Screw the eating in the Lodge thing. Are you trying to say that HLA administration members that lead those "parent workshop brainwashing sessions" and not master manipulators? Please do no insult our intelligence here. They tell you that your child will regress if you pull them out of HLA early to try and manipulate parents into keeping their children there. Parents believe what they want to believe based on their level of denial and fear. HLA talks about the "Harder Truth". Any parent with any analytical skills can see straight through that Con job and see the real Harder truth. People with psychology backgrounds should know that you will not get a positive outcome with a student by keeping them in such a negative and very unhealthy environment all the time.
The workshops are carefully scripted to project the message that Len Wants to get out there, which is STAY STAY STAY. Jeff worked very hard to twist the workshops and make them consistantly tug on the heartstrings of the parents. Any diverson from the script was handled very harshly from either a staff or a parent.
Cates routninely was crucified by Len for deviating.
Cates was not allowed to make any decisions, we remember the time he tried to solve a problem around a student leaving the program and granting grades. Len wanted to fire him on the spot but did not trust that JEFF could handle the role.
as far as for staff eating , it was proposed several times to charge staff, especially after the retreat brainstorming sessions. HE always said no but then would run up personal catering charges with SAGE of tens of thousands of dollars. Those private christmas parties in Atlanta catered by SAGE were very expensive, especially for the GAY PARTY!!.