Sajad Shakoor occupies a unique job assignment among California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) residents. He is an employee of the Prison Industry Authority (PIA) at San Quentin (SQ) where inmate crews make mattresses and furniture for CDCR institutions statewide, hospitals, schools, and other state agencies.
Production has slowed dramatically since the advent of re-alignment, resulting in inmate worker layoffs. However, Shakoor’s position is secure. In collaboration with the Voluntary Education Program (VEP), his job is to prepare the production workers for the GED test.
Shakoor exceeds the standard qualifiers for his position. He is a UC Berkeley Certified Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Specialist, and Laubach certified tutor. He has Associate Arts degrees from Coastline Community College and Patten University.
Shakoor has been working in PIA for two years as Health and Safety Coordinator and GED Instructor. His job requires a mixture of vocational and academic skill sets. He is responsible for critical OSHA analyses, and equally critical group test preparation. These responsibilities require a strong education background to validate and set the employee’s ability and liability.
Shakoor initiated the PIA link to SQ’s Burton Adult School, which has four full time VEP teaching positions. Only two are filled at this time. Students meet face-to-face with a VEP teacher roughly twice per week. The teacher oversees the program and proctors TABE and pre-GED tests to qualify the candidates. PIA workers are especially motivated to have a GED because the DOM requires it of them, and PIA will not grant a pay raise to a worker who doesn’t have one. Workers are allotted two hours per day of work time to prepare for the GED test as per DOM.
The results are tangible. The VEP/PIA collaboration has produced eight GED graduates. About 10 students are currently enrolled, which is about half of the enrollment before the re-alignment layoffs. The VEP also extends distance learning services to the Ad-seg and Condemned units, and includes plans to employ teams of inmate tutors.
Some of the unemployed PIA students have committed to continue their GED studies on an independent study basis, with as-needed classroom contact. Shakoor plans to complete a Bachelor’s Degree in Literature July 2012 from Ohio University, then to enroll in a Masters Degree Program at CSU Dominguez Hills. He also conducts Arabic language lessons each evening in his housing unit.
Tom Bolema is a free-staff Literacy Coordinator at Burton Adult School, San Quentin.
