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Camp, school district consider an alliance
By BARBARA BEHRENDT, Times Staff Writer FLORAL CITY -- For one girl, it was drugs. For another, it was family relationships and poor self-esteem. While their stories were different, the middle- and high-school-aged girls also had much in common. Each needed help and was getting it through a unique and challenging program that combines education, therapy and a rugged lifestyle. On Tuesday, the teens at Camp E-Nini-Hassee met with Citrus School Board members, who visited to see what the Eckerd Youth Alternatives program might have to offer to local students who were heading down the wrong path. For board members and school district staff members, the visit was the first time many had seen the 800-plus-acre wilderness camp off County Road 480, even though it has been a fixture in the community since the 1960s. While the girls at the facility were sent there by courts or their families from across the state, Citrus school officials met a population not much different from what they see in the public schools here. By the end of the tour, the three board members on the tour said the camp and their own staff should be able to cooperate somehow. The target groups would be middle school students who were starting to show signs that they might get into bigger problems, as well as older students heading toward expulsion. Superintendent David Hickey and resident camp director Jo Lynn Smith said their staffs will meet soon to discuss a program that they hope could be set up by January. Camp E-Nini-Hassee is nestled in the woods west of Floral City and has 60 teens. School officials toured the primitive camps where the girls cook, wash, build new tents and discuss their daily experiences around a campfire. They sleep on cots draped in mosquito netting and keep all their limited belongings in foot lockers. Not far from the campsites was a ropes course where teens camp and learn how to cooperate with one another and hone self-esteem and leadership skills. Asked by the board members what schools can do to help teens avoid trouble, a 16-year-old girl urged more peer-counseling programs since many youngsters will talk to another teen before turning to an adult for help. She also urged the district to encourage administrators and teachers to listen and be understanding so "school is a place where you can get help with your schoolwork or get help with anything else." She added that some youngsters like herself were so eager to be at school rather than home because "school is an escape." One girl said she was worried about what her life would be like when she left the camp in the coming weeks and returned to her school to face her peers and school staff members who knew her history. Hickey walked over to her and, shaking her hand, encouraged her to go back to school and find some teacher or administrator she could connect with. The girl smiled. "Thank you," she said.
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