Small school, big impact: Blending therapeutic support, academics for struggling teens

BURNT HILLS, N.Y. (WRGB) — For more than a century, The Charlton School has served as a therapeutic learning community in Saratoga County. But this small campus is not a typical residential treatment center.

Founded in 1895, then-called The Charlton Industrial Farm School was meant to help boys experiencing homelessness. By 1955, The Charlton School’s mission had shifted, with a new focus on empowering girls.

“We are working with young women, primarily 12 to 18 years of age,” Executive Director Alex Capo said. “The goal is to really take these very involved, engaged, bright, creative young women and help them reintegrate back into the world.”

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But that’s easier said than done. In the modern era, the majority of students at The Charlton School arrive there with a series of mental health struggles. It wasn’t until 2022, according to the school’s website, that 100% of The Charlton School population was enrolled voluntarily.

“They are cognitively intelligent – you know, average, well above average, some – but socially, emotionally, are really struggling – anxiety, depression,” Capo said. “We see a lot of self-injurious behaviors.”

That’s why Capo said the first few months of a student's stay – whether they live on campus or are just a day student – are dedicated to working with families and caregivers to get to the root of the issue a student is experiencing, and then figuring out how to address that.

“I think residential treatment, especially in New York State, gets a bad rap, and a lot of times, the students that we are working with are coming from multiple hospitalizations where the focus isn't necessarily on education; it's on stabilization and crisis management,” Capo told CBS6. “Seeing the clinical component on the same level as the educational component is really the work around here every day. They have to attend equine therapy, they have to be in their Algebra II class, but they also have a family session, and so, I think making time and balancing that – sometimes the math Regents trumps the family session, sometimes the family session has to take priority over the math test – but all of that involves constant communication.”

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CBS6 spoke with one of those students on campus. Jocelyn is a sophomore day student who has been coming to The Charlton School for about a year and a half.

“The staff is very caring and supportive, and they're there for you, and there's a very strong sense of community. It's a really tight-knit community here, so that's really nice,” she said. “You don’t feel different or weird for struggling with mental health stuff because everyone here has.”

In 2024, according to the school’s annual report, they served 47 students from 20 counties across New York, Vermont and Connecticut. Jocelyn lives just a short drive from Burnt Hills, based in the Capital Region.

“It’s hard to describe what an impact it has. But it really has just made a huge difference,” she told CBS6. “I’m a lot more confident socially, and my mental health has improved a lot, and I think with my mental health improving, my academics have also improved.”

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So, how does it work? On campus, students go through a combination of equine therapy, individual and family therapy, recreation therapy, therapeutic arts, and medication management, in addition to New York State high school curriculum and career development. CBS6 visited the school’s science and music classrooms, for example.

“As a science teacher, this is a great science school. We have so many resources here,” teacher Patrick Clear said. “It’s a 275-plus-acre campus with the streams and the pond and the nature trails. So, for science to be hands-on and outside, this was a great location.”

Alexander Becher is another science teacher at The Charlton School. He works with students in the school’s aquarium program, which teaches students how to breed fish and create a business plan to sell the fish to local pet stores.

“It sort of evolved. It initially was just an opportunity that we had because science classrooms and labs are typically one of the few locations in a school [where] you can have an aquarium. So, initially, it was just sort of, ‘If we can have one, why not have one?’” Becher said. “We started with freshwater aquarium plants and realized we could now develop whole ecosystems. We’ve added CO2 to really start demonstrating other major principles, like climate change and things like that. Once that started going, we then realized that there’s a whole other level of breeding, and that sort of linked up with the CDOS [Career Development Occupational Studies] program that we have, which really provided an opportunity to convert what was initially just an educational opportunity into a more business opportunity, which is very practical. So, rather than something that requires a lot of money and time to get going, this was sort of already moving forward and really provided us with just a quick shift toward almost like a business venture.”

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For both Becher and Clear, they said the small class sizes at The Charlton School have enabled them to connect with and help their students progress, based on the unique learning styles that work best for each student. Across the school, they maintain a ratio of six students to every one teacher and one support staff member.

“We have two therapists in the school, a school guidance counselor, other support people around in the residential side and their campus-like dorm lifestyle,” Capo said. “There are also supervisors, residential counselors, art therapists, [and] equine support staff.”

But all of these staff members and academic and therapeutic offerings come at a price. Capo said the focus is never on money or how long it takes to get a student where they need to be. With the average length-of-stay running about two years, he said the student’s home school district picks up the cost of tuition related to education; the student’s home county then covers the price of room and board.

“All the additional funding that really goes to make The Charlton School different – our equine program, our family connections program, the arts – all of that is the work of myself and Bo Goliber, our Chief Strategy and Impact Officer,” Capo told CBS6. “We’ve listened to students. We followed some of the data, and it’s hard to argue – students who come here who were mostly refusing to attend school come here, and within two years, we have them on track for graduation. So, we’re going into our seventh year now where 100% of our eligible seniors will graduate with a Regents diploma.”

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Moving forward, this spring, students are gaining access to their new Maker Space in the maintenance facility. The Charlton School will also welcome families and community members onto campus on May 16 for its 7th Annual Equine Expo. In June, after graduation, students will move into four newly constructed dorms.

“We’re still going to stay fairly small and individualized, and I think the number of students really dictates how well the clinical and educational programs can perform. But we have a much larger 15-year plan for putting up other buildings on campus to make it feel more like a liberal arts college, as opposed to a treatment center or a hospital,” Capo said. “We want to staff it and, clinically and educationally, have it focused like a hospital or really a high school of excellence. But, at the same time, it has to feel like it is not an institution. That’s the balance.”

CBS6 asked Capo about the most challenging and rewarding aspects of serving as Executive Director.

“Like most adults, we go to what we know when times get tough, and we’ve had some students over the years who, despite the tremendous amount of support, despite removing various obstacles and changing goals, just couldn’t make it to the finish line. So, we refer to them as precipitous discharges – students who leave our program prior to either graduation or prior to being ready to return home – those are the most difficult,” he said. “Graduation day, without a doubt, is the most rewarding for, again, just the opposite [reasons]. You see these students come in, you see these families come in, broken in many ways, hurting, poor communication, poor relationships with each other, and then you see not only the [immediate] family, but also grandparents, cousins, sitting there together at graduation with their cap and gown on, ready for the world.”