I recently worked at MBA as a teacher. Disheartened by the systemic disrespect of students by school staff and policies I saw in the public schools, I thought a private "emotional growth" boarding school for at risk teens was the perfect environment for me. Surely these children would be treated with respect and dignity?.little did I know.
I love working with at risk kids because I was one and know intuitively what they need. However, I was immediately disappointed and disillusioned by what I saw going on at MBA. "Mentors" who should really be called ?tor-mentors? yelling and disrespecting teens while routinely pulling kids out of classes for "work projects" as a result of some minor infraction of the "rules'. I saw seriously depressed kids, suicidal kids, kids so overmedicated that they could hardly form a though let alone stay awake in class.
As a teacher it was disappointing, how do you conduct classes and keep to any kind of curriculum when your students are taken out of class for a week or two weeks at a time? Some days I would only have two or three kids and then suddenly I would have a full class of 15 that were weeks behind. What were they doing all that time? They were on ?self-studies? or ?work projects? which meant; moving rocks, digging stumps, cleaning bathrooms, cleaning the campus grounds, hauling various wheel barrow loads of stuff here or there. The kids who weren?t in trouble would be gone for a week or two for various ?lifesteps?. Parents need to know these kids are not getting a ?college prep? education! Academics are NOT valued at all at MBA. The tor-mentors run the place and could care less that these kids are not getting an education. They ?graduate? them without the academic skills they will need in college. Of course, these kids are some of the most privileged in the country and so come in with superior skills to begin with, but they are not where they should be in the end!
These parents are paying 6000.+ a month and THEIR kids are doing all the cleaning and maintenance! The ?classrooms? (there aren?t enough) are a joke and the kids have no access to technology on a continuing basis because they might email someone and beg them to break them out! That these kids cannot email their parents or anyone and tell them what is going on is creepy, even their phone calls are monitored and if the kids say anything the tor-mentors don?t like, they end the call. If they have nothing to hide, why all the control over communications? One of the final straws for me was that the kids were made to shovel snow and pick ice in very cold weather without the benefit of good gloves.
As a parent, I would never send my child to a place like that. These kids are so alone and misinformed, they are lied to, manipulated and information is withheld from them. I got fired for telling kids they could leave when they were 18 no matter what their parents or the school said. I only stayed as long as I did because I felt so bad for theses kids. I still do and would love to talk to their parents and tell them to yank their kids ASAP.
