Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

I have asked this question before and no one has answered it.  Are there parties and dances for boys and girls at WWASP institutions?  (I can't call them schools!) I need to know because one mother assured me that upper level girls at Cross Creek Manor had normal high school social activities.  I don't want to call her a liar without doing some research.  I hadn't spoken to her in 3 and a half years, but now she is calling me again.  I don't know why.  But maybe if I can catch her in another lie, she'll leave me alone for another 3 and a half  years. ::

Were you at CCM?  If so, please e-mail me at [email protected]

Ginger, right now I will try to answer just one or two of your questions/statements and I will try now to ramble all over the place.

First of all, in the 2003-2004 school year in Oregon, virtually all of the school districts did not have enough funds to finish the school year, and had to close the schools early.
This year they have cut out programs, & school nurses, and raised class size. (Now let me digress a moment about class size.  I was blessed with 43  6th graders my first year.  So when a 3rd grade teacher moans about having 25 pupils, their story touches my heart.  Have you any idea how much paper work 43 eleven to twelve year olds can generate? A lot more than 25 3rd graders and it is more complicated to evaluate.) Still, the Oregon legislature with the skinflint Republican house is underfunding education.  By the way Oregon does not adequately tax large corporations.  In fact Oregon hardly taxes them at all!  That would be a good place to start for school funds.

Governor Terminator in Cal-lee-forn-ya is also finding that running the state without adequate taxation isn't as easy as he claimed it would be when he was campaigning.  He too is cutting school funds.

I started school in the first grade.  (That's how old I am.  Kindergarted didn't exist in my town.) My first 11 years of schooling was in a small working class suburb of Cleveland.  Shortly before the start of my senior year my parents moved to Newport Beach, California and I spent a dreadful year at Newport Harbor High School.  Believe me it was a real culture shock to go from working class to nouveau riche Newport Beach.  After graduation I entered UCLA.

I got a better education in Ohio for several reasons.  Even so, I was not well prepared for UCLA primarily because I was young, but also because my generation was very sheltered from adult thought, problems, and faults.  Somehow the professors of freshmen knew this and they helped to bring us up to par.  A few teachers didn't.  My English 1A would give us composition topics like, "America's foreign policy in the Middle East"  and then the next week she would suggest "America's foreign policy in the Far East".  I had no idea where the Middle East was or what the heck "foreign policy" was.  The thing was I discovered that there were more freshmen who were less prepared than I.  My point being that those high school graduates that prepared for college in the 1950's were probably not as well prepared as college prep high school students today.  

By the 1960's high school started giving advanced classes to college bound students. The brighter students could take more difficult physics, chemistry or math classes.  As time went on kids were taking pre-calculus or calculus in high school.  The very, very bright sister of the girl I hope one day to see on the forum passed freshmen classes by taking tests before entering U.C.Davis.  

My granddaughter in New Jersey will be taking some advanced classes when she enters the ninth grade next fall.  But, she doesn't have the scholarship to take advanced placement classes.  Now there are three different levels of college prep classes in many high schools. The brighter you are the more you're punished!  I'm joking

There is one difference in the course of study for the college bound.  Requirements have changed over the years.  We were required to have two years of a language and we needed more once we were in college.  Now it seems they don't even want you to have a foreign language.  I'll  need to see what my grandchildren will be studying, but it seems that math and science are the most important requirements now.

In the 50's high schools tried to give some kind of education that would be useful to those not going to college.  I don't know if that was successful or if high schools have much of a program today.  Most of my Ohio classmates went right to work, even those who prepared to go to college.  For them college was never an option.  Many went to work in the factories and steel mills in Cleveland.  What saddened me was that the bright ones who prepared for college but couldn't go, did not keep an active intellect.  One of my best friends seemed so dense and uninformed, and she was so bright in high school.

Let me tell you, there have always been those who don't enjoy school or attempt to learn anything.  Ancient Romans complained about the lazy youth who do not want to excel.  If Jay Leno had the Late Show in the 1950s, he could have roamed the New York streets and found dunderheads like the ones he questions today.  I don't know if you have ever seen his questioning people on the street, but comedians couldn't write funnier stuff.  Unfortunately, those being questioned were dead serious.

