October 1, 2012
Letter from Lost Prairie
Anticipating Transitions
Here in NW Montana the days have become hazy with the smoke of distant fires, the grass is tawny and burnished with ochre and red tints and our iconic larches have begun to turn color. The western larch or tamarack is one of the glories of our landscape.
These thin and lanky deciduous conifers tower in our forests and, in isolated old growth stands, they grow in girth to match their height and are prized for their dense wood. Their fresh greening in
May heralds our lovely summer months and now their yellowing is the harbinger of winter. In the fall they light up like candles, yellow from the top down, and we revel in the spray of gold needles released by the first late October storms.
During the late summer we have welcomed many new students to our community as older members have moved into Kalispell to finish out their work at Sky House. This is the time that I receive requests from parents regarding planning for the next steps for their children, in anticipation of the necessary transitions to colleges and boarding schools and so it seems to me to be time to address this process in a letter to you.
Montana Academy parents are almost invariably high academic achievers in their own right and most have gone to extraordinary lengths to support their children’s educations from birth on. Many of you belong to a generation of academically obsessed parents and some of you have organized your lives around your children’s achievements and made this the focus of your relationships with them. Some of you have also sent your children mixed messages – telling them that high achievement doesn’t matter and what matters

is their happiness but also demonstrating in a thousand small ways, and of course in your own lives, that achievement matters very much. Parents are understandably anxious about passing on their own standard of living to their children in a fiercely competitive world. The focus for many parents has become getting into a good college rather than becoming a good person. Because of this academic focus we all know parents who have made a tacit pact with their children to look the other way about the use of drugs and alcohol so long as grades are good. Those students who have not been able to maintain this balance are the ones who end up at schools like Montana Academy, if they are lucky. Almost universally they feel that they have failed and forfeited their parents’ affection in doing so. Because they experience failure to live up to parental expectations they have rebelled or simply given up and, in so doing, lost their own sense of worth. They are angry and ashamed of themselves and turn these feelings on their parents also. Our academic and therapeutic programs are geared to address these issues both by helping students to regain their academic momentum in small classes with skilled teachers who are invested in students as complex people and in harnessing their talents and interests in some way that is meaningful to them as well as working to resolve their defensive resistance and to create an open and honest dialogue between students and staff and with their parents.
The proof of the success of this work emerges in the dialogue between student and parents as they begin to plan together for the transition from Montana Academy back to the task of finishing high school or entering college. This work cannot begin until both student and parents have invested in rebuilding a secure, attuned relationship and, for this reason, we do not attempt even preliminary planning until students have completed most of their
Sun clan work. At this juncture we hope that parents and students have learned the complex choreography of talking and listening, leading and following. This is a delicate dance and sometimes it

makes sense to have a skilled and neutral advisor calling out the steps.
Some parents renew contracts with their educational consultants to find suitable colleges. Others want a fresh start with a person who has specific expertise in college consulting and still others are confident enough to sort through college choices without outside help. Montana Academy does not get involved in the process of selecting colleges or schools for students. It is simply too big a universe for us to know. Our job is rather, to support this process and for our therapists to describe the kinds of settings in which a particular student is likely to be successful. We almost invariably recommend that, following the experience of an intimate, setting, our students are likely to thrive at small colleges with a strong sense of community.
We recommend that students, with the help of parents or consultants, develop a list of 7 or 8 suitable colleges, based on an assessment of grades and particular interests, locations and finances. This list should include at least two likely “safety” schools in the event that students are not accepted to their top choices. Although many students go on to attend four-year colleges, some find it best to start their higher education in community colleges close to home. We have recently signed up for the Montana Career Information System (MCIS) which provides our students with a wealth of information about careers and colleges as well as providing on line access to Peterson’s practice tests for SAT 1 and II, SSAT and ACT. We suggest that parents should ask for their children’s passwords so that they can also access this website.
Our registrar, Connie Jones, maintains records of SAT scores and transcripts for each student and she helps them to develop a professional profile summarizing their accomplishments (academic awards, community service and leadership positions) which they

will use as a guide for the application process and in requesting letters of recommendation from their therapist and teachers. She has developed a spread sheet so that the treatment team and Sky
House staff can assist in monitoring the many steps in a student’s application process. Each student creates an on-line common application account with a user name and password which can be made available to parents and consultants. The student also sends the link to staff who have been asked to write letters of recommendation.
The clinical supervisor will act in the role of school counselor and fill out the school report recommendation. Phil Jones and
David McLean assist students in developing a draft of a personal essay as one of their in class assignments. Students also ask their therapist and chosen teachers to review their essay before leaving campus for Sky House. They are, of course, encouraged to share their draft essay with parents, consultants and senior MA staff.
Students frequently use this writing opportunity to address the subject of attending a therapeutic school, what they have learned and what it has meant to them and so it is of great importance that they demonstrate the fine balance of being self revealing but not scaring away the reader. The focus of this essay should be less on the rough road behind and more on the present and the gains that have been made in the process. If parents are involved in helping to edit the essay it is important that they not take over the process, but simply ask questions to clarify or catch grammatical mistakes.
Connie also handles all requests for transcripts. Parents, however typically are responsible for requesting that test scores be sent to the relevant college choices. It might be handy to make a note of the school code: 27059. While students are on campus the clinical supervisor and team teacher are jointly responsible for working with the student to meet deadlines along with help from the college advisor and parents. Once a student is at Sky House their house manager takes over the responsibility of keeping track

of deadlines with the student, monitoring both the campus matrix and the common application weekly with the student.
This whole process often creates anxiety for everyone involved and is liable to bring up old issues regarding autonomy over homework and trustworthiness in planning and getting tasks accomplished on a timetable. We strongly believe that our students need to own the college applications process. This is their journey and not that of their parents. This means that they need to be trusted to take the lead. They may stumble, procrastinate, or fail to avail themselves of all their resources. Our staff will be conscientious in watching and pointing out what needs to be accomplished and in what time frame, but we will not be doing this for them. Students must request transcripts from Connie with information about where she needs to send these and in what time frame. Sometimes they will leave things till the last minute and this, too, has repercussions.
On the whole we are always pleasantly surprised by the great colleges where our students are accepted. I am attaching a list of those schools and colleges chosen by our most recent graduating class. What this list does not convey is that this fall no less than 6
MA graduates will be attending Whitman College. We have had a similar large group at Warren Wilson College.
It is gratifying each year to find that most of our students do succeed in making the transition to college and want to stay in touch with each other and with our staff. We learn from their experiences and from yours. Please share your stories.
We look forward to seeing many of you at the October parent workshop in a few short weeks.
Rosemary