Valley View School

Terrible school, great teachers. I am a past student, and having looked into it, see that things haven't changed much. When I attended, there was a culture of fear and punishment built into the very foundations of the system. I attended only two and a half years and spent the next 3 years recovering. For a long time, I would shy away from sudden movements, especially of people older then me and was quick to violence.

While the day staff were teachers and very kind people, the night staff were often bordering on if not crossing over into abusive. There was a culture of a forced machismo and homophobia as well as encouraged bullying.

I can understand that some parents feel that this school is a last resort, and it is many steps above those horrible "wilderness" programs, but it lacked (at least when I attended) a few critical components:
-Monitors and limits on staff members (one in particular was downright abusive, and he was fired... after almost a year)
-Heavy psychological counseling: so much abuse could have been prevented I feel if the students had felt like they had someone safe they could talk to. This may sound weird to adults like me now, but when you're in that environment, you're concerned about reprisal for "snitching".