Marques Jackson, 32, sat at a desk in an orange jumpsuit, smiling as his classmates in a room on the seventh floor of the Bexar County jail.applauded his receiving his high school equivalency diploma.

“I never finished school, but it’s amazing how God works, because me being in here, it’s like everything’s happening right for me,” Jackson said. “I tend to say it’s crazy, but it’s not crazy. It’s wonderful. It’s amazing.”

Jackson was one of 20 men who took a four-hour resume writing and job interview class the Alamo Colleges District offers at the jail. With the philosophy that teaching the inmates new skills will improve their prospects once released and reduce recidivism, the district and Bexar County Sheriff’s Office this year expanded their portfolio of vocational course offerings.

The Alamo Colleges introduced the interview and resume class four years ago, along with a customer service course, said Raquel Perez, a corporate liaison for the arm of the community college district that trains employees of outside companies and agencies. The following year, the program expanded to include Occupational Safety and Health Administration classes.

This year, Perez met with Workforce Solutions Alamo to come up with eight additional classes based on local market demand, including one that provides a national certification in manufacturing quality and safety. The new classes encompass such varied topics as business etiquette, car detailing and administrative support skills.

“It’s a hit, so we’re going to be moving forward with these classes for next year,” Perez said.

The community college district also won a contract of up to $1.5 million to teach HVAC, carpentry and welding classes to male inmates at the medium-security federal prison in Three Rivers, Perez said. The first classes began last year.

At the Bexar County Jail, sheriff’s office staff and other organizations run additional classes, including basic computer and kitchen skills. The Alamo Colleges District teaches most of the vocational courses, and nearly 3,000 inmates have been through at least one since the partnership’s inception.

The classes are always popular and the sheriff’s office aims to offer them more frequently, said Deputy Johnny C. Garcia, a BCSO spokesman.

Some inmates at the jail are awaiting trial, while others are serving short sentences, Garcia said. Some of the Alamo Colleges classes meet repeatedly over one to three weeks, precluding inmates from signing up if they anticipate a quick release, Perez said. Inmates qualify for the classes based on behavior, and men and women attend separately.

The sheriff’s office pays the Alamo Colleges a flat fee for each course offered, ranging from $320 for the resume writing class to $6,580 for 48 hours of instruction for a transportation management course.

Some of the inmates have careers and are looking to brush up their skills. But in some classes, most of the students never had a steady job, Garcia said.

In the resume writing class on a recent Thursday evening, instructor Ilda Casanova led discussions on formatting resumes, cover letters and submitting the appropriate keywords to job search websites. If a job application asks about criminal charges, Casanova advised the inmates to answer, “Discuss in interview” — and not to lie during the interview. She mentioned second-chance companies that hire inmates who are released on Texas Workforce Commission bonds.

“There’s something good out there for you,” Casanova told her students.

In an interview, Jackson said he had financial security — but when he lost it, he entered a downward spiral that landed him in jail on seven counts of aggravated robbery.

Jackson said he was making almost $40,000 per year driving a diesel truck. He had a beautiful wedding two years ago, with a honeymoon in Puerto Rico. He and his wife own a house and have a 7-year-old son. Jackson said he even had a nice car.

Five months after his wedding, Jackson lost his trucking job. He did brief stints at Taco Bell and in construction, but couldn’t hold anything down. He was falling behind on bills — cable, Internet, car payments, insurance, cell phone. He quit one job and didn’t tell his wife. Depressed and hanging out with friends, Jackson said he tried synthetic marijuana, not knowing it was laced with crystal methamphetamine.

Then, Jackson said, he was sweating in his car, snatching somebody’s fake precious metal chain. He denied the other aggravated robbery charges. A trial has been set for June.

Jackson, a boxer, said drugs never tempted him before he felt the humiliation of unemployment and his car being repossessed. Now he signs up for any class at the jail he can, especially those Casanova teaches. He wants to get an HVAC certification, work for Toyota on a Texas Workforce Commission bond or start his own business pressure-washing trucks.

“Things are looking optimistic,” Jackson said. “I’m furthering my education. ... I’m up here all day, every day.”

The jail’s courses served as higher education for Rafael Salas, 36, a Lanier High School graduate who said he blew off a football scholarship to a university in New Mexico. The day of the resume writing course, Salas also signed up for OSHA training. He said he never made more than the $10.50 per hour he earned as a bill collector, but he was angling for a job at Toyota.

Salas had been in jail since November on burglary and continuous violence charges. He said the Alamo Colleges classes were giving him hope.

“Sometimes I’m lost and I don’t know what direction I’m heading, and all of a sudden they offer you so much stuff here,” Salas said. “It’s a blessing.”

Osborne Fullenkamp, 34, graduated from high school in Florida but never earned a college degree. “I didn’t have the patience,” he said.

He was jailed April 1, awaiting a hearing on a motion to revoke the probation he was serving from a drug charge. Fullenkamp said he saw an advertisement in his pod for the resume writing class and thought, “Maybe I can improve myself a little bit and get some skills that I don’t have, so I can prevent myself from coming back here.”

Fullenkamp said he had been driving wreckers but would do almost any job for Toyota, describing himself as mechanically inclined. He wants a job with better pay and benefits, and said the company’s random urine tests would give him an incentive to stay clean.

“I wouldn’t be down in the dumps and getting on drugs anymore, ‘cause I’d have a reason to stay off ‘em,” Fullenkamp said. “My kids will see me doing better and making something of my life, which will probably inspire them to do something with their lives.”

Those sentiments fuel Perez’s passion for the inmate classes.

“Everybody deserves second chances, and if we can give them the tools to be successful, for us, that’s what we do,” Perez said. “We touch community. We serve community.”

Alia Malik is a San Antonio Express-News staff writer. Read more of her stories here. | amalik@express-news.net | @AliaAtSAEN