From The Parent Of A 2009 Graduate

I can’t begin to express what Fairhaven has meant to our family and to Robbie’s success in finding out who he is and how he wants to interact with the world.  As you may know, he was a defiant, rebellious, unmotivated youth when he came to you.  He is now a more level-headed young man with direction, self esteem, motivation and a sense of ethics that we were not sure would surface.  We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.  Fairhaven offered him the freedom of choice to learn about himself and to find out what works and doesn’t work in a community.  He had the opportunity and appropriate interactions to develop his fun-loving character, which had been buried by the pressures of performance in the public schools.  I love the fact that he is interested in studying law because of his experiences with JC.  I have told him for years that he would be a great lawyer because of his ability to debate and argue.  He has learned that he has a very developed sense of justice and equity (not always mainstream) and that arguing does not have to have a negative connotation.  I loved what he said at the February Graduation Intent meeting about learning that there are lots of disagreements that are not worth the fight.  He never would have walked away before.  I also loved that he said he learned a lesson from each of his many JC referrals and from mentoring his younger peer.  As a long-time public school teacher, it has been a challenge for me to let Robbie choose not to pursue any academics at Fairhaven.  I do believe that he is and has always been intelligent enough to learn those academic lessons when the time is right for him.  Obviously, his time at Fairhaven has been spent wisely learning much more important life lessons.  Fairhaven has indeed provided a fair haven for Robbie to become himself.  We are truly grateful.

Lori Kronser