Author Topic: Carlbrook  (Read 701415 times)

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Offline Anonymous

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Carlbrook
« Reply #1200 on: April 20, 2006, 06:47:00 PM »
Quote
On 2006-02-01 02:09:00, Carlbrook Graduate wrote:

"Ha.  You don't think I went to Carlbrook?  Ask me anything you wish kind sir.  Integritas, Amicitia, Animus, Teneo, Veneratio?  Who's your hero?  What about your truth?  Or how about your superhero?  No, I know, what's your lie?  What about your nightmare?  How about you go do some bioenergetics?  Go listen to your fucking Mike and the Mechanics, or do you not remember the song it's not easy?  I don't know who you are and I honestly don't care.  I speak from my experiences and I don't speak for anybody but myself.  I say what I saw with my eyes during my incarceration.  Yes, I said incarceration.  What else do you call a place that the staff is able to withhold and monitor all your communications with family and friends?  Where you are monitored by security at night and every window and door has an alarm?  Don't try to discredit me because you can't believe the truth."


This kid seems to have had an awful experience at Carlbrook.  What he describes is a "typical" program, not something "new" and "better."

Look at their staff.  Nearly all of the top dogs are from abusive, shut-down programs. Some were at multiple closed-for-abuse programs.  Some don't tell the truth on their bios and omit the abusive programs they ran.

"Meet our Director, Michael Recycle."  Same names, same game, ain't nothin' changed...
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Offline Anonymous

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Carlbrook
« Reply #1201 on: April 20, 2006, 07:27:00 PM »
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On 2006-04-20 12:20:00, Anonymous wrote:

"
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Carlbrook has no business advertising itself as a therapeutic place for kids with emotional and substance abuse issues. For example, they are not licensed by the Virginia Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse. You can look up licensed mental health and substance abuse programs here: http://www.dmhmrsas.virginia.gov/SVC-LPS-orgresult.asp





Who is crazy? The critics? Not based upon my research! Parents who send kids here do so at their own risk. There is minimal outside oversight at this facility. This program (because it is for-profit and nonreliant upon taxpayer funding, Medicaid, and private insurance) has a lot of freedom to "therapize" kids as they see fit. Carlbrook and its practitioners are not beholden to the same regulations as licensed providers.





They claim to treat kids with emotional problems. Why is there no psychiatrist (MD) on staff? Why is there only 1 licensed clinician in a long list of clinicians ("advisors")?





For $5700+ per month, I could think of research proven effective, safe, and less restrictive ways to treat kids with problems. And the parents would have more money in their pockets.





Emotional growth programs? Wilderness Therapy?They don't teach that garbage in any reputable, ethical, clinical graduate program. Why? Because it is NOT research proven effective.





LMSW Woman


"




Unlicensed, unaccredited, not effective, extremely expensive...Sounds great!"


 :scared:  :scared:  :rofl:
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Offline TheWho

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Carlbrook
« Reply #1202 on: April 20, 2006, 07:53:00 PM »
Like to jump in and respond here if I may.  I think it is fair to view it as smoke, any of us can claim to have experience and degrees, but none of us really know for sure, we need to depend on whether the persons posts are credible or in line with other professionals we have met in the past.  If a person claims to be a professional football player and shows up for practice with their shoulder pads on backwards and doesn?t hold the ball properly, no need to dig much further.  If a person claims to be in the mental health field and then ridicules those who disagree with them by labeling them with various mental health ailments, bullies, prejudicial jokes and is insensitive, it really doesn?t matter how many degrees that person claims to have and one could, legitimately, view it as smoke.

I think what ?LMSW Woman? states are valid questions on License, in house psychiatrist, of course always cost and wilderness programs are debatable.  But keep in mind this is one person?s opinion.  

One thing you overlooked is that many of the parents have degrees also and not all of them in the same field.  They probably know their children better than anyone here and are participating in their child?s life at Carlbrook, so their information is first hand.  Yes, every parent has a vested interest in their childs life, whether it be Carlbrook, other TBS, local prep school or seeing them thru their first job etc. its part of parenting, we want our kids to do well and be successful and happy.

We should continue to ask these questions as? LMSW Woman? has (and others).  This will keep the pressure on the schools to continue to improve and change with the times.  If graduate studies (studies of those who graduated) show there is a need for more professional staff or more parental involvement, better transition home etc.  These issues need to be put on the table.  There are always going to be those who do poorly and those who do extremely well (both ends of the normal curve) but we need to step back and look at how the majority are doing (if we can) and try to react to and effect/base change on this population.  This forum can be a conduit to that end along with parent/student feedback.


