Goodwill Excel Center expanding to Shelby County Corrections Center
Former inmate Anthony Phillips, 21, was a featured speaker Friday, May 30 at The Excel Center graduation at the Orpheum Theatre. “Never let a person tell you it’s impossible to switch it up and change,” he told the crowd. (Brad Vest/Special to The Daily Memphian)
Hundreds of people incarcerated at the Shelby County Corrections Center will soon have the chance to earn their high school diplomas while in prison.
The Goodwill Excel Center, which offers high school classes to adults in Memphis, has plans to expand its diploma and workforce credential program into the prison facility at 1045 Mullins Station Road in January.
“The beauty of using Excel Center inside an institution is … (the people incarcerated) now have time to solely focus on themselves,” said DeAndre Brown, executive director of the Shelby County Office of Reentry.
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Shelby County Corrections Center Memphis-Shelby County Schools The Excel Center Subscriber OnlyAre you enjoying your subscription?
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Laura Testino
Laura Testino is an enterprise reporter on The Daily Memphian’s metro team who writes most often about how education policies shape the lives of children and families. She regularly contributes to coverage of breaking news events and actions of the Tennessee General Assembly. Testino’s journalism career in Memphis began six years ago at The Commercial Appeal, where she began chronicling learning disruptions associated with the pandemic, and continued with Chalkbeat, where she dug into education administration in Memphis. Her reporting has appeared in The New York Times, The Times-Picayune, The Tuscaloosa News and USA Today.
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