| Family Foundation School | |
|---|---|
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Building Character. Changing Lives.
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| Location | |
| Hancock, NY, United States | |
| Information | |
| Type | Private Middle / High School |
| Religious affiliation(s) | Inter-faith |
| Established | 1984 |
| Director | Jeff Brain, M.A. |
| Academic Vice President | Sidney F. Parham, Ph.D. |
| Enrollment | 130 co-educational |
| Student to teacher ratio | 4:1 |
| Campus | 158 acres (0.64 km2) |
| Color(s) | Blue and Gold |
| Athletics | Soccer, Basketball, Softball, Golf |
| Athletics conference | New York State Class D, Section IX |
| Mascot | Falcon |
| Average SAT scores | 1250 |
| Website | http://www.thefamilyschool.com/ |
The Family Foundation School is a private, co-educational, college preparatory, therapeutic boarding school located in Hancock, New York.[1] It was founded in 1984.
Contents |
The school was founded in the 1980s by Tony and Betty Argiros, who were recovering alcoholics following a twelve-step program. As a part of their own final step in the program, they took into their home young people who were recovering from substance abuse. They became foster parents to many of these adolescents and provided some with homeschooling education. After the number of foster children began to exceed the allowable limit for New York State, they sought and obtained legal status for their home as a licensed school.[2]
Over time, the school grew beyond the Argiros home into a campus that includes a main school building, boys' and girls' dormitories, a chapel, food service, laundry services, art and athletic facilities.
In 2000, the Argiros children assumed control over the day-to-day operations of the school.[3]
The Family Foundation School program is based upon three core goals: maximize academic potential; develop spiritually and emotionally through a 12-step program of recovery; grow and mature psychologically through the 12-Step program as well as group and individual therapies. Students at the school are divided into "families" of roughly 30 students and 6 staff members. The family groups eat together, during which time "Table Topics" serve as an opportunity for the group to address any negative issues presented by individual students.[4]
The school operates year-round, with two 25-week school terms,[5] and employs a residential behavior modification program that is chiefly based on the twelve-step approach.[5]
The school serves high-school age (grades 9-12) children that have problems with various addictions (e.g. drugs, alcohol, food, sex, gambling or gaming)[6] and/or other psychological challenges. Enrollment is around 190 students.[7] Students are typically recommended for placement at the school by a social worker, school guidance counselor, or psychologist.[6]
The Family Foundation School is accredited as a school by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools,[4][8] the New York State Department of Education,[4][9] and is accredited as a behavioral health care facility by the Joint Commission.[10]
The school is a founding member of National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs (NATSAP)[11]
The Family Foundation School's extracurricular programs include sports teams, drama productions, musical programs, an art department and a wide variety of clubs.[6] Students also participate with members of the local community through religious associations, scouting, Rotary Club, Job Corps, the Sullivan County BOCES, and various other community service projects in the Hancock, NY area.[12]
The school's performing arts program presents full-scale musicals, drama productions, winter and spring choral concerts that are open to the public,[6] and is a regular participant in the North American Music Festivals.[5]
In 2004 and 2005, the school's debating team won the Seventh annual Delaware-Otsego Bar Associations Forensic Speech Tournament, a regional debating competition.[13]
The school soccer team won the championship in the New York State Class D, Section IX Conference in 2005.[14]
In 2009, the school's Math Team earned an honorable mention in the 2009 Moody's Mega Math Challenge, for their presentation examining the effect of President Barack Obama's economic stimulus program on employment in the United States.[15]
The Family Foundation School employs over three-dozen educational professionals, counsellors and support staff, and maintains a 4:1 student-teacher ratio.[5][16][17] About half of the school's faculty and staff members have been through a twelve-step recovery process.[2]
The school's English and Philosophy instructor and middle school principal, Jan Cheripko, is the author of nine books,[18] has won numerous national and international book awards and has been a featured speaker at the National Council of Teachers of English, the International Reading Association, and numerous other New York State and Northeastern U.S. regional education conferences.[19] He has also conducted graduate teaching accredited workshops on how to reach at-risk students through writing and literature.[20]
From 2004 through 2008, all Family Foundation School graduates have been accepted at postsecondary institutions, with 85 percent to four-year colleges and 15 percent to two-year schools or professional training.[5]
Family Foundation School alumnus Wells Thompson is a midfielder for the Colorado Rapids,[21] a Major League Soccer team in the United States. He began his professional soccer career with the New England Revolution, where he played from 2007 through 2009.[22][23]
A Family Foundation School Alumni Association was established after the school held its first alumni reunion in September 2006. More than 125 former students from around the United States attended the reunion.[24]
The Family Foundation School was one of several residential programs for special-needs adolescents that were discussed in United States Congress Committee on Education and Labor hearings in 2007 and 2008.[25][26] In testimony at an April 24, 2008 committee hearing, a former student testified that during the period 1995 through 1997 members of the school's faculty had engaged in various forms of physical and verbal abuse, imposed forced labor, and used inhumane forms of physical restraint.[27]
The school responded by stating "We will not dispute his testimony. His experiences are his own and will always remain so, regardless of anything anyone says or does. Rather, we wish to unequivocally state: we deeply regret that anyone who has come through our program feels in any way damaged by their experience." The school also declared support for the efforts of the committee to keep children safe from harm, adding that the school had since modified its crisis-management methods to meet the standards of both the New York State Department of Education and the Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI) program developed by Cornell University. The school also stated that since 1999, all school faculty and staff are required to be trained in Therapeutic Crisis Intervention techniques.[28] Following the April 24 hearing, several parents of former students, a former student, and a former staff member wrote to the committee in response to the negative testimony, providing positive reports of their own experiences with the Family Foundation School.[29]
Since 2007, Community Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Youth (CAFETY) has conducted an ongoing campaign against the Family Foundation School. In October 2009, a local newspaper reported that CAFETY had sent a letter to residents of Delaware County, claiming abusive conditions at the school, including excerpts from former student testimonials. The letter directed residents to an anti-school website for more information about the alleged abusive conditions. Delaware County law enforcement, social services officials, and the school stated that the allegations in letter were based on past issues that had been corrected by the school. CAFETY disputes this claim, saying that its concerns about alleged abuse are based on written complaints by students who attended the school as recently as 2008.[12] CAFETY members have also taken part in rallies in other areas of the country, where experiences at the school were addressed.[30]
Allegations of abuse prompted an unannounced inspection of the school in 2010 by several New York state agencies.[31] The inspectors reported that they had not found any "current instances of abuse or neglect," but they continued to have concern about reports provided by former students, several of whom gave accounts of "strikingly similar and troubling experiences."[32]