Blueprint Education Partners with Cottonwood RTC to Increase Student Academics

Blueprint Education, a nonprofit educational organization, is excited to announce Cottonwood Residential Treatment Center as a new partner in student success.

Cottonwood Residential Treatment Center, accredited through Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) Utah Department of Human Services, Department of Licensure, and the Northwest Accreditation Commission (NWA), focuses on adolescents with complex emotional and behavioral needs to help them succeed and eventually return to a less restrictive community-based setting. Cottonwood truly integrates a holistic approach to each child that includes their academic needs as well.

"We immediately saw the value in bringing in online curriculum to fill in the gaps with our education staff helping our teachers teach more efficiently," states Dr. Ross Poore, School Principal at Cottonwood. "Smaller learning environments such as ours require differentiated instruction in order to meet the academic needs of each child. Blueprint Education's curriculum provides the solution for accessing a wide array of courses, allows students to move at their own pace, and still maintains the look and feel of a small learning community. It's high quality curriculum at a very affordable price."

"Rigor is an important value in our curriculum, "states Jennifer Blackstone, Blueprint's Director of Curriculum. "Each course is put through a full alignment in order to meet those subject standards. We don't offer courses that haven't successfully completed this process."

An increasing number of behavioral health, therapeutic programs, and residential treatment center professionals understand the benefit academics plays in the treatment and recovery process. For Cottonwood, the collaboration between treatment and academics helps them to expand their course offerings, especially in the area of Career and Technical education. In addition, Cottonwood staff feel secure knowing that the high school credits earned were true credits because of Blueprint's NCA and AdvancED accreditation and transparency with course alignments.

Blueprint Education has programs and courses meet the high quality standards for sound educational programs of all the accreditation associations and commissions. The NCA and AdvancED accreditation covers Blueprint Education educational courses in all six North American accrediting regions as well as internationally. Laboratory science courses meet university entrance requirements. Blueprint Education is certified as a Distance Education Provider by the State of Arizona. "Our strength is not only curriculum but providing flexible options to help each student find their most effective learning approach regardless of their current situation or circumstance," states Brenda Baer, Director of Distance Learning.