Some students bow their heads over books while others talk to teachers leaning over the tables. For the inmates, this a last shot at a high school diploma. Stark works on an English lesson. Inmate students are given a chance to earn high school diplomas to either help them after their release or to help them adjust better to life in prison. Spring Creek High School is likely to become a unique boarding school for up to 50 prisoners under 20, officials say The triangular mod, two stories tall, is a brightly lit gymnasiumlike room.
Cells line two of the white walls.
A projection screen used by teachers is dwarfed by the third wall. The screen is one of the few obvious clues that there's a school here. But there are three white boards with scribbled notes in Magic Marker and a couple of shelves lined with books on biology, American literature, U.S. history and math. Planning for the school started last spring. When School District officials took on a walking tour of the prison, at the foot of Mount Alice across Resurrection bay from downtown Seward, one of them looked out at a field and exclaimed that it would be an excellent place to play soccer.