Whoa! Red flag! That was *not* an endorsement of ASR.
One of the things I have actual knowledge from talking to my friend that ASR did was sharply limited her access to books for recreational reading.
She had to smuggle e-books in to have anything to read. Fortunately, you can fit a *lot* of text on a CD-ROM, and they did have computers, even though they didn't have access to the outside world.
No child of any age should *ever* be denied recreational reading material to enjoy when his or her work/homework is done.
Okay, I'm an author, I have a bias. My mom was an elementary school librarian, I have a big bias. I have a firm belief that *not enough* children are readers and love to read, and that if you have a teenager that reads and loves to read that while that teenager is reading he/she is *not* doing drugs, is *not* screwing around, is *not* doing delinquent stuff.
Depriving a kid of reading material is unconscionable.
My friend is a science fiction fan. I don't care if the kid's preferred genre is literary, romance, horror, SF, fantasy, mystery, western, historical fiction, military fiction, cop stories, or or stories about Peoria, if a kid loves reading and the material isn't obscene in an age-inappropriate way, then *nobody* should be depriving the kid of the opportunity to read what he/she likes.
I'm not saying they should have to *provide* it. I'm saying she shouldn't have had to smuggle it in.
When a facility treats *books* as contraband, that facility has a problem.
I do not recommend Academy at Swift River. I do not recommend it at all.
In their favor, when I sent my friend a box of books at Christmas, I sent them anonymously and she received them (I didn't think they'd get there if my name was on the box, and I was probably right---other *harmless* stuff from others that was not sent anonymously did not get to her.
Still, for an avid reader, a mere handful of books over the course of a year is just not enough. And I had to put a number of dry literary classics in the hope that one or two recreational titles would get through.
I don't recommend them.
They treated her reading like a bad habit that -"distracted from her personal growth"-.
Bullcrap.
I absolutely do NOT recommend this facility to any parent or guardian whatsoever.
Timoclea