So whether you are a professional in the field, student or parent your perspective and feedback is needed and valid, so keep it coming, it will make a difference, many people read and reference fornits on a daily bases.  Two years ago many searches for fornits turned up on page 6 on a google search now Fornits is mostly on page 1 or 2 for the searches I have done, so the visibility is there, you are making a difference and helping future parents and kids make the right decision.
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Offline Anonymous

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Carlbrook
« Reply #1203 on: April 20, 2006, 08:07:00 PM »
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On 2006-04-20 15:47:00, Anonymous wrote:

"
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On 2006-02-01 02:09:00, Carlbrook Graduate wrote:


"Ha.  You don't think I went to Carlbrook?  Ask me anything you wish kind sir.  Integritas, Amicitia, Animus, Teneo, Veneratio?  Who's your hero?  What about your truth?  Or how about your superhero?  No, I know, what's your lie?  What about your nightmare?  How about you go do some bioenergetics?  Go listen to your fucking Mike and the Mechanics, or do you not remember the song it's not easy?  I don't know who you are and I honestly don't care.  I speak from my experiences and I don't speak for anybody but myself.  I say what I saw with my eyes during my incarceration.  Yes, I said incarceration.  What else do you call a place that the staff is able to withhold and monitor all your communications with family and friends?  Where you are monitored by security at night and every window and door has an alarm?  Don't try to discredit me because you can't believe the truth."




This kid seems to have had an awful experience at Carlbrook.  What he describes is a "typical" program, not something "new" and "better."



Look at their staff.  Nearly all of the top dogs are from abusive, shut-down programs. Some were at multiple closed-for-abuse programs.  Some don't tell the truth on their bios and omit the abusive programs they ran.



"Meet our Director, Michael Recycle."  Same names, same game, ain't nothin' changed..."


Two people's opinions.
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Offline Anonymous

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Carlbrook
« Reply #1204 on: April 20, 2006, 08:08:00 PM »
Quote
On 2006-04-20 15:29:00, Anonymous wrote:

"
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On 2006-02-18 05:58:00, Dysfunction Junction wrote:


"
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On 2006-02-17 16:59:00, Anonymous wrote:



"Anonymous poster who doubts my existence: I just looked in the mirror, and yes, I am real. No, I did not think I was sending him to "golf camp", I thought I was sending him to an environment that fosters "intellectual, social, and personal development" as Carlbrook  told me. You might have viewed it as a punishment I did not. My mistake. I came here to share my own experience and I find your rudeness and dismissiveness rather ironic considering your warnings earlier. Nobody else has been rude to me other than you. I suggest you take a look at your own actions before condemning everyone else. -Joe"







Hey, Joe.  Thank you for sharing your experience with Carlbrook on the board.  What you are saying does not surprise me in the least.





Your observation about this anon Carlbrook supporter is spot on.  S/he came on here and began to rudely insult everyone in a "preemptive" fashion.  This is typical of control-freak types that can't stand to have alternative viewpoints expressed.





That being said, people like Her/him support the program blindly.  They have taken a leap of faith and have discarded the scientific method entirely.  As I have explained before, these type of programs are not the "latest and greatest," but rather are the dredged up, cobbled-together pieces of behavioral science and psychotherapy that the professional mental health society had debunked and cast aside decades ago.  Carlbrook is doing nothing more than rehashing the obvious mistakes of treatment modalities long dead and buried by scientific method and clinical study.  The facts are that Carlbrook's methods have been debunked, proven ineffective and shown to cause damage to the developing mind for DECADES.





To reiterate: There is NOT ONE SINGLE SOLITARY CLINICAL STUDY THAT SUPPORTS THIS TYPE OF TREATMENT.  Yet there are several dozens of clinical studies that show this methodology causes DAMAGE such as PTSD (just to name one).





So, what we are dealing with here, Joe, is people who refuse to look at proven fact so that they may retreat into "good feelings" doled out by the folks that fleeced them out of their money and hurt their children.  These are the same type of people who believe in "Intelligent Design."  They will cast aside proven fact and embrace insane concepts, so long as they can feel "right" about it in the end.





Welcome to the board and please don't be discouraged by crackpots and flamers.  Any intelligent, fact and reality based assessment of the precious program will be met with extreme hostility and ad hominem attacks.  It comes with the territory."




