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Washington Post
As opioid crisis
intensifies, one Md. school system looks at a ‘recovery’ school
By Donna St. George
March 19
Kevin Burnes thinks his school saved his life. He arrived there at 14
years old, just out of rehab, and says it was exactly what he needed: a
place where kids with drug and alcohol problems could stay on a path of
recovery as they worked toward high school graduation.
“I have no question that it changed the course of everything I was
doing,” said Burnes, now a music teacher and musician.
The school that made the difference was Phoenix, in Montgomery County,
believed to have been the first of its kind in the country. It opened
in 1979 amid concerns about student drug use and continued for decades
before fizzling to an end four years ago at a time of flux for
alternative programs.
Now the idea may be making a comeback, with school leaders looking into
the possibility of a new “recovery” school program as the nation’s
opioid epidemic draws wide attention. While some in Montgomery pose
questions about cost and effectiveness, others say the program worked
well years ago and could help those who struggle with addiction today.
“I believe there is a need out there, and I believe we certainly could
have enough students involved in this to make it successful,” said
county school board member Rebecca Smondrowski, chair of a committee
examining the issue in the 159,000-student district, Maryland’s largest.
With two campuses at its height, Phoenix provided academics along with
group counseling, random drug testing, 12-step programs, peer support
and outdoor experiential learning. Parental involvement was required,
and enrollment was small, about 50 a year, split between Gaithersburg
and Silver Spring.
“There were hundreds of kids that I know who went through the program
and turned their lives around,” said Mike Bucci, a Phoenix teacher for
20 years.
Nearly four decades after Phoenix opened, there are 38 recovery high
schools across the country, said Andy Finch, a Vanderbilt University
researcher. Another five or six are expected to open in the next year,
he said, and a string of other proposals are in early stages, including
one for a D.C. charter school.
Driving the enthusiasm, Finch said, are the increasing awareness of
addiction, the surge in opioid-related deaths and a recent documentary
that spotlights recovery schools called “Generation Found.”
“I can’t remember a time when there’s been so much interest in opening
schools,” he said.
In Montgomery, the idea came in response to growing concerns about
substance abuse and addiction. School officials recently outlined
options for a recovery school, including one for a regional program
that would draw students from other school systems, but no decision has
been made about taking on the project.
Montgomery’s school board is expected to discuss the issue in the next
few months.
“We just want the school back — it never should have closed,” said
Patty Winters, leader of a group called Phoenix Rising: Maryland
Recovery School Advocates, which is pushing for a modern version of the
old school.
Gov. Larry Hogan (R) declared a state of emergency in Maryland related
to the opioid crisis, committing an additional $50 million over five
years to beef up enforcement, prevention and treatment.
In Montgomery, opioid-related deaths were up 40 percent in 2016 from a
year earlier among those 18 and older, county officials say.
Though K-12 students have not been part of that spike in deaths,
drug-related visits to Montgomery emergency rooms are up for youth ages
6 to 18 — from 411 in 2013 to 493 in 2015, an increase of 20 percent,
said Raymond Crowel, chief of behavioral health and crisis services for
Montgomery County.
“I would argue that at least some of that is related to the increase in
opiate use,” he said.
Crowel said the idea of a new school raises questions about which
students would be admitted, how long they would stay and what the
academic setting would be like.
He says more rigorous research is needed on recovery schools and
wonders whether they are the most cost-effective answer or if
interventions in regular high schools might be a better option.
“The devil is in the details,” he said.
Nationally, many recovery schools enroll 20 to 45 students, with an
average cost of $12,000 to $20,000 per pupil, said Sasha McLean, board
chair of the Association of Recovery Schools and executive director of
Archway Academy in Houston.
When Phoenix started, Brian Berthiaume, founding program coordinator,
said there was no model for what worked best. The school grew more
successful as it added random drug testing and 12-step programs such as
Alcoholics Anonymous, he said. Many students completed the program and
graduated.
But over the years, support faltered for the original model, said
Berthiaume. Staff left, feeling it had lost its focus, according to
Bucci, the longtime teacher. Phoenix was eventually consolidated with
other alternative programs and just three students were enrolled when
it closed, district officials said.
It’s important for a new school to have steady backers from school
boards and top administrators, Berthiaume said: “Hopefully this time
it’ll have more consistent support at higher levels.”
Research has begun to show promising outcomes for students in treatment
who then attend recovery schools, said Finch, of Vanderbilt. He and
three researchers from other universities, in a joint project, found
relapse rates significantly lower for students attending recovery
schools, he said.
While no scholarly analysis was done of Phoenix’s effectiveness, Finch
said, it appears to have succeeded.
“In education, you don’t find programs that last so long if they’re not
working, if they’re not doing something good,” he said.
Former students recall the importance of the school’s recovery-minded
community, apart from their old friends and bad habits. At Phoenix,
other teenagers were trying to stay clean; they often remained at
Phoenix a year or two, then returned to their high schools or graduated.
Henry Bockman, 48, who attended in the mid-1980s and is now a business
owner in the county, says he recalls team-building during outdoor trips
— rock climbing, caving, rafting — Alcoholics Anonymous meetings,
support from other teenagers and teachers who took the time to really
know students.
“It took you out of a negative element and put you into a positive
element,” he said. “It gave you better coping mechanisms so everything
didn’t get bottled up.”
Lindsay Maines, 42, who graduated in 1992 and is now a mom of four,
said she was drinking, taking acid and “just melting down” before she
landed at Phoenix in Gaithersburg at age 15.
“It was definitely scary,” she said. “But it had so much structure and
there was no avoiding the issues we had all been avoiding.”
Looking back, she said, “it helped to have a peer group that was
consistently trying to make the right choices and stay sober.”
Maines said she would not have graduated without Phoenix. Not everyone
who attended Phoenix thrived, she said, but she believes the numbers
are better than they would have been without the recovery school.
“Phoenix took these kids at really critical points and said there are
other choices,” she said.
Kevin Burnes, 46, was among those who made good. He spent 10th and 11th
grades at Phoenix, and said it gave him — and his family — a way
through what had become a rough situation.
He had been drinking, smoking a lot of pot and doing some PCP, popular
at the time. His parents sent him to rehab and then insisted on Phoenix
as a condition of coming home. Both parents were involved in the school.
“A singleness of purpose, to me, was why the school was successful,” he
said. “Without that environment, I probably would have gone back to
what I was doing.”
Read this and other stories at The Washington Post
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