The Insight Program: A Dream Realized

ABSTRACT

Traci G. Bowermaster, Lead Teacher and Special Education Teacher at the Insight Program, a recovery high school in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, explains how her school was created and how it has evolved. Using the framework of many recovery stories, she writes about how it was in the early days of recovery schools before special education was emphasized, what happened that lead to the formation of her school, and what her school program is like now. She uses her unique perspective of having taught in a treatment center to explain the importance of incorporating strong special education programming in recovery high schools and illustrates the process her team used to form a recovery school with little financial means. Pitfalls along the way helped the Insight Program find its weak spots, eventually grow stronger, and create an ambitious vision for the program's future.

KEYWORDS:

• Recovery Schools
• alternative schools
• adolescent treatment centers
• ALCs
• special education
• special needs
• emotional behavior disorders
• learning disabilities
• other health impairments
• dual disorders

Notes

1. PEASE or Peers Enjoying a Sober Education opened in Minneapolis in 1989; the Gateway Program opened in St. Paul in 1992; the Arona Campus opened in St. Paul in 1995; Y.E.S. or Youth Education Sobriety, now closed, opened in Hopkins in 1997; ExCEL, now closed, opened in New Hope in 1998; and Aateshing opened in Cass Lake in 1998.

2. Through associates in the field, we found a company in California called Redwood Toxicology, which was able to test urine samples for five different chemicals for $6.00 a sample. They would also provide the sample cups for free, provide free airmail service if five or more samples were sent at a time, and were able to give technical and expert information about any of the test results through their toll-free phone line. Results were faxed to the school within 24 hours of the lab receiving the samples.