First Semester: I first attended LTP (Lake Tahoe Prep) In March of 2021. I discovered the school with my parents. We where looking into boarding schools during Covid, as I would never attend my online classes. I have always been an avid skier, and my family used to live out in Tahoe. It sounded great, like the perfect place. I had my own room, shower, and I seemed to be treated nicely among my first few months.
Summer Session: I attended the summer session after failing my Spanish class, as well as math. The academics would cram a full year of work into two 3 week sessions. I, and others, arguably didn’t learn anything academically. During the summer, the school seemed to almost deuterate. Students where not allowed off campus, or even in the parking lot for that matter. Activities where bare, and we where always told small monotonous rules whenever we went outside. Our phones would get taken, and we often wouldn’t see them for a whole week. We had zero touch with the outside world, and our small group of friends seemed to dissipate. I watched my friend succumb to drug addiction, I watched my friends do things teens should never have to do. The only ways we could find joy where buy repelling out of the building at night, subsequently sneaking out. We all had fallen apart, we lost touch with our selves and each other. I frequently ran off from my classes. Sometimes I would run into the woods, or just go to the neighboring ski resort; I was not the only one. After 5 weeks, I was told I couldn’t go on the weekend white water trip with the rest of the school. After losing my two friends, I sat there for 2 days, in my room while staff sat in the hallway to make sure I wouldn’t run off again. Sunday morning, I was greeted by the Headmasters chairman or whatever. He told me my dad would be here in 15 minutes. I had to pack all I had. Without my phone that whole time, I wasn’t able to keep up with my family. My dad fell ill, and the school threatened to send me to wilderness if he hadn’t picked me up. He flew out, anyways. The following weeks I had nothing, no friends, I was at my house for some time. My dad ended up even more ill due to the fact he had to fly out while ill, and had to get surgery, he was on the verge of death.
Second Semester: This winter skiing drew me back, the school invited me to come back with all these promises, all would fall through. I came back in early January. I met new people, and all seemed well for the first week or two. Things started to change. The student body became more depressed, with almost half the students seemingly showing signs of psychosis and mania. We couldn’t do anything, we did our best to reach out to the staff. We would be told how lucky we are, and just gaslit and manipulated. Threatening wilderness or expulsion as a frequent thing, used very lightly among staff, and we have seen it happen before. I began smoking and drinking with my friends, we had nothing to do, no outlets other than skiing. Wake up, School, ski, smoke, study hall, sleep. It was a brutal cycle. More than half the student body, being around 40 kids, had fallen into drug abuse and addiction. Every day among us began to blend together, we all where not ourselves, you could tell. Everyone’s expressions where just duller. This was further perpetuated by who we lived with, Including literal sex offenders with psychosis and bipolar disorder. It ran to a point where we where not safe in our own rooms, from staff, the environment, and the people. I had seen people choke each other out to the point of going blue, bloodied jaws, verbal abuse, broken glass, windows, walls, and people. The headmaster didn’t care, he didn’t care about our well being. And as I’m writing this Its difficult to keep doing so.
The psychological trauma this place has ridden on me and many others is outrageous. Its so difficult to describe the events that went on here, the people, and what they pressed upon our psych. So many small details, inconveniences, and aggressions, all leading to us boiling over. I miss the people I had to see go, by suicide attempts, drug abuse, and the wrath of wilderness camps and other schools.
