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For three months, Christine Shaw watched her 15-year-old daughter board a train in Newark to make a two-hour commute north for high school.
First, it was a train to Philadelphia. Then a bus ride to Manayunk, northwest of Center City. Then a short walk to the Bridge Way School, the only high school in a two-hour radius of Delaware for children in recovery from addiction.
Shaw prayed that each day her daughter would return home, that the pulls of addiction wouldn’t have her wandering into Philadelphia where drugs were easy to score.
“I feel like the state of Delaware couldn’t do anything (for her),” Shaw said. “There is a such a desperate need.”
Stories like Shaw's are why some Delaware leaders and lawmakers want to see the First State open a recovery high school of its own.
Teens recovering from addiction need new people, places and things in their lives if they're to have any chance of returning to a life after drugs or alcohol, experts say. That's nearly impossible for school-aged children expected to return to the very place they were introduced to substances now horribly disrupting their lives.
Eight out of 10 children who return to their school relapse within six months of re-entry, said Rebecca Bonner, head of the Bridge Way School now in north Philadelphia, which helps children obtain their education in a safe environment while at once battling the cravings of addiction.
If there’s a co-occurring disorder – like depression or anxiety – Bonner said the average relapse time is 19 days.
“When an adult goes into treatment, we would never, ever suggest that they go back to the bar where they were hanging out every weeknight after work,” Bonner said. “We do that all the time with kids who have gone into treatment when we send them back to their high school. … There are triggers all over the place.”
Delaware State Attorney General Matt Denn included a proposal for $2 million to open the recovery high school and operate it for four years as part of his nine-point plan to address the heroin and opioid epidemic. Leaders estimate the school, modeled off of the Philadelphia recovery high school, will cost about $500,000 per year to operate, given a population of about 20 students.
“We need to make it as easy and seamless as possible for students who need the program,” Denn said.
INVESTIGATION:What heroin costs Delaware — in lives and money
Behind the scenes, atTAcK Addiction Founder Don Keister and Red Clay Consolidated School District Superintendent Merv Daugherty have been working for nearly five years on a plan to bring the Delaware school to fruition –– and should funding be allocated, both say they hope to see doors open by August.
“I feel like we really need to make this happen,” said Keister, headmaster of Caravel Academy in Bear, “because if we are going to get out of this problem, we have to start with our young people.”
Last year, 31 children under the age of 19 were administered the overdose antidote naloxone, according to the state Office of Emergency Medical Services. Six people between the ages of 10 and 20 fatally overdosed, according to the state Division of Forensic Science. And it’s nearly impossible to estimate how many more kids are experimenting with drugs and alcohol, kids who may go on to battle addiction themselves.
Daugherty and Keister say they’ve already received 10 to 12 inquiries regarding who can attend the school. Daugherty said the district will use space available at Red Clay’s Groves High School Adult Education building on Telegraph Road, which is accessible to major roadways in New Castle County.
Unlike the private Bridge Way School, which uses scholarships and other funding to subsidize the $25,000 yearly tuition, the Delaware recovery high school would be free and open to students throughout the state.
“I’m not a fan of charging people for services that are needed,” Daugherty said. “That will save not only the lives of the student, but save the family.”
Christine Shaw said she sent her child to Philadelphia because she had no other options.
Shaw’s 15-year-old daughter, who had been using drugs since the age of 13, had been kicked out of multiple schools –– and was returning home from rehab with little idea of what to do next.
Shaw feared that by sending her daughter back to her old high school, she would immediately return to the same habits that led her down the path of addiction. So she began making phone calls.
What became quickly apparent were the few options for children and teens in Delaware struggling to get their education while battling addiction, the mother said. And with few choices, Shaw set about finding a way to get her daughter to Philadelphia.
“I remember thinking, ‘How can I make this work?’ she recalled. “But I knew I had to get her to Philly.”
For the first week her daughter attended Bridge Way, Shaw took off from her job as a yoga instructor to accompany her daughter on the commute. After the test run, she allowed her child to make the trip solo.
But less than 90 days later, the stress of traveling was too much for the 15-year-old girl, and the financial burden of both the school tuition and the commute took its toll on Shaw’s family.
“We used her entire college fund to pay for treatment and school,” she said. “I figured, if she’s not alive to use it, then what’s the point.”
LIVES LOST:Delaware shocked heroin took an addiction champion
MORE:Overdose spike kills 11 in Delaware over Thanksgiving weekend
Jackie Hudiburg knows that feeling well.
The Lewes mother lived with family members in Hockessin during the week, took time off from work, and drove her 19-year-old son Hayden to Philadelphia four times a week so he could attend the Bridge Way School.
That worked for the remainder of his junior year, which he completed at the Pennsylvania high school.
“It was a really supportive environment,” Hudiburg said. “And I think for kids, they need that.”
But when senior year drew nearer, Hudiburg said it became clear that having her son Skype into classes – a workaround that Bonner and the Bridge Way staff were willing to do to reduce the burden of travel – wasn’t going to be enough.
Her son eventually relapsed with marijuana and is now in a treatment program out West, she said.
