The Dallas Morning News recently ran an informational piece on the rising phenomenon known as the "therapeutic boarding school." Therapeutic boarding schools are highly structured settings that combine private education and intensive psychiatric help; often understood as an institutional last resort, they offer hope to parents who can't control or communicate with their kids and who have as a result reached their wits' end. The price tags reflect the highly specialized services (and promises) such schools aim to provide; at $4,500 to $9,000 a month, they exist to assure (almost always wealthy) parents that they are doing everything in their power to save their troubled children from themselves. Suggesting that therapeutic boarding schools owe their budding economic success to the Columbine shootings--or, more precisely, to a growing national hysteria about the perils of adolescence that Columbine and similar events have fed--the article notes that ten years ago, there were only about forty schools in the country devoted to "troubled teens." One year after Columbine, the number rose to 250; today, there are over 500 such schools.

The author paints a deliberately vague rosy picture of the therapeutic boarding school, framing the body of the article with an anecdote about an anonymous family that sent its pseudonymous daughter to an unnamed school, and had a positive experience with it. He followed it up with a piece devoted to the Academy at Swift River, a therapeutic boarding school in western Massachusetts, and the paper paired it with a how-to guide for parents who want to locate a school for their child.

I'd love to learn more specifics, both about what these schools do well and what they don't. You don't have to look very far to discover that the picture does not seem to be as rosy as the Dallas Morning News paints it. At present, for example, Majestic Ranch, a therapeutic boarding school in Utah, is being sued by a parent who alleges that her son was physically and emotionally abused while he was enrolled there; this is not the first time the school has faced abuse allegations, and the individual named in the parent's suit has a prior conviction for assault. Last night, upstate New York's Academy at Ivy Ridge was the scene of a riot when a group of students tried to escape from the school. Ten students were arrested and now face charges ranging from disorderly conduct to assault. Twelve were injured. Thirty fled. The twelve who planned the escape have all been expelled. Last week, the Dallas Morning News ran a piece by a mother whose son escaped from a therapeutic boarding school in Georgia. As such schools grow in popularity, they are coming in for increased scrutiny. For example, the state of Utah is presently implementing new legislation that requires therapeutic boarding schools to submit to state regulation--something private schools that don't claim to serve specifically troubled teens do not have to do. Not surprisingly, the state is encountering a great deal of resistance from a number of the therapeutic boarding schools located there.

I'm interested in readers' thoughts--about the value of therapeutic boarding schools; about the relationship of such schools to parenting on the one hand and state intervention on the other; and about the historical moment that has given rise to these schools. I'd also love to hear from people who have experience with therapeutic boarding schools, whether as teachers, parents, or students.

As an historian of education who has done some research in special education, I am not that surprised by the rise of such private schools. As the peak of the baby boom echo entered adolescence a few years ago, we shouldn't be surprised at several patterns that target "troublesome" children in some way. That doesn't require the creation of several private schools claiming to serve this population, but I'm not surprised, either.

In addition to looking for demographic factors and cultural changes, part of this may also stem from two legal changes to special education in the 1990s that gave local public schools greater freedom to separate students from their schools. Students with disabilities who bring weapons to school are subject to the same zero-tolerance policies as other students, but with one difference: they still have to be educated in some form. This may have pushed a number of students into local or regional separate behavior-disorder schools who otherwise would have remained in local public schools, in turn pushing other students into these boarding schools. (Local districts occasionally pay for private education; see my article in the fall 2002 History of Education Quarterly for a broader discussion of the blurring of public-private boundaries in special education.) This is sheer speculation unless someone can find records of public contracting with these boarding schools, and I'm not sure if any state requires such reporting of outside contracting.

My mother ran such a school for 25 years in the Berkshires of Western MA. I can provide some insights if you wish; I worked there in the late 70s for 6 months.

The request for uninformed opinions, and also informed ones, is a bit ironic in view of the previous posting...

The problem has to do with the way some schools are run. Problems schools include:

Those that use soft drugs and sex as a method of controlling minors. There was a school in Dallas that ran this way. My exposure to it was as a court appointed ad litem to a juvenile who had been returned home as "cured" when the insurance ran out and who couldn't understand why his parents were denying him paradise. So he acted up to be sent back.

