Associated Press

A proposed Dakota County charter school would join a growing number of programs in Minnesota and the nation designed for students recovering from drug and alcohol abuse.

The new Sobriety High School would aid students recovering from addictions by helping them avoid the friends they partied with at their old schools.

"Sending a kid back to school where there's a bunch of using friends is like sending a drunk back to a bar," said Jim Czarniecki, chief executive of Maplewood-based Sobriety High, one of the first recovery schools in the nation.

The 14-year-old school runs campuses in Edina and Maplewood. It plans to transform itself from a private program to a charter sponsored by Dakota County's Intermediate School District 917, which provides special education and other services to south suburban students.

Charters are publicly funded schools that don't charge tuition and run largely free of traditional district control. The Dakota County campus, expected in fall 2004, and the other sites would be part of a single charter.

Sobriety High currently receives roughly a third of its funding from the state, about $5,200 per student. Becoming a charter school would bring in about $7,500 per student in state money, and allow it to open the third campus in Dakota County.

That's vital, Czarniecki said.

About 20 programs like Sobriety High now operate nationwide, including eight in Minnesota. Recovery schools here can accommodate only a few hundred students, and Sobriety High schools usually have waiting lists, especially for the upper grades. A Dakota County campus would allow space for up to 48 more students.

About 5,250 people under 17 were treated for addiction in Minnesota in 2002, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Another 3,650 completing substance abuse treatment were between 18 and 20 years old. Some recovery schools accept students up to 20 years old. About 77 percent of teens in recovery relapse at least once in the first year they return to school, University of Minnesota researcher Ken Winters found in a 2000 study.

Intermediate School District 917 and Sobriety High board members are negotiating the details of a charter school agreement, said Superintendent Bill Larson. Then they must find a suitable site. The district was expected to finalize the deal Aug. 19.

Then Sobriety High will need to raise money: between $250,000 and $300,000 to construct the school and more to fill in the gap between state and federal funding that charter schools receive and the additional $200,000 to $250,000 costs to run the school.

Removing students from the typical high school environment -- in which some two-thirds of seniors said they drank alcohol at least once, according to the 2001 Minnesota Student Survey -- and placing them in a high school with no more than 48 students, all who vow to stay sober or leave, can turn lives around, Czarniecki said. School data shows about three in four Sobriety High students have stuck with the program the past five years, even though they're kicked out if they relapse more than once.

Sobriety High bills itself as a safe haven for students, not as a treatment program. Students are required to work with a sobriety program such as Alcoholics Anonymous, but no such program is offered in the school, Czarniecki said.