Joe was very unsatisfied with Carlbrook, to say the least.  He was harangued for saying so."


Three people's opinions.
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Offline Anonymous

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Carlbrook
« Reply #1205 on: April 20, 2006, 09:32:00 PM »
DJ- give it up. You got hammered. You are the vile and childish one. You vomit your  anger out all over anyone who dares to disagree with you. You are hilarious in your self-righteous huffing and puffing.
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Offline Anonymous

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Carlbrook
« Reply #1206 on: April 20, 2006, 09:33:00 PM »
Quote
On 2006-04-20 18:32:00, Anonymous wrote:

"DJ- give it up. You got hammered. You are the vile and childish one. You vomit your  anger out all over anyone who dares to disagree with you. You are hilarious in your self-righteous huffing and puffing."


Oh, Karen - give it up already.  :rofl:
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Offline Anonymous

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Carlbrook
« Reply #1207 on: April 20, 2006, 11:50:00 PM »
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"But keep in mind this is one person?s opinion."


It's mindless bullshit like this that royally pisses me off.

That one person happens to be right, asshole. The programmie staff isn't trained properly. That's a fact, not an opinion.
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Offline Anonymous

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Carlbrook
« Reply #1208 on: April 21, 2006, 10:30:00 AM »
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On 2006-04-19 20:38:00, Anonymous wrote:

I promise you that no one gives a crap about these posts


I promise you that they do[/b].  I personally know of 4 parents that I have communicated with from these boards that pulled their kids out of the mindrape facilities as a result of what they read here and at other links they found here.  They're damn glad they did.  What they found out once their children were away from the influence of those nutbags broke their hearts.  The guilt was almost overwhelming.

Say what you want.  There's obviously a lot more going on than you're aware of.
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Offline TheWho

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Carlbrook
« Reply #1209 on: April 21, 2006, 11:27:00 AM »
Yes, I agree,  Many parents do read here more and more.  I have talked to parents who have moved their kids to different schools.  One parent who removed their child altogether and several (who I met in a group I attend) who used this board to choose the best fit school, based on feed-back they received reading posts at fornits.  My personal belief is that this trend will continue to grow due (in part) to the decline in the safety of the public school system (bullying, suicide rates, personal threats, Columbine type plans uncovered in the news, excessive drug use, drop outs etc. which contribute to the kids becoming "at risk") more and more parents will be looking to place their kids in a safer environment and fornits is becoming part of their search and education.

The negative feedback from kids who attended the schools is a natural occurrence and expected, how many kids did any of us know that enjoyed the school they attended (at the time)?  Most of us considered it abusive!  Parents are typically more interested in feedback from other parents, studies that refer directly to the schools they are considering and alternative schools that they had not heard of and can research off-line.
But no doubt fornits has a strong voice and has become a part of many people?s decision processes.
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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #1210 on: April 21, 2006, 01:17:00 PM »
No sane person would put any stock in what they might read on this site. You have made sure of that with all the attacks and digressions. All they will find is a bunch of immature mud-slinging. All credibility has been destroyed.
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Offline TheWho

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Carlbrook
« Reply #1211 on: April 21, 2006, 01:57:00 PM »
Quote
On 2006-04-21 10:17:00, Anonymous wrote:

"No sane person would put any stock in what they might read on this site. You have made sure of that with all the attacks and digressions. All they will find is a bunch of immature mud-slinging. All credibility has been destroyed."


True, it can be a mess.  Some of the other threads are much worse than this one.  What I tend to do (others probably also) is find a person  who you feel is credible (or shares the view you are interested in) and follow their argument/ideas thru the thread.  It allows you to bypass many of the trolling/flaming etc., as you said, that can occur and skip the immature remarks.  It is one of the nice things about fornits in that it affords you these options.
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Offline Anonymous

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Carlbrook
« Reply #1212 on: April 21, 2006, 01:58:00 PM »
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On 2006-04-21 08:27:00, TheWho wrote:

"Yes, I agree,  Many parents do read here more and more.  I have talked to parents who have moved their kids to different schools.  One parent who removed their child altogether and several (who I met in a group I attend) who used this board to choose the best fit school, based on feed-back they received reading posts at fornits.  My personal belief is that this trend will continue to grow due (in part) to the decline in the safety of the public school system (bullying, suicide rates, personal threats, Columbine type plans uncovered in the news, excessive drug use, drop outs etc. which contribute to the kids becoming "at risk") more and more parents will be looking to place their kids in a safer environment and fornits is becoming part of their search and education.