Ginger, as a former 6th grade teacher and the wife of a former 8th grade history and English teacher, I know that there are bad professional educators and there always have been.  Good Lord our children unfortunately had some lulus! Fortunately they had some good ones too.

 I just wanted to note that professional educators who state that over half of the children are abnormal just can't be right, because, by definition, the norm has to be the majority, if not the vast majority.  So, by definition, if half are abnormal then they are normal.  (Have I confused you?)  Then teachers and schools of education will need to find ways to teach them.  

 There is one problem that is making headlines.  Robert Kennedy, Jr. is presenting it by making us aware of mercury in our air, water, food supply, and immunizations.  It has long been known that mercury causes brain damage/disfunction. He claims that it is causing an alarming increase in Autism.  This may or may not be true, but Autism and related syndromes like Asperger's Syndrome are being diagnosed more and more frequently.  I'm wondering if it isn't the disease of the 2000's, like hypoglycemia was the disease of the 70's, and total body yeast infections the disease of the 80's, etc

 In fact my grandson was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome because his teachers were not teaching him to read.  So my husband who never taught primay classes started tutoring our grandson. I gave my husband instructions on teaching beginning reading, and in less than one year he brought our grandson up to grade level.  
We had to fight the teachers tooth and nail to get them to provide adequate instruction in the classroom to supplement my husband's lessons.  There is no way our grandson had Asperger's Syndrome or any other form of Autism, but it was a nice excuse for his inability to read or their inability to teach.

Anonymous misspelled guarantee by spelling it garantee.  It is an easy word to misspell so maybe AIR is not big on teaching dictionary skills.  Anonymous will probably learn to reach for a dictionary more often.  BTW I do not like the WWASPS' programs so I am not defending them.  I just wanted Anonymous to know what he misspelled.  He seems to think it was "graduated".

Ginger,
 
CCM does use coercion.  They have the usual exit plan, but they also have parents tell their 18 year olds that they have a retraining order to keep them in the program should the child decide to leave.  One thing that they did to the girl I knew went to CCM was put her on antidepressants.  She was crying all the time.  Her mother couldn't imagine why! Still she  had no trouble tell her daughter that she had a restraining order to keep her at CCM.  

This kid was busted from level 3 or 4 at least twice.  It took her 74 weeks to complete her 36 week senior year.  And it took her 21 months to graduate.

There used to be two web sites about WWASP.  One of these was a good one about CCM.  Suddenly both of these sites were off the internet.  That happened about 3and 1/2 or 4 years ago.

CCM does have licensed therapists, but there are therapist and there are therapists.  I asked Perrigaud if she could tell me the degrees the therapists had and she never answered.  Maybe she never noticed or cannot remember.  Someone mentioned somewhere that most of the therapists were social workers with masters degrees (MSW).
MSWs and psychologists cannot prescribe medication.  I wonder who was prescribing the girl's antidepressants.  (By the way it was Zoloft.  She had quite a few of the drug's side effects, which didn't seem to bother anyone except her.)

Anyway, except for VOY there is little about CCM on the internet now.  Maybe because it is their flagship "school" they work harder to keep bad press off the internet and they are not as nasty to their prisoners.

Kelly, thank you for your informative answer.
 
The girl I am worried about entered Cross Creek the beginning of August, 2000 and finished in April, 2002 less than a month before she turned 19.  Since I moved away from my former friend and I haven't spoken to her since April, 2002, I do not know what happened to her daughter.  I tried for almost a year to convince this woman that something was very wrong with Cross Creek, but she would not hear it.

I eventually told this woman that she was lucky that her daughter was so loving and good-natured, because if she was MY mother I would never forgive her.  Your mother and father are also lucky because you want to maintain a family relationship with them.  I sincerely hope your family will see the light and understand what happened to you.  

By the way, this woman told me over and over that the staff at Cross Creek wondered why such a sweet girl with no serious adolescent problems,(She drank alcohol once and had sex with her boyfriend),was doing at the school.  You'd think her mother would get a clue, but all she cared about was imprisoning her daughter. The girl did need a talking to and some discipling, but Cross Creek was a little severe! I wonder if your parents were also told about how nice you are, because you sound very caring.

             Janet

I would like to add.  I commend this mother for sticking with the medical profession.  And good luck in finding affordable mental health care.