The Incarcerated Student Program at Lake Tahoe Community College is partnering with the Sierra Conversation Center facility in Jamestown to provide students there with a transfer degree pathway.

ISP staff from the college visited the minimum and medium custody inmate facility last week to register 55  students, many of whom are continuing college students. ISP expects to have up to 100 students from the center registered by fall quarter.

All of these inmates will have the opportunity to earn an associate in arts degree for transfer in sociology – a broad-based program that when complete, gives them the option to pursue a bachelor’s degree as a junior upon release or while incarcerated, with a partnering institution in California.

The Sierra Conservation Center is a parent facility that oversees 20 male inmate camps located from Central California to the Mexico border that serve as training facilities for firefighting techniques. Inmates at these facilities are routinely dispatched to help fight wildfires and other emergencies around the state, along with a variety of other community work projects.

LTCC’s Incarcerated Student Program was first approved as a pilot program in 2015. The idea was to serve inmates in California’s correctional facilities and promote their educational success. LTCC’s ISP has grown to serve seven prisons: High Desert State Prison, Folsom State Prison (men), Folsom Women’s Facility, Folsom State Prison Minimum Support Facility, CSP Sacramento, the Growlersburg Conservation Camp, and now the Sierra Conservation Center.