When he finally understood it was that the insurance was exhausted and he was going to be sent to a punitive facility, he was "cured" of his personality disorder which consisted of an unwillingness to behave.

The other type that needs regulation is the "tough love" sort of place. These started as simulated boot camps and wilderness survival courses. Sending your kid to military school has long been a tradition of handling troubled kids. The wilderness survival (and the school off-shoots) is newer -- about 40 or so years old. People discovered that some troubled kids responded well to such programs.

Before long, many of the survival programs came to be dominated by disobedient and troubled kids (mental illness may cause some disobedience, but not all disobedient kids are mentally ill). A number of those programs have had problems and fatalities, much like some of the military schools. I've had clients in the past who sent their kids to such programs as a way of disciplining them (with a hardening of the problem), and been an ad litem to kids sent to such programs where the kids completely turned around and made major progress.

The deaths have led to public attention, which has led to regulators becoming interested and the abuses sticking out.

Not to mention, when you call a program "theraputic" and collect insurance funds, you are also engaging in forms of mental health care, a regulated area.

I am tracking this also, motivated by a very curious intersection of finance and treatment.

There are a couple of events that are driving the current public interest in so-called therapeutic programs.

CEDU CLOSING:
Almost all of the "therapeutic" programs are not 501(c)3 organizations, but are for-profit. I cannot think of a reputable college-prep school that is for-profit.

There are some large chains or holding companies of the therapeutic programs. Over the Easter weekend, one closed abruptly, stranding kids extraordinary distances from home.

Timeline & link to other articles

http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2005/04/cedu_a_timeline.html

http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2005/04/post.html

I have the sense (but no proof) that the national organizations are doing some circle-the-wagons corrective PR

http://www.natwc.org/
National Association of Therapeutic Wilderness Programs

http://www.natsap.org/
National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs

BOOK TOUR:
There is a relatively new book out, "What it Takes to Pull Me Through" by Dave Marcus, that contains a relatively uncritical look at the history and process of these programs.

ENTWIINED HISTORY OF "THERAPEUTIC" PROGRAMS, MM-LGATs,(Mass Marathon--Large Group Awareness Training) nd CULTS (Synanon, The SEED)

This is too complicated for a comment, but there seem to be the same names appearing at different schools at different times. Also, there seem to be connections to various, well, indoctrination efforts such as EST or Synanon.

I'll turn to the wilderness experiences in a second comment.

OUTWARD BOUND -- HISTORY

http://www.vobs.com/history.html--Outward Bound was created to address a need.

During World War II, German U-boats were sinking British merchant ships and many merchant sailors were dying as they waited to be rescued from the rough and frigid waters. They noticed that the younger ones were dying more than the older more experienced sailors. Sir Lawrence Holt, owner of the Blue Funnel shipping line in Great Britain, called upon a progressive educator, Kurt Hahn, to help him uncover the answers to this question: Why were the older, more seasoned sailors surviving at a rate much higher than the younger and presumably more fit sailors?

To address this problem, Hahn opened the first Outward Bound School in Aberdovey, Wales, in 1941, providing students with a series of progressively challenging opportunities for success. Through achievement, they discovered that they possessed, "far more then they knew." The school was an immediate success.

Hahn attributed the success of Outward Bound to students' innate yearning to master challenges and uncover latent physical, spiritual and moral strengths. He saw these strengths as central to survival not only in the North Atlantic but also in all aspects of an increasingly complex modern society.

Hahn also went on to found a number of schools. His influence is recognized in the Round Square Conference:

http://www.roundsquare.org/

WHAT IS ROUND SQUARE?

It is a worldwide association of schools sharing unique and ambitious goals.

Its origins come from the philosophy of Kurt Hahn who taught that schools should have a greater purpose - beyond preparing students for college and university. He believed in educating young people for life in the fullest sense.

WHAT IS ROUND SQUARE?

It is a worldwide association of schools sharing unique and ambitious goals.

Its origins come from the philosophy of Kurt Hahn who taught that schools should have a greater purpose - beyond preparing students for college and university. He believed in educating young people for life in the fullest sense.

I.D.E.A.L.S=

Internationalism
Democracy
Environmentalism
Adventure
Leadership
Service
==============

I believe that the therapeutic programs (really invented by CEDU's founder Mel Wasserman) are actually now in a trough in demand, because:

1. Demographic dip that started in the late 1980s
2. Economic downturn (two features, parents with less $$ and also tighter-fisted

I'd take issue with the "rich" parents monicker -- I think there were a lot of parents taking out second mortgages and raiding the kids' college fund to pay for these programs.

