Becoming Woodhaven Academy

This Saturday is graduation and our Woodhaven Academy end-of-year celebration, a day to honor each of our students and the growth they’ve shown, and also to reflect on how far Woodhaven Academy itself has come.

When my loved one was in high school, I thought I knew what the next four years would look like. I was wrong about everything.

Freshman year began with the COVID shutdown. Sophomore year brought hybrid models, missed days, and a blur of virtual options. What we didn’t know then was that he was quietly developing a substance use disorder. By the end of that year, he entered his first treatment program. He returned to high school only briefly after that, just a few scattered months.

The rest of his education became a patchwork of online programs, paper packets, and Zoom meetings. Mike coordinated it all with compassion and consistency. He did everything he could to support us.

As a parent, I would always choose my loved one’s recovery over academics. I’ve never once doubted that choice. But as a lifelong educator, I struggled with the idea that one had to come at the cost of the other.

Every child, regardless of substance use, deserves an education. To me, it’s an inalienable right. It should be in the Constitution.

That belief had been growing in me for years, but watching my loved one’s journey made it urgent. As I saw his education fracture, the need for something better came into sharp focus. Even before Woodhaven existed, Mike and I had been talking seriously about how to expand academic options for boys in sober living. I remember the moment he asked, “Do you think we could build a school?”

At the time, it felt like a bold idea, but a necessary one. That question grew into something much bigger when Mike, Mark, and I partnered to create Woodhaven Recovery.

Just a few weeks after our partnership officially formed in September 2023, we found our college recovery house filled with boys who weren’t ready for college. They were high school seniors with nowhere else to go, and we weren’t going to turn them away. So we adapted. We turned a living room into a makeshift classroom.

I remember standing in that room, looking at mismatched chairs and a donated table, thinking this wasn’t exactly what I’d envisioned when I became an educator. But it was exactly what these boys needed.

We had a teacher, but it wasn’t the right fit. By January, we were searching again. The boys needed someone who could meet them where they were, and we weren’t going to settle. In the meantime, I created daily lessons and sent them to Joe, who stepped in to lead instruction and worked tirelessly. Several days a week, I taught through Google Meet. Somehow, we made it work.

Slowly, the boys began to see themselves differently. They started to believe they were capable. They began to plan for futures they hadn’t imagined.

Two of our students didn’t have enough credits to graduate, so we built a summer program around their needs and interests. It was six hours a day, with a small vocational component to help them build real-life skills. That summer, we gathered on the Woodhaven property and celebrated the graduation of five young men alongside their families and friends. Fortunately, it was a beautiful day, because inside, the building was still under construction.

By then, our vision for Woodhaven Academy had crystallized. These boys needed more than a workaround. They deserved a school built for them, one rooted in recovery, community, and hope.

We spent the spring and summer searching for the right teacher. When we met Louis, we knew we had found the person who could bring this vision to life.

Louis arrived with enthusiasm, flexibility, and deep skill. He met with my school colleagues, studied our materials, learned the rhythms of the program, and worked closely with the team. He planned. He asked questions. He showed up with curiosity, humility, and heart.

Woodhaven Academy officially opened in October. And then we waited. For two months, we had staff, curriculum, and a classroom, but no students. Each morning, Louis came to work with his lesson plans ready, and he and other staff members spent their days in that empty classroom, preparing, planning, and holding space for what we hoped would come. It was a hard and humbling time. But they kept believing, even before the vision fully took shape.

In December, our first family made the brave decision to send their son. For a time, everything revolved around him: his learning style, his pace, his needs. Then, one by one, more boys arrived. A real community began to grow.

This year, learning felt different. It was authentic, engaging, and purposeful. We hosted field trips, invited guest speakers, and built a classroom culture that valued honesty, effort, and growth.

Our graduate this weekend, our very first resident, arrived wanting to do as little as possible. His responses were brief. He leaned toward a vocational path, not out of passion, but as a way to avoid school. He didn’t yet see himself in any future that included learning.

But over time, things shifted. He became more engaged. His answers grew more thoughtful. With Louis’s support, he began to explore a career path that genuinely interested him. With his family, he made the decision to apply to Penn State and remain part of the Woodhaven community through our Mulberry residence.

When I sat with him to help shape a portion of his college essay, it was clear how much he had grown. His insight, maturity, and voice came through in ways that would have been hard to imagine just a few months earlier. That essay wasn’t just about college admission. It was evidence of transformation.

Now, we are eight. Eight young men, from different places and paths, who show up each day and respect their teacher. They are building futures with intention and effort.

This Saturday, we’ll celebrate the graduation of a student from the school we dreamed about. It won’t look like most graduations. There won’t be a long procession or hundreds of names. But it will be rich with meaning for him, for our team, and for every family that placed their trust in us.

We’ll also celebrate each of our students. Each one brings unique strengths. Each is learning to dream. We’re deeply grateful their families will be with us on this special day.

As we mark this milestone, I’ll think back to the question Mike once asked me: “Do you think we could build a school?”

We did.

Not the school we first imagined, but the one these boys needed. And as I watch them walk forward, tired but willing, hopeful and becoming, I know we’ve built something true.

This is Woodhaven Academy.
Not perfect. Not finished.
But real, and deeply valuable.