Students go from 'completely failing grades' to As and Bs at Pa.'s 'Challenge Academy'

ANNVILLE, Pa. (CBS) – Asher Robbins had "completely failing grades" and at just 17 years old had struggled for five years with substance use issues. 

Drake Pettigrew, 16, was failing too. He was the class clown. 

Just two months into their five months at the Keystone State ChalleNGe Academy (KSCA) – "challenge" is spelled that way because of the National Guard's involvement – Robbins is getting As and Bs. 

Pettigrew, too, is succeeding in school. And he still enjoys making people laugh. But now that's okay. 

"You can be funny. But time and place: Where can you be funny?" explained LeAnn Weed, the academy's lead counselor. The idea? "Let's experiment with using the skills they already had and putting them in a situation where they use them in the correct way." 

"You can still be yourself and everything, but there are times where you do have to lock in and do what you're supposed to do to actually get a better version of yourself, the best version of yourself," said Pettigrew, who is from Pittsburgh. 

Robbins and Pettigrew are part of the second class at the academy, which opened last year – a new idea in Pennsylvania but not America. Weed said Pennsylvania became the 40th state or territory with an academy like KSCA. 

"We've gone to Virginia, West Virginia," Weed said. "We see those programs. What works? What doesn't work? We bring that back to Pennsylvania." 

The 16-to-18-year-old boys and girls who participate often learn about the program through a school counselor or parent, Weed said, but the military-style program is voluntary: Kids have to want to participate and commit to the program's principles and rules, including waking up at 6 a.m. (they have to be out of bed within 30 seconds, Robbins said) and no cell phones. 

The idea behind that rule? 

"You can connect with people here instead of worrying about people outside here," Robbins explained. 

Both boys said living without a phone is easier than they thought it would be – which is not to say the academy overall has been easy. Less than a month into it, Pettigrew wanted to go home. 

"It was almost every other day: 'I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go home,'" Weed said. And in fact, she said, some kids don't make it all the way through. 

But Pettigrew? 

By week four, he was starting to adjust. 

"And then around week six … he came up to me and he said, 'Miss Weed, I'm staying,'" Weed said. "I called his mom. I said, 'You don't need to worry about having him want to go home all the time. Now he has bought in, and he's good.' She started to cry – happy tears."