36 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • MARCH 2020
RECOVERY HIGH SCHOOL
LESSONS IN SOBRIETY THE
Paulette Perrault Phillippe believes her
grandson Gabriel would still be alive if
he had gone to a recovery high school
aft er being treated for his fi rst overdose
at the age of 15.
Instead, Gabriel went back to his original
high school aft er just eight days of
treatment at Mather Hospital in December
2009. Gabriel suff ered his second
overdose in April 2010. It was fatal.
“He went back to the same high school
environment where nothing changed,”
Phillippe says. “With a recovery high
school to attend after his overdose,
I think Gabe would be still with us,
thriving and working a program one
day at a time.”
The year Gabriel died, the Suffolk
County Heroin and Opiate Epidemic
Advisory Panel began to promote the
idea of creating a recovery high school
on Long Island. Beginning in 2014, Phillippe
and other advocates began annual
trips to Albany to ask the state to fund
such schools.
This year, nearly a decade later, and
amid the deadliest drug crisis in United
States history, Phillippe may get her
wish.
Western Suff olk BOCES, in partnership
with Outreach Development Corporation,
is in the process of implementing
a recovery high school on Long Island.
The location, time frame for opening,
and exact budget amounts are still in
the planning stages.
“Recovery high schools allow students
in recovery to continue their education
in a substance-free and supportive
environment, by offering recovery
resources and ensuring
necessary supports are in
place to address the needs
and challenges that they
face,” Assistant Director
of Communications and
Public Information Evan
Frost of the State Offi ce of
Addiction Services and
Supports (OASAS) told the
Press. OASAS continues
to work in partnership
with the State Education
Department towards the
development of these
schools in New York State.
Advocates across Long
Island join in celebrating
the initiative.
Like Paulette, Claudia
Capie Friszell believes a
recovery high school could
have saved her son, Marc
Lewis. He returned to his
old high school aft er eight
months of treatment in an
adolescent rehabilitation
facility in 1998. He relapsed
two weeks later. Friszell
said there was a lack of
much-needed communication
between the treatment facility and
the school.
At 16 years old, Lewis was right back
to hanging out with old friends, getting
high, and engaging in old habits
at school. He soon began a downward
spiral, she said. In 2000, at the age of 18,
he too died of an overdose.
In August 2017, OASAS put out a Request
for Information to gauge interest
in creating recovery high school models
in New York, looking at support required
for success and any barriers to
implementation.
Recovery high schools are not a new
concept. The national Association of Recovery
Schools lists 40 such schools in
15 states. These alternative high schools
allow students diagnosed with or at risk
for a substance use disorder to receive
academic services in a substance-free,
supportive environment where being
sober is the norm.
State education offi cials cited studies
that found 70 percent of students attending
recovery schools successfully
maintain sobriety for a full year aft er
treatment, compared to 30 percent of
students who return to their community
high schools.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, the earlier
teens start using substances, the greater
their chances of continuing to use substances
and developing substance use
problems later in life. According to 2019
statistics: about two-thirds of students
have tried alcohol by 12th grade; about
half of 9th through 12th grade students
reported having used marijuana; and
about 2 in 10 12th graders reported
using prescription medicine without a
prescription. Substance use aff ects the
growth and brain development of teens
and contributes to the development of
adult health issues such as heart disease,
high blood pressure, and sleep
disorders.
“I believe if he was able to attend a recovery
high school, there would have
been a focus on becoming healthy,
having support for his addiction,
and being placed in an environment
where tools for learning self-esteem,
self-worth, gratitude and the gift of belonging
would be primary,” Phillippe
says.
OPIOID
CRISIS
PRESS HEALTH
“Recovery high schools allow students in recovery
to continue their education in a substance-free
and supportive environment, by offering recovery
resources and ensuring necessary support,”
says Evan Frost.
Claudia Capie Friszell with a photo of her late son, Marc Lewis.
BY EDEN LAIKIN AND PATRICK MCINTYRE
/LONGISLANDPRESS.COM