The negative feedback from kids who attended the schools is a natural occurrence and expected, how many kids did any of us know that enjoyed the school they attended (at the time)?  Most of us considered it abusive!  Parents are typically more interested in feedback from other parents, studies that refer directly to the schools they are considering and alternative schools that they had not heard of and can research off-line.

But no doubt fornits has a strong voice and has become a part of many people?s decision processes.

"


Nice try at reverse psychology.  Didn't work.  We're not going to quit speaking out that sending your child away to facilities that engage in coercive mind control is a horrible mistake.

However, there are parents who *do* find the good schools by coming on Fornits.  The good schools, if your child needs to get away from a town with lousy schools, are to be found in Google under "college-preparatory boarding schools."  "Boarding schools" almost universally gets a search page with loads of coercive mind control facilities with inferior academics and deceptive marketing practices.

Parents can't go wrong with a traditional prep school that appeals to the mainstream of students and has been in business for more than a decade.

http://www.boardingschoolreview.com/school_overview.php

*Most* of these schools won't be reform schools in disguise.  YMMV on the military schools.  Some military schools are good when the kid already plans on a career in the military or (perhaps) law enforcement.  

I say that on military schools because my husband and brother in law were military brats, were in JROTC in their public school and just loved it.  It's not for everybody, but *they* would have been as happy in military school as Brer Rabbit in the briar patch.

So the parents whose children want boarding schools who *don't* want to sucked into a deceptively marketed nightmare *can* find some help on Fornits for identifying reputable prep schools.

For kids who are in therapy or see a psychiatrist for something, any reputable prep school will understand if the kid goes into town to see a reputable, private, independent therapist or psychiatrist just as much as they'd understand if the kid needs a dermatologist or a dentist.

Real prep schools are terrific experiences for some kids.  Snake oil coercive mind control facilities are for nobody.

Personally, I wouldn't take a chance on the military school in Missouri--even though they may be being tainted by association, I suppose.

The first questions I would ask if my daughter wanted to go to prep school and we decided we could afford it are:  What percentage of your students graduate?  What percentage of your graduates go on to attend Ivy League schools?  What percentage of your graduates go on to attend post-secondary schools that are in the top ten in their US News and World Report area?  What percentage of your graduates go on to attend post-secondary schools listed by USN&WR as having selective admissions?  What statistics, if any, do you have on your graduates GPA at the end of their first year of college or other follow-up measures of college success?  Which of your graduates feature notably in "Who's Who in America" or other, similar "Who's Who" compilations, or have made other notable public achievements?

If I was sending my kid to prep school, I'd pick the one with the best reputation she could get accepted to and we could afford.  She has bipolar (probably--at this age the specific diagnosis is likely but not certain, so the doctor just prescribes meds that aren't contraindicated for the other possibilities), so I would arrange for her to attend regular appointments with specialists independent of the school at whatever town was nearby.  Obviously, transportation arrangements for follow-on specialist care for a child's medical conditions, from diabetes to allergies to asthma to orthodontics to broken ankles to bipolar, get made all the time.

So perhaps you're right that parents find the good schools on Fornits.

But you're not right in the way you meant.

By the way, I loved my high school and was proud of the reputation it had in the community as a good school.  My junior year I was one of five national merit semifinalists, which was quite a lot for a school of our size.  I was in the band and we competed all over the place, and did well.  *Most* of my graduating class loved our school while we were in it, despite all the usual adolescent drama.

The local public high school where we live is excellent, and the local kids I've met that go there, and to the other one nearby, are proud of their school and know how lucky they are to attend schools with such a good reputation.

Sure, there were things about our school we thought sucked, there were some of the staff we hated.  One of the special ed teachers got her nose broken by a kid way back when, and just about everybody thought it was great.  She was a real bronze-cast bitch.  

But nobody tried to coercively modify our heads.  The teachers who knew the various of us that were headed in a self-destructive direction tried to guide us into navigating adolescence more safely, without draconian and stupid control-freak freaking out.  It worked very well.  We had some kids drop out--and a lot of them pursued their GEDs or went to alternative school in the evenings.  We had some kids get pregnant.  We had almost all the kids get drunk occasionally, and almost everybody tried pot at least once (no, I didn't).  We had a couple of kids die in a car accident.  Our homecoming queen my junior year had had a baby--but she was back in school and finishing.  The baby was a minor scandal with a few people.  Most were impressed she had her life back on track.

My best friend from my freshman year got pregnant our sophomore year.  She married the father and graduated with the rest of our class.

