The Frost School was created in 1976 to meet the needs of students who are unable to succeed in standard educational settings because of moderate to severe emotional disturbance. By establishing a comprehensive, integrated school and psychiatric treatment approach, the program offers students and their families in the Washington Metropolitan area an alternative to residential psychiatric care. The major goal of The Frost School is to permit the student's continued home residence while working towards re-entry into the regular education system, the working world, post-high school training or college within one or two years.
The philosophy of the Frost School begins with a concern for the student as a whole person with many facets and many needs. The individual does not function in isolation. The young person is affected by a variety of forces, such as family, peer group, school, and community. His/her actions are not only self-impacting, but affect other people as well, including parents, siblings, peers, and the community in which he/she lives. When the young person is having problems at home, trouble may be manifested in the classroom. When having difficulties with school or peers, trouble may surface in the community or at home. The common bond of this entire interaction is the individual. The degree of difficulty may become so severe that the student can no longer function successfully or acceptably in one of these environments. Then, the most appropriate program is one which addresses every force and influence in the student's life, and which helps the student realize and change his/her negative impact on self and others.
When the child or adolescent is in trouble, the family is also in trouble. Whether the family is part of the problem or just suffers from the student's difficulties, the family is a primary force in the student's life and must be a central component in any program designed to help the student make positive, long-term changes. Families may need to understand and/or change their usual ways of interacting in order to help the student stop self-destructive patterns of behavior. Without the family's inclusion in the student's program, success is unlikely. Family and school must cooperate as equal partners in carrying out the student's treatment plan.
Adolescents are particularly susceptible to persuasion by their peer group. Peers often have more leverage than parents and other adult authority figures in the student's life. Peer pressure can be either constructive or destructive. The power that peers have to influence each other's behavior should not be ignored and should be used to promote positive change. Students should be held accountable, to a certain extent, for their peer's actions as well as their own. They need to realize their effect on their peers, take responsibility for it, and be guided to encourage each other to make sound choices.
The Frost School endeavors to provide a structure in which the student is protected from the forces, including him/herself, that have become destructive. While providing the necessary controls and securities, the program promotes opportunities and situations where growth and change can take place. The individual is encouraged to realize and accept responsibility for his/her behavior, and for changing the negative direction in which his/her life is heading. By taking advantage of our services and structure, the student learns how to identify options, evaluate choices, accept personal problems, discover and build on strengths, and make decisions that will result in positive, healthy outcomes. In addition, the family is encouraged to change patterns of destructive interaction and to find strategies to help their child in rebuilding his/her life.
Within the Frost School's Therapeutic Community, students are expected to perform academically to their full capacity. They learn to separate emotional challenges from educational ones, and are provided with a time and place, other than the classroom, to deal with personal problems. A multidisciplinary team of professional educators, counselors, social workers, psychologists and a psychiatrist form the core staff of the Frost School. The staff works collectively with the student and family on the various aspects of the student's difficulty. This integrated approach is the key to the student's successful turnaround and occurs on a daily basis. To implement school's purposes and philosophy, the Frost School offers a comprehensive program consisting of education, counseling, career-work experience and family therapy.
The program operates twelve months per year. Academic work, counseling, and cooperative-work experience are combined into the daily and weekly schedule to assure complete treatment. Students attend school during the regular school year (September to June) as well as during the summer months (July and August). During the regular school year the students come to school five days per week from 8:30 to 3:15. During the summer, the students attend school four or five days per week from 8:30 to 2:15.
The student's attendance in the summer session, as well as during the regular school year, is an absolute requirement. The attendance rules are strictly enforced because, for many students, it is often tempting to avoid the tremendous challenges they face. However, students must work full-time to overcome the problems that resulted in their special education placement. Both the student and his/her family attend one family counseling session per week. Family attendance is also a requirement. Because family involvement is essential to the student's success, students whose families do not attend family meetings regularly may not be allowed to continue in the program.
Education - The Frost School is approved as a special education placement by Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia Departments of Education. The education staff is experienced in teaching a wide range of subjects to students with emotional disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, and learning disabilities. The Frost School serves students in grades 1 to 12 who need a structured academic environment with individualized instruction and more personal attention from instructors. Our elementary school serves students in grades 1 through 5. Our middle school serves students in grades 6 to 8. Our high school serves students in grades 9 to 12. Children and adolescents may be referred to these programs by their county placement offices when emotional, behavioral, or learning problems are preventing academic progress in their regular academic settings. The programs may serve as a transitional placement for students exiting residential treatment, but needing some further recovery before they re-enter their home schools. It may also serve as an alternative to residential placement allowing the student to remain within his/her family and community.
Classes are small and students receive instruction based on their Individualized Education Programs (IEP). Instruction may be remedial or advanced, if necessary, and is provided in all courses required for graduation in the student's local school system. Students with learning disabilities are accommodated. Speech and language and occupational therapy services are available to students needing them as soon as their county placement office has given us written approval.
Students can use the academic program in several different ways. These include overcoming specific learning disabilities, making up courses missed because of previous academic problems and failures, keeping up with their normal high school course work while they work on resolving non-academic problems, and re-entering and readjusting to the academic environment after being absent from it.
Each nine week period, students receive written progress reports containing the grades for the academic work completed during that marking period. A copy of the progress report is sent to the parents and to the special education office of the student's home school district. Credits for courses completed while at the Frost School are accepted and granted to the student by the student's local school system.
When students are ready to return to their regular education program, a trial period of half-day at the Frost School and half-day at the student's regular school can be arranged. Once the student has adjusted to the regular school, he/she can return to it full-time.
