Turning Winds has taken the best elements of care from wilderness therapy, therapeutic boarding schools, and inpatient treatment to create a one-of-a-kind residential treatment center.
We aim to ensure every student gets the education and support they need for success. We work closely with the counseling departments in every student’s previous school to fill in any remaining gaps in their current educational path. We have an incredible educational team that specializes in working with teens who need specialized support with an individualized education program (IEP) or working with those students who need an advanced curriculum.
Our core curriculum was built over many years and is constantly updated. For example, when history books become outdated (as they often do), they are replaced with more recent editions. As in other school systems, the core curriculum at Turning Winds includes English, math, science, history, physical education, and foreign languages such as Spanish and French. In addition, there are electives such as psychology and sociology.
Our exceptionally talented teachers and academic counselors meet the educational needs of each student while taking into consideration their school district requirements, grade level material, and academic proficiency. They are also adept at identifying and addressing learning disorders as well as working with those students who are on IEPs. On the other hand, a more challenging learning environment is used to meet the needs of those who are high academic achievers.
We also have a special education teacher available who works with kids who struggle with particular subjects or learning styles. The curriculum can also be adjusted according to the academic requirements of the student’s home state.
All of our teachers are fully credentialed and bring extensive training and experience to their roles. One of them is our science teacher, Cathy Miller. She is applying her twenty years of teaching experience to bring excellence into the academic portion of Turning Winds. “Most of our students come in with gaps in their education, simply because they haven’t been consistent in their school attendance,” explains Miller. “We identify those gaps and immediately start filling in the holes.”
Our goal is to make sure that every student gets the education and support they need for success. We work closely with the counseling departments in every student’s previous school to fill in any gaps in their current educational path.
IMPROVED GPA
Turning Winds employs a hybrid scholastic approach to teaching with one-on-one tutoring, teacher-led instruction, and online schooling. “We utilize APEX for our math and science curriculums, which allows us to line up a student’s education sequence based on their home state’s requirements,” explains Turning Winds CEO Owen Baisden.
Our research indicates that, on average, our students earn a GPA of 3.5 while they are in treatment at Turning Winds. During a typical 12-month stay, our average student completes about 1.5-2 years of school while experiencing a GPA increase of almost a full letter grade compared to their GPA before coming to Turning Winds.
“Academics is a very important part of our program,” says Baisden. “We have small classrooms with 8–12 students, and there is a lot of one-on-one instruction. Our comprehensive curriculum for grades 7–12 provides everything your teen needs to get their education back on track.”
Turning Winds offers almost any class our students need to continue their education. We work closely with counselors from previous schools for each student to ensure that all criteria for graduation are met.
GRADUATION AS A LANDMARK
Graduating from Turning Winds is a proud moment worthy of recognition. “All of their peers get opportunities to speak with them and share how they’ve impacted their lives,” explains chief operations officer Carl Baisden
“Our objective is to send them out of here feeling like a million bucks and realizing that we’re not artificially trying to build them up. We just want them to see the culmination of their work, the lives they have influenced, and the change they stimulated in other people. The friendships they’ve built, and the relationships they’ll have for the rest of their lives. That ceremony is pretty cool. I’ve been to hundreds at this point, and yes, they’re all pretty amazing!”
At Turning Winds, it’s the people who make the difference—staff and clients. Over two decades, we’ve built a team of some of the world’s finest academic and therapeutic professionals, all of whom share the same goal: to help teens re-engage meaningfully with their lives, families, and their futures.
Contact us online for more information, or call us at 800-845-1380. If your call isn’t answered personally, one of us will get back to you as soon as possible.
