PSU Magazine Spring 2004

B rittany," a 16-year-old student at Portland's Rosemont School, has led a tortured life that on countless occasions could have ended in tragedy. By her own admission, she says, "I died and came back to life twice." ♦ Living on the streets as an intra– venous drug user since she was 10 years old, Brittany attempted suicide several times, including jumping off the Morri~on Bridge while reeling from the effects of heroin and LSD. She eventu– ally ended up in the psychiatric unit of Emanuel Hospital. ♦ Brittany fits neatly within the student profile of Rosemont, not just because of the low lows in her life, but also because of the dramatic turnaround. In the 11 months since she's been at Rosemont, Brittany, who hadn't been in school since fifth grade, is testing at a 10th-grade level in math and is on track to be the first one in her family in four genera– tions to graduate from high school. ♦ Rosemont is one of nine sites and three transitional classrooms in Port– land Public Schools' DART (Day and Residential Treatment) program. DART schools are scattered throughout the city and include some within regular public schools. They are for kids who are wards of the state because they have committed crimes, or have been taken from abusive households, or have extreme drug and alcohol problems. Some students stay in the program for as briefly as a few days; others are in for as long as a year. It all depends on how long it takes for their caseworkers to confidently move them to a more mainstream school setting. The average stay is six months. ♦ The kids are "troubled or in trou– ble," says Rose Bond '71, MS '76, who has been the supervising principal of the program for the past 15 years. ♦ Some of the schools allow DART students to blend in with the normal middle school or high school popula– tion. Others, such as Rosemont, are lockdown facilities where students are under 24-hour supervision. What they all have in common in recent years is a steep rise in test scores-the result of new, innovative teaching techniques that are helping kids who have rarely succeeded in school to excel. ♦ The teaching techniques and a bjg