The referenced website for CSA reads (in part):
All activities strive for a proper balance of recreation, exercise, learning, personal development and social opportunities. Initially, all students are restricted to activities on campus. Over a period of time, students may earn the privilege of participating in off-campus activities.
***One activity, a visit to the Carolina State Legislature, was written up glowingly in The Source. Of interest is the fact that a personal visit to the office of the Carolina legislator that was the "high point" is the same legislator whose own child was sent to CSA for several years.***
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The student alternates between morning and afternoon sessions of school, daily group support sessions, physical fitness, and library time. Educational and emotional growth videos, and motivational tapes are played daily.
***Poor parents...it sounds good on paper, but the reality told by "hundreds" of kids is one of "school sessions" time alone with a check-the-box workbook, "group support sessions" where kids have a free-for-all and are encouraged to ravage other kids' private thoughts written the night before in Reflections, "physical fitness" of laps around a walled-off courtyard or hours in the sun weeding the landscaping or washing staff cars, "library time" in a small room full of "Chicken Soup for 'the Everything' [kid's words] level of literature.***
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Local off-campus agencies offer weekly counseling sessions for alcohol and sexual abuse. A psychologist is available on campus five days a week and may be independently contracted by parents for private counseling sessions.
***Dr. Marc Chappius is "available" at exhorbitant fees, and only appears on a random infrequent basis. Medical care by the "nurse" is also suspect, as witnessed by several former students, as well as the Carolina Department of Health in its on-going battle with the unlicensed facility. The length of this battle may have something to do with intervention by the above-mentioned legislator intimately involved with CSA.***
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Upper level students are also offered opportunities to participate in the CSA Leadership Program which consists in assisting staff with parent tours and coaching students throughout the day.
***Ask any student or parents about the leadership opportunities of total freedom in orchestrating a child's life, one in which points are earned by giving out consequences to underlings. Leadership also means escorting parents and visitors on "edited" tours, carefully leading them into approved areas only, with conversation and outright lying about what life might really mean for the child whose parents send him to CSA without contact or parental involvement/supervision. This is part of the Leadership Program? Since when is deceit a value to teach children?
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On campus activities include basketball, football, soccer, volleyball, softball, hiking, gardening & fishing. CSA also offers a full on-site equestrian program to trust level students. Other on campus activities include movies and popcorn, monthly birthday parties, crocheting, puzzles, board games, journal and letter writing, reading, drawing and painting.
***A full and safe equestrian program? How many teenage girls are enticed with this feature? Mom probably points to the advertising..."they have horses, darling"...and the kid goes along with it. Sounds a lot like the Judas goat who leads his species calmly to the slaughterhouse. FWIW, The Source magazine had an article long ago about the "equestrian program" at Dundee Ranch [since shut down, and owned by the same Narvin Lichfield as CSA]. A young man was shown sitting on a Costa Rican horse, and his first-person story told of being bucked off, getting back on, and conquering his problems by this action. Of interest to me as a knowledgeable horseperson was the picture: rail-thin scrawny horse (not cared for properly by any "equestrian program"), its head hanging sadly while standing on asphalt (dangerous), kid in T-shirt and tennis shoes (very bad), loosely holding rope reins at chest level (way dangerous), with a big grin. Conspicuously absent was the kid's helmet!!! Yikes!!! This young man was plunked on a sad local horse, sent off without the most basic safety gear, no knowledge of riding, and HE PROUDLY CLAIMS HE WAS BUCKED OFF!!! I don't believe it. Was he bucked off onto the asphalt before or after this picture? Would a caring parent be satisfied with this sort of child endangerment? Isn't this abuse?***
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Trust level CSA students are offered a variety of off campus activities including choral performances, debate, roller and ice skating, dining out with local community members, fishing, golf, swimming, and other water sports. Occasional excursions are offered to nearby national forests, local high school and college sporting events, historical sites, popular beaches and theme parks.
***Will the student who actually went golfing, to the beach, and to a theme park please stand up and be counted? Do they tell parents that "trust level" kids have spent about 2 years and $100,000 to get their one-time trip off campus? Do they tell parents that this Trust Level student represents a tiny fraction of inmates, and the activities must be crammed into the short couple of months at the end of the Program before the kid graduates or turns 18 and leaves? A funny story is of one mother who wrote her son in Mexico, asking if she should send his swim trunks and fins right away, as the weather was warming quickly. Son later said the kids got a real laugh out of that one.***
It is impossible to put every-day experience into analyzing this CSA advertising because no one can expect the reality that is WWASPS. That is our job here, folks. Tell it like it REALLY is.
