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The first three weeks of January have been a sprint of platform development, infrastructure hardening, and strategic feature deployment for Prison Professors. As we push toward making this the most effective reentry preparation platform in the country, every day has involved balancing deep technical work with rapid iteration based on real-world usage and feedback.
Corrections Course Hub Deployment The most significant milestone was deploying the new Corrections Course Hub to production on January 8th. This involved building seven new pages, three new reusable components, and integrating 25 PDF resources across the Profiles, Straight-A Guide, and PSAP courses. Each course page now features:
Embedded course overview videos with streaming audio
Downloadable lesson PDFs and facilitator guides
Gateway forms that integrate with our CRM
Responsive module cards with expandable content modals
The video integration was particularly important. I worked with Michael to generate AI voiceovers using ElevenLabs for course introductions, then built clickable video modals that open in-page rather than redirecting to YouTube—keeping users engaged with the platform.
Email System Overhaul I rebuilt the entire email template system from scratch, creating a 300+ line utility that matches Prison Professors' brand identity (Purple, Orange, Cream color scheme). This wasn't just cosmetic—the old templates had bugs like "Hello Hello" greeting prefixes and disabled email signatures. The new modular system in Convex ensures every transactional email (profile approvals, testimonials, journal publications) maintains consistent branding and includes proper Prison Professors attribution.
CRM Foundation Started architecting a unified CRM to consolidate scattered contact data from the website, profiles platform, and Edovo partnership. Set up a new Convex project, deployed it to production, and outlined the schema for tracking:
Anonymous visitor page views (cookie-based)
Form submissions with lead source attribution
Reusable link library for content sharing
Integration points for future email campaigns
This CRM will become the "source of truth" for understanding user journeys from first website visit through profile creation and course completion.
Straight-A Guide Launch Support Coordinated the launch announcement for the Straight-A Guide, including:
Publishing the launch blog post with proper SEO optimization
Generating Open Graph images for social media sharing using AI (Google Gemini)
Creating a reusable Node.js script for future blog post automation
Updating proof points from "12 Modules" to "10 Core Modules" based on final content review
Bug Fixes and Data Integrity Resolved two critical leaderboard issues (#308 and #306) where users Scott Roethle and Dennis Ray Zeedyk weren't appearing despite having sufficient points. Root cause: missing facilityId in their profiles. This led to a broader audit of data integrity across the platform.
Created PRs to fix content sorting logic on the "Manage Content" screen—new content now correctly appears at the top, sorted by publish date descending.
Systematically fixed missing radix parameters in parseInt() calls across nine locations in the codebase—a subtle bug that could cause octal number interpretation issues in edge cases.
Infrastructure Hardening Configured SSL/TLS for our n8n automation instance at aladdin.prisonprofessors.org, including:
Nginx server block configuration
Let's Encrypt certificate via Certbot (valid until April 5, 2026)
Automatic renewal setup
Secure webhook endpoints for workflow automation
Built an n8n workflow to monitor website uptime, including SSH integration to check Docker container status and diagnose connection failures on our staging server.
Edovo Impact Page Enhancement This week I focused heavily on the Edovo Partnership Impact page, implementing multiple UI/UX improvements:
Featured "Total Learning Hours" hero statistic
Visual star ratings for average course scores
Animated number counters for key metrics
Hover animations on facility cards
Fixed Geographic Distribution chart rendering issues
Added a modal popup with detailed partnership information
The goal was to make our partnership data more engaging and accessible, demonstrating the real-world impact of our Edovo collaboration across 100+ facilities.
Content Publication and Social Strategy Published a major blog post: "Empowering Change: How Prison Professors is Transforming Education Inside the Criminal Justice System". This involved:
Converting Google Docs to markdown
Uploading featured images to R2 storage
Deploying to production Convex database
Generating social media content using Summaraize AI
Publishing coordinated posts to Facebook
Created and configured automated daily reports for AI tool usage, which now send email summaries every morning via Resend.
Platform Automation Updated the Google Docs sync cron job from twice-daily to hourly execution—ensuring website content stays current as Michael and the team make updates to course materials and policy documents.
Added PDF download functionality for the Straight-A Guide Workbook, complementing the existing Amazon print-on-demand option.
Throughout these three weeks, I've maintained close coordination with Michael Santos—participating in regular Google Meet sessions to review features, troubleshoot issues, and align on content strategy. The pace is intense but purposeful: every feature we ship either makes the platform more accessible to justice-impacted individuals or more useful to correctional staff and advocates.
I've also worked with Tulio Cardozo on operations and infrastructure issues, from resolving payment failures (Kinsta, Anthropic subscriptions) to managing Google Workspace accounts and coordinating technical workflows.
These three weeks represent more than code commits and feature deployments. Every enhancement—whether it's fixing a leaderboard bug so Dennis Zeedyk gets proper recognition for his 485 points, or building a CRM to understand how defense attorneys discover our resources—serves the mission of creating pathways to freedom through merit and documented effort.
The platform now has 5,310+ profiles (53% of our 10,000 goal), processes daily content from 118 active facilities, and delivers courses approved by the Federal Bureau of Prisons as First Step Act Productive Activities. The infrastructure we're building isn't just about technology—it's about creating transparent, measurable systems that demonstrate rehabilitation and advocate for policy reform.
As we move into the final week of January, the focus shifts to faculty features, enhanced analytics, and preparing for broader outreach to correctional facilities and legal advocates. The foundation is solid. Now we scale.
What are you doing today to prepare for the outcome you want tomorrow?
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