EVERY single danged one had a financing arm. It's a bit sickening, really.

They also have open, rolling enrollment so that there's not the cycle we see in independent school managment.

I am so happy with the therapeutic boarding school my son is attending in Madison, CT. It has had a tremendous positve influence on him, he was failing everything in the public schools last year and is now getting A's and B's and playing soccer and feels good about himself. I can't say enough good things about it. He has learning disabilities that could not be addressed in the larger classroom setting and his mood is now under control with the correct medications. The price tag is high, but its higher NOT to do this.

I too would be very interested in finding our more about the effetiveness of such programs. I have been attempting to find

I understand Montana runs many schools and attempts have been made to regulate but bill stalled. Seems absurd that no one is really looking our for these kids...

FROM: http://www.dphhs.state.mt.us/legislativeinformation/index.shtml
SB 101
Require registration of youth residential therapeutic programs
This bill would define “residential therapeutic schools or programs” and provide for their registration. It also would provide for the calculation of school funding and tuition and transportation rates for students of residential therapeutic schools or programs, and it would require the department to develop and present recommendations on licensure to the 2007 Legislature. (Died)

http://data.opi.state.mt.us/bills/2005/billhtml/SB0101.htm#About

I attended one myself and my experience was very unpleasant and, in retrospect, quite emotionally abusive. I was once a teenager on a wayward path toward self - destruction and was sent away to a ‘therapeutic’ boarding school in Montana. This particular school, like many others I am beginning to discover, seem to rely on an aggressive type of therapy- not sure what term would be, some I've heard are 'attack therapy' or 'body pachotherapy'. The idea behind that is that we all hide our emotions and the aim is to work children so hard they will eventually break down and deal with the issues that brought them there. I am not a doctor, but I, and many others I have spoken with who attended Mission Mountain School, found this methodology quite harmful. It was not only the strenuous physical labor done months at a time, but also the fear and intimidation of the staff that caused much stress and ultimately changes behavior, albiet superficially. For many months we were not allowed to speak to our parents because of the risk would try to ‘manipulate’ our way back home, but once we were it would be about one year later that we would be able to write those approved by out parents. For about a year or so we did not have any contact with the outside world, only during the occasional home visit were we able to communicate with others- there were only about 2 during the 2-3 years time span it takes to graduate the program. Once released most of us were in culture shock mode, feeling that if we stepped out of line even remotely we would be failures at life if not ultimately die, as we were so often told we would. Many of us did not adjust well and did much worse than before! Including one final note about this type of therapy, the person who often ran our group, headmaster John Mercer, had his masters in ecology.

opheliaoph@yahoo.com

http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=9602&forum=38&43

http://fornits.com/wwf/viewforum.php?forum=38&765

My son was at one of the CEDU therapeutic schools that closed in March, 2005 - Boulder Creek Academy. He had been there approx. 11 months. Contrary to what was said, I am not wealthy. I am a single Mom, struggling to save my son. I am in debt more than I ever imagined. My son came home with me, when the school closed and I agree to let him try it for a quarter. Unfortunately home is not working, he has reverted back to his old behaviors. I believe he just was not at the school long enough - for it had changed him - there just was not enough time to reinforce the new behaviors. I am now looking at another residential school to put him in. What specifically would you like to know about therapeutic schools?

I am a 21 year old woman and had attended a boarding school in CT durring 98-99. I have long term emotional problems as a result of my experiences. I have recently spoken with other students in similar situations. Law suits are being filed. I would be interested in speaking with you and giving insight from my perspective.

I attended Ivy Ridge and I do not understand where you come up with term "therapeutic boarding school". My stay at Ivy Ridge was the most degrading and traumatizing thing to ever happen to me. All it is is a concentration camp. You do not actually do school there, you are not "cured" or anything like that. You are constantly broken down physically and emotionally until they can remold you into what they want you to be. They constantly manipulate your parents while telling them that that is exactly what you are going to try to do through your letters(if they send them). If any parents out there are considering sending their child to a wwasp program I'd strongly suggest you reconsider.