We had the average social problems, and the average mix of kids.

The ones that didn't get sent away to these weirdo reform schools did a lot better than the people here that did.  Not having all the PTSD and nightmares and the lost adolescence was a big "better."

I went through a horrible, long episode of depression, and that stank but wasn't the school's fault.  Very few of us were so miserable in school that we weren't absolutely convinced that the arch-rival school sucked. :smile:

It helped that our county had good vocational and fine arts programs the kids who were inclined to the trades or arts could attend, so college-prep wasn't forced down their throats if what they wanted to be was something completely different.

Your pessimistic picture of adolescence is all in your head, and you use it as an excuse to treat teens like objects to be strictly controlled instead of fellow human beings with hopes and dreams who are at the right age to separate from you and the nest by successfully throwing off your control.

I hate being mean, and I've almost left Fornits a couple of times because I don't like what my moral sense compels me to say, but you program parents are at best irresponsible, gullible dupes, and at worst dysfunctional, control-freak monsters.

People who do what you did, and the programs who directly perpetrate the abuse, should go to jail.  I will continue to work to change the laws to make these facilities totally illegal.

Julie
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Offline TheWho

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Carlbrook
« Reply #1213 on: April 21, 2006, 02:41:00 PM »
Quote
By the way, I loved my high school and was proud of the reputation it had in the community as a good school. My junior year I was one of five national merit semifinalists, which was quite a lot for a school of our size. I was in the band and we competed all over the place, and did well. *Most* of my graduating class loved our school while we were in it, despite all the usual adolescent drama.

Mine did not, at least the people I hung with.  We all like it now and contribute as alimni, but not then,

Quote
Real prep schools are terrific experiences for some kids. Snake oil coercive mind control facilities are for nobody.

I think we agree 100%, this has always been my position.  Fornits can help separate the good from the bad (along with others)

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So perhaps you're right that parents find the good schools on Fornits.

But you're not right in the way you meant.

Disagree, I think I am.

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Your pessimistic picture of adolescence is all in your head, and you use it as an excuse to treat teens like objects to be strictly controlled instead of fellow human beings with hopes and dreams who are at the right age to separate from you and the nest by successfully throwing off your control.

Naw, I just remember when I was a teen.  Most of us didn?t want to be in school, we would rather be at the beach, maybe you hung with a different crowd.  Any parent can exhibit too much control or too little on their kids, it is a matter of definition and the individual child.  I have known kids to be able to go to their homes from school at age 12 without an adult home and be trusted, and kids who I wouldn?t trust to be home alone at 21 !!!  This is an arguable point.

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I hate being mean??

Then don?t, just express your point of view and critique each individual case and point, no need to lump everyone together and label them.  I am just as frustrated with your closed minded approach, you cant see all the kids benefiting from these schools.  Name any school in the country, say Yale, I could find kids who did poorly, committed suicide, hated their parents etc.  but you assume you know cause and effect and the truth is we really don?t know.  What we do know is that kids do very well and others do not.  I think it would be best to put our efforts into improving what we have to benefit more kids than to head in the direction of shutting schools down and denying help to the kids who get it.  This is so simple !!! (in concept, I know).  But why shut down Yale university because a couple of kids do poorly, one should look at the larger population.  I don?t mean to minimalize the problems, but look at a larger picture is all I am asking.



Quote
People who do what you did, and the programs who directly perpetrate the abuse, should go to jail. I will continue to work to change the laws to make these facilities totally illegal.


Aw,  You had to be mean, sorry you feel that way.  Wish you could speak to my daughter, you would be amazed.  I have met with people who went to jail and most of them had parents who let them be kids, get in trouble and hope for the best (didnt care enough), it doesnt work (sometimes you get lucky, but thats it).  We have a better chance of connecting cause and effect there then we do with kids that do poorly at TBS.

_________________________________________________

God Dammit, you've got to be kind!
--Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.  "God Bless You Mr. Rosewater:"
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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #1214 on: April 21, 2006, 02:41:00 PM »
Julie there have been a lot of attacks on this thread about ANY boarding school (aimed at Karen). The consensus here is to lump sending a kid to boarding school right in with the whole bad parenting thing. There is not a recognition here of the excellent college prep boarding schools.  BUT-there aren't many kids with the types of issues and backgrounds being discussed here who would be admitted to a regular boarding school (of any merit). These schools do not like to take kids who have been expelled from other schools or who have drug/alcohol issues.
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