Cooperative Work Experience Component - In addition to traditional academic courses, the Frost School has a component to assist students in preparing for entrance into the labor force and for other adult responsibilities. Career Education classes help students learn about different types of careers and different ways of entering them. Career related issues and topics are explored. Students are guided to explore their interests, preferences and abilities in career and vocational fields. Independent Living classes teach students many of the facts and skills necessary for living successfully and independently within a community.
Career Lab is a structured and supervised experiential work day in which the students participate one day per week. During the work day, students are assigned jobs on the school grounds, within the school or at a work site off the school grounds. Staff members supervise the students' work. Students receive pay for their work and may receive pay increases as they demonstrate improvement as workers. As the student increases in employability and leadership skills, he/she is promoted to the role of "supervisor" and is given the opportunity to manage a work crew of his/her peers. At the end of each work day, students meet with staff to evaluate their own and their peers' work performance and to discuss and resolve problems that may have arisen on the job. This "sheltered" work environment allows students to practice meeting the expectations of a job and to learn by trial and error how to cooperate with coworkers, satisfy an employer, and perform a variety of job skills.
High School students are placed on an internship when they demonstrate enough readiness to handle the emotional and behavioral demands to do so with relative success. An internship is a paid or volunteer position in a job or a field of interest to the student. The Transition Coordinator arranges the job placement with an employer in the community. The Coordinator contacts the employer on a regular basis to check on the student's progress and job performance. The student reports to the internship once a week instead of participating in the workday at school. The internship gives the student the opportunity to experience a less sheltered work situation while maintaining support from the school. Both Career Lab and internships give the student opportunities to learn entry-level job skills.
Counseling and Groups - Each student is assigned to a "small counseling group" with four to six other students which he/she attends regularly four times per week for a fifty-minute period. Two members of the counseling staff lead each group and facilitate the counseling process to help each student work through the issues and problems that prevented success in school and other aspects of their lives.
At the end of each day, all of the students, counseling staff, and teaching staff meet together in a "large group". The large groups are generally task oriented, and may be directed to problem solving and decision-making issues within the group. It is largely through these groups that the use of "positive peer pressure" is facilitated.
Each family is assigned to a family counseling group, which meets weekly with several other families in the program. Family groups are led by counseling staff. The counselors facilitate a process in which families help and support each other with family issues and problems.
Counseling staff is available, as needed, throughout the day for students and family members who need to talk with someone individually. Individual counseling is not generally scheduled for students, however it is sometimes arranged if necessary.
Within the first two weeks or a student's admission into the program, the student is scheduled for a meeting with our consulting psychiatrist. The psychiatrist furnishes the team with any pertinent medically related information that may be necessary to consider when planning and implementing the student's program. The psychiatrist may also be asked to see a student if questions regarding the effect of or need for medications arise.
The following criteria must be met before a student will be accepted for enrollment into the Frost School programs:
First Meeting - In the first part of the meeting, the family (father, mother and student) has an informal interview with the Frost Center Director or designee. The Director or designee explains the program and gives information about it including philosophy, procedures, and goals. In the second part of the meeting, the Director or designee asks the family members to describe the reasons for their referral to this program.
Second Meeting - If the student and family wish to pursue enrolling in one of the Frost School programs they must call the school to schedule a second meeting. Before coming to the meeting, the student must prepare a written list of goals, including academic, family, career/work and personal. The student presents these to the counseling staff at the beginning of the meeting. The student then meets with the educational staff to discuss academic issues. While this is happening, the parents meet with the counseling staff to give a brief history of the family.
Third Meeting - In some cases a third meeting with the counselors, teachers, consulting psychiatrist and/or the Center Director is required to further clarify questions or concerns the staff may have.
Following these meetings, the Frost School staff meets to review school, medical, and psychological records. The staff then determines whether or not to accept the student and family into the program. If the staff decides that the eligibility requirements are not adequately met or that the Frost School is not the appropriate placement, a staff member will give a written explanation to the family delineating the reasons for this decision.
If you have any questions regarding admission, please contact , Admission Coordinator, (301)933-3451.
All students and parents must be able to follow the Seven Major Rules and agree to do so, in order to attend The Frost School. These rules are vital to the students' safety and the school's functioning. Disciplinary action is taken if these rules are violated. Parents and L.E.A. are notified immediately following the staff's discovery of a rule breakage. Violation of these rules is grounds for suspension and/or discharge from the program. Police are notified if anyone is suspected of federal, state, or county law violation. The Frost School staff makes every reasonable effort to enforce these rules. However, there is no guarantee that rules will not be broken.
Discharge from the Frost School programs may occur before successful completion of the program. Grounds for an immediate discharge or non-successful termination include the breaking of any of the Seven Major Rules described above. Before termination action is taken, the staff notifies the parents and the L.E.A. to make them aware of the student's possible discharge from the program. A meeting may be requested to examine alternatives to discharge and/or alternative school and treatment programs.
If the staff decides to discharge the student from the Frost School and the parents disagree with this decision, the school will maintain the student's placement at the Frost School during due process proceedings. The exception is if the I.E.P. provides for an alternative placement during due process proceedings and the parents agree to the alternative placement.
The Frost School has the right to change any of the information and rules on this web site without prior notice or agreement.
This web site is our first attempt to explain the Frost Middle and High Schools to you. We do not pretend to include all the information about our school on this site. We will further update and change as needed. Please feel free to ask questions. We want to hear from you!