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Schools & Program Visits - Dec, 2001 Issue #88
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CEDU
MIDDLE SCHOOL & CEDU HIGH SCHOOL
Running
Springs, California
Diana Boyer, Admissions Manager
800-884-2338
www.cedu.com
[Lon’s
visit on July 25, 2001]
It
had been almost ten years since I last visited CEDU High
School, but the atmosphere and some of the buildings hadn’t
really changed. Especially the lodge at CEDU High School
was very much the same in my previous visits. Elsewhere
though, much had changed. The addition of the CEDU Middle
School adjacent to CEDU High School of course has an impact,
most obvious by both the remodeled buildings, and by the
brand new buildings. The swimming pool by the high school
lodge had been repaired so it was usable at the time of
this visit, which hadn’t always been the case. The farm
was not as prominent as I remember in previous visits. In
some ways this reflects the change in philosophy over the
years, in other ways, it’s just the normal evolution of
a school during the decade between my visits.
To really understand CEDU, it is necessary to understand
some of its history. It achieved prominence in the 1970s
and 1980s as an alternative way to deal with teens with
problems. In the 1970s there were two commonly accepted
ways to intervene with a teen with serious behavioral problems:
there was either some type of intervention by the juvenile
justice system in the form of punishment, or some hospital
or residential treatment center was used to attempt to cure
the disorder or disease. CEDU demonstrated what they felt
was a better way to help children who did not have serious
pathology. They proceeded to prove the effectiveness of
their approach by means of a rapid expansion in their enrollment
and the birth of several sister and spin off schools. Instead
of talking about therapeutic interventions, they talked
of “whole child education” and used four curriculums to
address academic, emotional growth, wilderness and physical
needs. Creating a tightly structured environment where the
students could clearly see and learn from the consequences
of their actions, they succeeded in looking like, acting
like and being licensed as, a residential boarding school.
This vision has had a tremendous impact on the whole network
of emotional growth/therapeutic boarding schools and programs,
including the overall patient environment of quality clinical
residential treatment centers and psychiatric hospitals
around the country.
The CEDU Whole Child Curriculum is still active much as
it has always been; the students still participate in the
Propheets and Raps. These all-day and 3 hour groups are
a major part of the emotional growth curriculum to work
on personal issues. Physical education is still an important
part of each student’s day; each student still has wilderness
treks, to take advantage of the unique teaching ability
of a wilderness experience. All this is the traditional
CEDU curriculum that was developed originally in the early
1970s. The school over the last ten years has increased
their therapeutic capability to provide additional support
for students who need formal counseling or therapeutic interventions.
About two and half years ago, I was told, a decision was
made to emphasize academics and from what I saw, academics
was an important part of each student’s day. I spent a brief
time with the very energetic Academic Director Greg Hitchcock,
who since that time has been appointed Headmaster for both
CEDU High School and CEDU Middle School. He expressed great
pride in the growing strength of their academic curriculum.
They have adopted the Multiple IQ orientation, with a strong
arts bent, to meet the needs and challenge all their students
academically, regardless of their grade level. Overall,
the atmosphere of CEDU High School was more similar to a
college prep boarding school than a treatment center or
“school for troubled teens.”
Throughout the time I was there, the students in both schools
seemed engaged and active, not only during physical activities
and in the classroom, but also during individual counseling
sessions, when meeting with staff and of course, while hanging
out just before and after lunch.
Perhaps the best way to describe CEDU Middle School is to
contrast it with the High School. When the Middle School
was founded in 1991, staff took the CEDU philosophy and
modified it to working with younger students, largely pre-teens.
So while the High School has primarily peer-driven group
activities and raps that can be rather confrontational when
needed, the Middle School is more adult driven, since that
age still needs more adult attention. Consequently, the
middle school approach is seen as “softer”. The high school
emphasizes working with the students, and includes their
parents as part of the family system, while the Middle School
is more parent oriented, working more with students and
parents to bring them back together as a family unit. The
importance of children’s play has always been an important
ingredient of the CEDU philosophy, as shown for example
in the Children’s Propheet. CEDU considers play and toys
to be even more important for the preteen children, so in
the Middle School, opportunities for play and the availability
of toys, is very important.
A day visiting CEDU is both challenging and refreshing,
a good sign there is the sense of safety that leads to healing
and personal growth on the part of the students. |