Where the syllabus includes sobriety
7 students, 3 teachers put their faith in Valley’s first recovery school
After 16-year-old Gabe came home high one night and accidentally set off the security alarm, his father decided his son needed help.
It wasn’t the first time Gabe did drugs. And it wasn’t the first time he got caught, Gabe said.
So, in October, Gabe left Liberty High in Bethlehem to attend Kolbe Academy, the Lehigh Valley’s first recovery high school, in Hanover Township, Northampton County.
Operated by the Allentown Diocese and housed in the former St. Francis Academy on Bridle Path Road, Kolbe Academy looks like any other high school. Lockers and student artwork line the hallways. The library is stacked with familiar young adult books like “The Hunger Games” and “Harry Potter” series. Students joke around in anatomy class.
But the school isn’t a typical high school. At Kolbe, students work to lead lives of sobriety while they earn diplomas. The school enrolls just seven students — six boys and one girl — and has three teachers, providing an intimate environment in which students can freely discuss with teachers their struggles.
Students, who wear khaki pants and white polo shirts as a uniform, receive counseling nearly every day. After-school activities, such as hiking and intramural sports, are specifically designed to encourage teenagers to have fun without alcohol or drugs. All students have gone through some type of treatment and must be sober at least 30 days before enrolling. Mid-Atlantic Rehabilitation Services Addiction Treatment Programs conducts screenings and assessments for students.
The Morning Call visited the Kolbe School over the summer, before its opening, and recently again halfway through the first school year. The newspaper is not using students’ full names to protect their privacy.
The high school, which takes its name from St. Maximilian Kolbe, the patron saint of people with addictions, has the capacity to enroll 90 students. Principal
John Petruzzelli said he would like to enroll 10 new students each year, getting to 50 in five years.
Before the school year started, Kolbe officials met with area school districts to let them know about the recovery high school. Enrollment has come through word of mouth.
The students enrolled at Kolbe have mostly struggled with alcohol and marijuana, Petruzzelli said. A few attended rehab before with little success.
Some of the students, like Gabe, say Kolbe is working because there is less peer pressure.
This Monday, Gabe will celebrate 100 days of being sober.
Kolbe honors students hitting that milestone by letting them pick lunch for everyone that day. Gabe chose Chick-fil-A.
“I was angry about coming here,” Gabe said. “I didn’t want help at the time. But I got better when I got here.”
Gabe credits the counseling, small school environment and personal relationships he formed with teachers in helping him on his road to recovery. In addition to staying sober, he earned all A’s in his classes and is thinking of going into music production or marine biology after high school.
“The teachers are accepting and help you out,” he said. “They make sure you’re not doing stuff that you’re not supposed to. They don’t just treat you like some student.”
Kolbe is one of 45 recovery high schools nationwide. The first opened in 1979. Studies have shown that recovery high schools are successful for a number of reasons, including smaller classes and less peer pressure.
A typical day at Kolbe starts at 8 a.m. with daily check-ins from a teacher to see how students are doing. Students then take academic classes such as science, history, English and math in classrooms with at least one wall painted purple, the color of recovery. While Kolbe requires students to take a theology class, students do not need to be Catholic to attend.
Tuition is $15,000, although financial aid and scholarships are available. Kolbe Academy is not a treatment center, but students receive individualized plans to help them stay sober.
The school has one sophomore, four juniors and two seniors, who will graduate in June.
One of the seniors, Trent, said he is planning to bring at least 40 people to the graduation ceremony. After his battle with alcohol included time in rehab, his mother decided Kolbe was worth a try.
“I was getting drunk and getting into trouble,” he said.
Now Trent, 18, is looking forward to celebrating 100 days of sobriety. He already decided on Chinese food for lunch the day of his milestone.
Susan Miller, a science teacher, is one of the three Kolbe teachers.
For Miller, who previously taught at public schools and Bethlehem Catholic High School, Kolbe Academy seems like the place she needs to be. Her younger brother James died after an overdose last summer, two months shy of his 27th birthday.
Her brother’s addiction started when he was in high school, around the same age as Miller’s students. While Miller can’t change what happened to her brother, she wants to be a resource for students struggling with addiction.
“I can’t help but think if [Kolbe Academy] was available for my brother or some of his friends what their lives and futures could have been,” she said.