for financial aid and look for schools in Claremore," said Butler, who was released in September 2011. "I got directed to RSU. I never thought I would be university material."
Butler is now living in a transitional home in Claremore while she attends school and works at She Brews Coffeehouse, a nonprofit organization that helps women re-enter society after incarceration.
The Educational Opportunity Center aims to assist adults who don't have easy access to higher education.
"It's not like coming from a middle-class family where you know the steps to take, where college is expected," Davis said. "That's what the EOC provides, the support and the steps to get them there."
The center works with people in prisons as well as workforce centers, public schools, adult foster care, adult education programs, the Community Action Project, Goodwill Industries and other nonprofit groups.
"We say first-generation and low-income students. There are many, many people that fall into those categories," said project director Susan Bedwell. "We put support around people so they can be successful."
The Educational Opportunity Center based at RSU has been operating for 27 years and currently assists 3,200 clients throughout 27 counties in Oklahoma and who are at different levels of post-secondary education, Bedwell said.
The EOC assists people in earning their GED; finding a college, university or Career Tech center that fits their needs; applying for admission and financial aid and then enrolling; as well as providing constant encouragement and support during the process.
"We help people return to education. Everybody's journey is different," Bedwell said. "I would like to think the program was a big part of it."
About 120 Educational Opportunity Centers exist throughout the country, including five in Oklahoma. The center run out of RSU is the largest in the state and one of the largest in the U.S., Bedwell said.
The centers are funded entirely by the U.S. Department of Education, and because of sequestration, they are having to make cuts to their programs.
The operating budget at the RSU center is $592,789, and in the coming year the center will have to cut 5.23 percent from their budget, which equates to reducing services to 200 people, Bedwell said.
If things don't change, reductions like that will continue every year, she added.
"Cut after cut after cut, and then there's no program," she said. "We take it away from those people who are most in need."
The EOC program actually saves Oklahoma money, Bedwell contends. The average cost to house an inmate in Oklahoma is almost $18,500 a year, according to the Pew Institute for States. The recidivism rate for inmates who don't have a GED is 66 percent, according to the American Correctional Association. It drops to 32 percent when the inmate earns a GED, 12 percent with some college and 8 percent with a college degree.
"Those 200 people who will go back to prison and it costs $18,000 a year to house them, just add that up," Butler said. "If the EOC could help 10 people out of that 200, that's enough."
Butler feels strongly about the program because she could easily have been one of those who found themselves back behind bars.
"Without the EOC, I don't know who would have helped me," she said. "I probably would have figured it out, but it would have been a lot more stressful. What if I just gave up?"
Butler is now pursuing a bachelor's degree in community counseling and hopes to earn a master's degree in drug and alcohol counseling. Being back in a classroom wasn't easy after five years away from school, but the first steps she took while incarcerated were really the hardest.
"People in prison have failed so many times, that first step to get an education - what if we fail at that, too? That support is important," she said, and walking onto campus on her first day of college last fall was a little easier because of encouragement. "I had a lot of support. I had a lot of people backing me up, so I wasn't as nervous."
Education matters
|
Educational level | Recidivism rate |
|
Without GED | 66 percent |
|
With GED | 32 percent |
|
Some college | 12 percent |
|
College degree | 8 percent |
Source: American Correctional Association
Sara Plummer 918-581-8465
sara.plummer@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: RSU program pushes school after prison
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