The Academy at Swift River, also known as ASR, was a

coeducation Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to ...

therapeutic boarding school Therapeutic boarding school is an institution where students reside on campus and are provided with both educational and therapeutic services. These institutions first began to emerge in the late 1960s. Description A therapeutic boarding school ...

for teenagers, located in Plainfield and Cummington,

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

. Established in 1997 and closed in 2013, it was a part of the

Aspen Education Group Aspen Education Group is an American company that provides controversial Health intervention, therapeutic interventions for adolescents and young adults, including wilderness therapy programs, residential treatment centers, therapeutic boarding ...

, which in turn is owned by

Bain Capital Bain Capital, LP is an American Investment company, private investment firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts, with around $185 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit, p ...

's CRC health group. The school's student population was described as "bright but underachieving kids" with a variety of behavioral problems. The majority of students use prescribed

psychiatric medication A psychiatric or psychotropic medication is a psychoactive drug taken to exert an effect on the chemical makeup of the brain and nervous system. Thus, these medications are used to treat mental illnesses. These medications are typically made of ...

s. ASR was in session year-round and offered a

college preparatory A college-preparatory school (often shortened to prep school, preparatory school, college prep school or college prep academy) is a type of secondary school. The term refers to public, private independent or parochial schools primarily design ...

curriculum for

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

grades 9 to 12.Curriculum
, Academy at Swift River website, accessed April 7, 2009 Total enrollment was about 55 students. The school was the focus of the 2005 book ''What It Takes To Pull Me Through: Why Teenagers Get in Trouble and How Four of Them Got Out'' by

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

David Marcus.

History

In July 2013, Aspen Education Group announced that it would close the school later that summer.

Staff

Rudy Bentz was headmaster of Academy at Swift River from 1998 to 2003. He had formerly worked at CEDU high school in running springs for 13 years and had been headmaster of Hidden Lake Academy for four years. In 2000, the headmaster was John T. Powers.

History

Staff

References

Further reading