History Conversations | A Lighthouse District: How Montgomery County Launched Recovery High Schools

Recovery high schools have become a key setting supporting the adolescent recovery process over the last fifty years. Dr. Andy Finch is the author of Salvaging a Teenage Wasteland: Origins of the Recovery High School Movement. The book provides the first major historical account of the recovery high school movement from its beginnings in the alternative schools of the 1970s that overlapped with the first adolescent substance use treatment programs. In this presentation, Dr. Finch will describe the integral role Montgomery County played in the development of recovery high schools. In the fall of 1978, the county police raided local high schools over the course of the fall semester, arresting over 300 students for possession or use of drugs. The raids created protests from the students, and eventually, parents demanded a program from the school board that would address the district’s drug problem. The result was the Phoenix School, which opened in 1979 and existed for 35 years. The presentation will explain the origin of that program in Silver Spring, the addition of a second campus in Gaithersburg, the fire that destroyed the second campus building, and the ultimate ending of the Phoenix School program. The author spent nine years researching and writing the book, involving dozens of staff and student interviews, and records from the Montgomery County Archives, local libraries, and Montgomery County Public Schools.