On 2006-06-21 16:51:00, Anonymous wrote:
"I am happy to engage in a honest conversation.
1) No, we do not ever put children in forced isolation. Occasionally students participate in voluntary solos for a couple of hours to reflect and work on writing assignments.
2) No, students are not forced to look into the mirror for hours. What would be the purpose of that?
3) We do not withhold food. We have a great food service called Sage that does an excellent job.
4) They are encouraged to write letter home frequently, and also are encourgaed to write to friends who will be positive influences when the students graduate.
5) They each have a scheduled call home at least once a week. Many of them also do conference calls with their counselors to help them address more sensitive issues with family members.
6) The bathrooms are available any time the kids or staff need to use them.
7) We have Work Projects on the weekends as a consequence for negative behavior. This includes doing chores such as gardening or cleaning as well as community service. It lasts 2 hours and the staff work with the kids. The kids are also assigned to crews and do 20 minutes of general cleaning each morning after breakfast. This involves cleaning the dining room, straightening up common areas- general cleaning to take care of our space. We have a maintenance team that does repairs and cleaning beyond basic chores that most kids would help with at home.
I hope this is helpful."
From Valerie Shapiro's Study:
http://groups.colgate.edu/cjs/student_p ... hapiro.pdfMany other restrictions also exist, but with less severe consequences. For example, there is no borrowing of clothing, no retreating to the dorm rooms, no shirts without collars, no facial hair, no all black outfits, no wasting food, no frayed clothing, no eating outside of mealtime, no nail polish, no concert t-shirts, no feet on the furniture, no untied shoelaces, no hats indoors, no shorts with less than a five-inch inseam, no baggy clothing, no bare feet, no make-up, and no hemp or excessive jewelry. Violations are met with punishments such as: doing dishes, getting work projects on the weekends, reflective writing assignments, STARING AT YOURSELF IN THE MIRROR FOR EXTENSIVE PERIODS OF TIME, losing money at the school store, eating last, getting reading assignments, BEING PUT IN ISOLATION, mandating an ?older? student to escort a ?younger? throughout the day, sleeping on the floor in the night security office, a body search, or creating a written confessional list of your behavior violations and the violations of your peers.
Rewards for positive behaviors include: admittance to the Saturday nightmovie, writing home for a personal item such as a piece of sports equipment or a musical instrument, PERMISSION TO DIAL YOUR HOME PHONE NUMBER BY YOURSELF, more money in the school store, earning higher weekly trust rankings from the staff, more time without supervision, PERMISSION TO WRITE SIBLINGS AND EVENTUALLY THREE FRIENDS FROM HOME, the right to put photographs from home on the dorm walls, longer phone calls to parents, PERMISSION TO SEND AND RECEIVE YOUR LETTERS SEALED WITHOUT STAFF REVIEW, membership in activity clubs for snowboarding or theatre, all-star trips during the two weeks in between school semesters, earning 5 personal CDs, and becoming an enrollment aid for incoming students (which is a highly desired position as it involves missing class). See Appendix A for a more detailed description of the phases of treatment.
The kids at HLA weren't impressed with Sage Food Service. While an improvement, they complained about too much fried food.
