PENIKESE ISLAND – This 75-acre island, a former leper colony that served as a school for troubled boys for 38 years before closing due to funding problems in 2011, is reopening this summer with a new mission: to help boys with substance abuse issues and emotional disorders. Between 1905 and 1921 a group of outcasts lived together on a small island off the coast of New Bedford, Massachusetts. The island is a bird sanctuary and is home to the Penikese Island School. Photo by Joseph D. Thomas For more information contact us at: retreats@ null penikese.org. As of 2016, the island is home to a licensed and fully-staffed, long-term residential treatment and recovery program for young men with substance abuse and co-occurring disorders. The new school will be named Penikese. Penikese Island is one of the Elizabeth Island chain that hangs like a string of jewels across Buzzard’s Bay west of Martha’s Vineyard. The school on Penikese island will reopen this summer under new leadership and a new name, the board of directors for the school confirmed this week. The school is moving away from long-term treatment and diversion programs for boys and men and opening up to the idea of shorter, more frequent educational trips for nearby schools.But, as Bosworth noted, this is just the latest passage in Penikese's long history.In 1602,  Bartholomew Gosnold came across the island, which he coined Hap’s Hill, and committed one of the first crimes in the region against Native Americans when he stole one of their canoes.Later, it was home to a millionaire tobacco merchant from New York who in 1873 set up an endowment for a school that was the forerunner of Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole.In 1905, Penikese became the home to a leper hospital until the patients were transferred off-island in 1921.In 1973, Penikese Island School opened, with the goal of reforming delinquent boys. In August 2016 another therapeutic program, run by the Children’s Study Home, for young men with opioid addiction and mental health disorders opened and folded after less than six months.In 2017, the school announced plans to run a long-term program for men with substance abuse, but the idea never got off the ground due to cost and other reasons.“We couldn’t make it work,” said Matthew Sutherland, chairman of the school’s board of directors.The latest phase for Penikese, similar to its neighbor Cuttyhunk, is focused on school daytrips and educational programs, he said. Shattuck is expanding to Penikese this year with a Celtic music residency.With Boston being a Celtic music hub, and the landscape on Penikese being similar to the Scottish isles, Shattuck approached Sutherland to create a residency that marries music and nature.Guest speakers will come in to talk about the island’s natural history, and the 12 musicians accepted into the program will stay at the Penikese school's rustic accommodations and hold performances, Shattuck said.Sutherland called the latest turn in the island's history a "magical opportunity" and said the new programs are a great way to learn. At only 75 acres, Penikese Island is one of the smallest of the Elizabeth Islands, but boasts perhaps the most interesting history of them all. They came from many places, united only by the diagnosis of leprosy. As of 2016, the island is home to a licensed and fully-staffed, long-term residential treatment and recovery program for young men with substance abuse and co-occurring disorders. The 14 people who are buried in this cemetery were all patients of the Penikese Island Hospital, and they all died from Leprosy. More recently, the school worked with special needs students and teenage boys referred by the Department of Children and Families.The school closed in 2011, but the nonprofit organization that oversaw it opened a treatment center in 2014 that lasted just five months. "Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted. Writers and artists residencies set up by Ben Shattuck and Tamalin Baumgarten started on Cuttyhunk in 2016. Penikese Island Historical Overview. Outcasts by poet Eve Rifkah is their long-forgotten storyPenikese Island School is a non-profit organization comprised of dedicated staff and volunteers passionate about addressing the opiate epidemic in our communities and helping those it impacts through the natural therapeutic environment that is Penikese Island. But the island is down to its last student, who is set to graduate this year. The school has been bringing outdoor clubs and school groups to the island, which is owned by the state.“We found the kids, the teachers, were just loving it,” Sutherland said.Last year, the school started talking to off-island school officials about the island's history and about creating customized science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics programs and nature-focused offerings that would “bring students to the science,” Sutherland said.This spring, the entire Mashpee fourth grade is going out to the school, and 16 trips are planned with Falmouth Public Schools, as well as groups from Martha’s Vineyard and Duxbury.Penikese isn’t the only island school moving away from long-term schooling to shorter, more frequent programs.Cuttyhunk, another island in the town of Gosnold, has a one-room, K-8 schoolhouse.

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