Enrollment underway in new Santa Barbara Summit High School

Enrollment for the new Santa Barbara Summit High School is now underway.

Summit High School, located on Anapamu Street in Santa Barbara, is a non-residential public high school designed to provide Santa Barbara County teenagers recovering from alcohol or drug abuse with a safe, supportive school in a chemically-free environment.

The school is based on Sobriety High, a model program in Minnesota. It is a joint project of the Santa Barbara County Education Office (SBCEO), the Santa Barbara Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Fighting Back, and the Daniel Bryant Youth and Family Treatment Center, in collaboration with local school districts.

Staff from the County Education Office will teach the classes and operate the school.  Counselors from the Daniel Bryant Treatment Center will provide counseling services to augment the standard curriculum.

“We know very well that many students who are able to break loose from the binds of drug abuse revert to their former practices when placed back in the environment where they started using,” said Santa Barbara County Superintendent of Schools Bill Cirone, whose office is coordinating the program. 

“By removing them from that environment, and the peers who influenced them, Summit High will provide a much better chance for their success in the long run,” he explained.

Students will be considered for enrollment if they:

• Have completed a treatment program
• Are committed to a recovery program
• Are seeking a chemically-free high school environment
• Voluntarily seek admission

Recovery schools have become a nationally recognized model, especially in the East and Midwest.

According to the most recent figures available from the Santa Barbara County Children’s Scorecard, 1,766 youths were in treatment in 2003 in Santa Barbara County

Further information about enrollment is available Summit High School’s head teacher, Mark Leufkens, at 450-6811.