“If it was nearby enough that we could have continued it his senior year, I think that that might have nipped in the bud what happened,” Hudiburg said, “because if he would have been going every day, having the support group and the peer group. It might have kept him out of trouble.”
She added: “It’s kind of a no-brainer. Every state needs a recovery high school.”
Each morning in north Philadelphia, children attending the Bridge Way School gather for check-in.
Bonner and her staff use the meeting as a way to gauge how students are feeling and recognize any issues that may have occurred since school ended the previous day.
From there, the group – which fluctuates throughout the year but had about six kids enrolled in mid-October – breaks off into individualized study plans based on their progression through high school coursework.
Though the school doesn’t use one specific treatment model or program like the traditional 12-step program, it does have a clinical counselor on staff who leads group sessions each day. The school is also designed to support children coming and going for meetings with probation officers, other treatment meetings and necessary requirements for a child’s recovery.
The one caveat: to attend, children must be sober for at least 30 days. And if a child relapses, he or she must have a plan moving forward, often involving treatment.
The stigma of a high school filled with addicted kids still using drugs just isn’t true, said the school’s clinical counselor Nancy Barton.
“They’re not using,” she said. “That’s why they’re here. If they start using, we need to refer them out to a higher level of care.”
Delaware’s recovery high school would use a similar model, Daugherty said –– mixing academics with group therapy and counseling that incorporates local treatment providers and other services.
On Fridays, the Delaware school would feature an internship and co-op program, so students could get real-world experience in the fields they’re interested in pursuing, he added.
SMALL SUCCESSES:Delaware reports 12 percent drop in opioid prescriptions
BACKGROUND:Delaware AG Matt Denn to push for addiction recovery high school
Much like the mission of Red Clay Consolidated School District, Daugherty wants the recovery high school to be a continuation of services the district already provides students –– free coats, glasses, lunches and in-house medical and dental care.
By providing for the entire student and their families, more children will make it to graduation, the superintendent said.
“Without that high school diploma," he said, "those doors all close.”
'If not now, when?'
Throughout the state, Delawareans are trying to figure out how to prevent drug addiction before it begins.
It’s key to curbing the epidemic, which has already claimed 215 lives this year.
“People don’t start using in adulthood,” said Barton, the Bridge Way counselor. “They start using or adapting poor coping skills at a young age, so if we can intervene now and keep these kids substance free while their brains are still developing throughout these high school years, the chances of them going back and using later are much less.”
The state Division of Public Health and the state Department of Education are implementing the Botvin Lifeskills program, an evidence-based curriculum aimed at helping children build skills to navigate the difficulties of life. Specifically, it targets drug, alcohol and tobacco use, as well as reducing violence and other risky behaviors, according to the state.
The state said it is piloting the program in schools this academic year in areas with high overdose rates.
These schools include: Brandywine Springs Middle School in the Red Clay Consolidated School District; William Henry and Central middle schools in the Capital School District; Seaford Middle School in the Seaford School District; and Selbyville, Millsboro and Georgetown middle schools, as well as the Delaware School of the Arts, in Indian River School District.
Other schools have taken it upon themselves to get ahead of the heroin and opioid epidemic ––   but that’s not always easy.
In the Woodbridge School District in Bridgeville, Director of Student Services Michele Marinucci knows that the key to a child’s success can be as simple as having one caring adult in his or her life.
That’s why she implemented programming around the developmental assets – 40 internal and external "building blocks" ranging from family support to self-esteem that aid a child's growth – into the district’s teacher training and curriculum. Marinucci funds these efforts largely through state and federal grants, she said.
For a relatively small district with a highly transient population plagued by generational poverty and drug addiction, these free developmental assets can play a huge role in a child’s life, she said.
“While you can’t save them all, you can certainly try,” Marinucci said.
In north Philadelphia, children find recovery and a way forward, said Bonner. They also find hope.
“Some of our kids didn’t think that they would live to be 20,” Bonner said. “And they are now seeing futures for themselves that they just could never imagine before. One of our graduating seniors last year said, ‘This is really hard, because now I have to plan a life.’”
In Delaware, Daugherty hopes to one day tout the same results.
His hope is that legislators will recognize the $2 million investment in children now will save the state dollars down the road by reducing addiction treatment costs and keeping more kids out of trouble, and out of jail. Daugherty said the recovery high school would not pull from state and federal funds to support students in the recovery, money now allocated under the so-called unit-count formula attached to each child attending an individual school district.
“This is a public school partnering with private programs, and it’s never been done before,” he said. “But families shouldn’t have to worry about funding. The success of the program will generate the funds.”
Most educators and leaders pushing for recovery high schools – and advocating for all children – come back to the same premise: more must be done, and soon.
For school administrators like Marinucci and Daugherty, delays only negatively affect children, and there will always be excuses why something won’t work.
Marinucci instead focuses on what is within her own control, a mantra she now lives by.
“If not you, who?” Marinucci asked. “If not now, when?”
Contact Brittany Horn at (302) 324-2771 or bhorn@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter at @brittanyhorn.
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