2025–2026 Impact Report: Recovery Is an Upgrade

At Emerald School of Excellence, we believe students should never have to choose between their recovery and their education.

Recovery and education can—and should—grow together.

The 2025–2026 school year gave us another opportunity to see what happens when students are surrounded by a supportive, sober community that believes in their potential. Behind every number in our annual report is a student who showed up, kept going, discovered something new about themselves, or took another step toward the future they want.

This is what recovery-centered education looks like.

A Year of Growth, Inside and Outside the Classroom

Emerald students are working toward more than a diploma. They are building the skills, relationships, confidence, and recovery foundations they need to thrive beyond high school.

During the 2025–2026 school year:

• 71% of students remained sober throughout the entire school year.
• 80% is Emerald’s average year-to-year student retention rate.
• 49% of all students served by Emerald since opening have reached at least one year of continuous sobriety.
• Emerald alumni have earned an average 3.21 weighted GPA and 3.07 unweighted GPA, compared with a 3.00 national average unweighted GPA.

These numbers represent something bigger than academic achievement or recovery milestones. They demonstrate that when young people have access to an environment designed around their needs, they can make meaningful progress in multiple areas of their lives.

Recovery and Education Belong Together

Traditional educational environments are not designed for every student.

For teenagers navigating recovery, returning to a traditional school after treatment or during a period of significant change can create challenges that make maintaining both academic progress and recovery difficult.

Emerald was created to offer another path.

Our students learn in a small, supportive environment where academics and recovery are integrated into the school experience. Students have access to individualized academic support, recovery services, mental health resources, and a community of peers who understand the importance of living a sober life.

The goal isn’t simply to help students catch up academically.

It’s to help them build a life worth showing up for.

The Power of a Sober Community

One of the most important things Emerald offers isn’t found on a transcript.

It’s belonging.

Students have opportunities to celebrate recovery milestones, encourage one another, participate in student leadership, explore creative interests, prepare for college and careers, and develop healthy relationships with peers and adults.

Throughout the year, we watched students step into leadership roles, support classmates, discover new passions, and become increasingly confident in who they are and where they are going.

At Emerald, recovery doesn’t mean putting life on hold.

Recovery becomes part of building a future.

Preparing Students for What Comes Next

Graduation is an important milestone—but it is not the finish line.

Emerald students leave our school with goals for college, careers, internships, and their communities. Our post-graduation data reflects that continued momentum: 59% of alumni pursue university or community college, while 35% enter jobs or internships.

For some students, success means heading to college.

For others, it means entering the workforce, developing a trade, pursuing an internship, or discovering a career path that gives them purpose.

There is no single definition of success.

What matters is that students leave Emerald with the opportunity to pursue one.

Making Recovery High School Accessible

A recovery high school can only make an impact if families can access it.

Tuition covers just 16% of Emerald’s annual operating budget, making community support essential to keeping the school accessible to students who need it.

During the 2025–2026 school year, Emerald’s Scholarship Fund provided financial assistance to 79% of students, including full scholarships for 42% of students.

Since opening, Emerald has remained committed to ensuring that financial circumstances do not prevent a student from accessing a recovery-centered education.

Every scholarship represents an opportunity for a student to remain connected to school, continue their recovery, build relationships, and work toward graduation.

The Bigger Picture

Since Emerald opened its doors in 2019, we’ve seen what can happen when recovery and education are treated as partners rather than separate parts of a young person’s life.

We’ve watched students return to school with hope.

We’ve watched students find friendships rooted in something healthier.

We’ve watched students who once struggled academically discover that they are capable of succeeding.

We’ve watched graduates walk across the stage and begin the next chapter of their lives.

And we’ve watched students become leaders for the peers coming behind them.

The statistics in our annual report help tell that story. But the students are what make it real.

Recovery Is an Upgrade

The 2025–2026 school year reinforced something we have believed since Emerald opened:

Recovery is an upgrade.

It’s an opportunity to learn differently.
To build healthier relationships.
To discover purpose.
To reconnect with education.
To imagine a future—and believe you can reach it.

We are incredibly proud of every student who made progress this year, whether that progress showed up as a recovery milestone, a better grade, a new friendship, a leadership opportunity, or simply another day of showing up.

And we are deeply grateful to the families, educators, recovery professionals, donors, volunteers, and community partners who make this work possible.

Together, we are creating a place where students can belong, recover, learn, and thrive.

Here’s to another year of infinite hope and endless impact.