Prisoner Tommy Wickerd arrived at San Quentin in September 2015 with what he estimates was a fourth-grade education.

This past June, he earned his GED, essentially the equivalent of a high school diploma, from San Quentin’s adult school. Now Wickerd, who is serving a 57-year sentence for fatally shooting a man in 2002, is moving on to college-level work.

His educational transformation came thanks to the prison’s Robert E. Burton Adult School, which was the first winner of the newly created Distinguished School award from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation this year.

“The teachers at San Quentin are like no other prison I’ve been in, and I’ve been to a couple,” Wickerd said. “I struggle with school, but when they see you struggling they will come over and help you. They’ll make sure you figure it out before you leave the classroom.”

The 1,180 students at San Quentin’s school have committed serious crimes, and some can barely read when they arrive, but the school is helping many through innovative programs.

A group of UC Berkeley volunteers helps with one-on-one reading instruction, just one reason the school stood out among 12 prison schools statewide that applied for the honor.

Avelina Rivera, a history major and volunteer, said many of the Berkeley students are bilingual, an asset for teaching entry-level English readers at San Quentin, many of whom are also learning English as a second language.

“It makes a big difference in those classrooms,” she said.

The school also has well-trained teachers and support from the prison’s warden, Ron Davis. Meanwhile, Burton is riding a wave of efforts to improve correctional education statewide, including new state leadership, more money and new programs to recognize excellence.

Since Principal Michael Wheeless arrived in 2013, the school has been focusing on vocational skills such as building maintenance, plumbing, electronics, computer literacy and metal machine work.

Wheeless has expanded partnerships with volunteer groups like the Berkeley students and encouraged teachers to meet weekly to share best practices. The school has been remodeled with new paint, equipment and furniture.

All those changes paid off, impressing the committee that awarded the Distinguished School recognition. Prison schools are invited to apply for the designation every two years. Officials assess schools’ mission, climate and culture, curriculum, student support and facilities.

At San Quentin, the program offers a student-teacher ratio of 27 to 1, but volunteers allow the school to provide tailored reading instruction. The volunteer program gives San Quentin’s school an advantage over those in more remote parts of the state.

Wheeless said volunteer-taught gardening, sports, cooking, yoga and podcasting classes create a culture of self-improvement that carries over to academics.

“In places like San Quentin, there’s a lot more volunteer programming than you have at (places that are) more remote and there isn’t the population who can volunteer,” said Debbie Mukamal, executive director of Stanford University’s Criminal Justice Center.

Wickerd said the volunteers at the school create an intellectual environment that struck him the day he arrived.

“It's like a college campus. I hear people talking and they’re like, ‘I got a B on this paper and I’m mad about it,’” he said. “The outside help at San Quentin is amazing. These people really care for us.”

Wickerd works with at-risk youth through a San Quentin program. He said now that he has his GED, he’s not all talk when he speaks with young people about focusing on school.

Wickerd credits his academic success to teachers like Anita Sufi, who pushed him to excel by bringing extra homework to his cell when he was struggling with long division, for example.

Wickerd is now doing algebra, he said, and he helped his 12-year-old granddaughter with math and a compare-and-contrast essay on a recent phone call.

Beyond the volunteers and teachers, San Quentin’s warden also deserves credit for Burton’s success, said Shannon Swain, the state’s superintendent of the Office of Correctional Education.

“San Quentin has a very, very progressive warden who believes in the power of programs to help transform lives,” Swain said.

Swain was appointed in 2014 to improve the state’s correctional education by then-Gov. Jerry Brown, along with Brantley Choate, now California’s director of rehabilitative programs.

Funding was increased. California’s Office of Correctional Education spent $205 million in the 2018-19 fiscal year, up from $162 million two years prior, according to budget records.

Swain said she and Choate decided a couple of years ago that they wanted California prisons to have the best correctional education in the world.

One indication of their success so far? Every California prison except one offers face-to-face college programs now, when just a few years ago only one offered in-person instruction.

Mukamal said she’s been involved in Swain’s effort to bring California community college teachers into prisons to teach degree-building courses that can also earn an inmate time off from a sentence. In the spring semester, about 5,300 students were enrolled in face-to-face college courses, out of 43,000 students taking academic courses across the system. At San Quentin, 379 students are enrolled in college, including 30 who are on Death Row.

Mukamal said prisoners who are released can continue taking courses at community colleges and other campuses with programs tailored to former inmates. She said no other state has invested so much into higher education for incarcerated people.

“California absolutely leads the nation,” she said.

The Office of Correctional Education hopes all of its schools will ultimately reach the bar set at San Quentin, where Berkeley students like Rivera are making an impact.

About two years ago, Rivera helped an inmate spell his daughter’s name for the first time. Over time, as the inmate improved his writing, he reconnected with his daughter through letters.

That memory of restoring a father-daughter relationship makes Rivera think of her own father, who was behind bars for most of her childhood.

“When someone is incarcerated ... they can feel stripped of their humanity,” she said. “But education is something that nobody can take from you.”

Pete Grieve is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: metro@sfchronicle.com