Family-Style Living

Our unique living environment sets Chrysalis apart from other therapeutic boarding schools.

Your daughter is a long way from home, which is why she will live in a house, rather than a dorm, and have meals at the family table, not a cafeteria table. Each home is complete with a large deck providing beautiful views of the surrounding landscape; students love to eat on the deck during warmer months.

Even the house names conjure up a homey feeling, beginning with the Lake House residence, which sits on a hill just above the lake. Students swim all summer (no matter what house she lives in), and ice-skate or play a friendly game of hockey in the winter months. Our horses, our greenhouse, and vegetable garden surround the Horse House residence, which is a large, three-story log home. The Cottage residence sits on the school side of campus next to our tennis court. These buildings become home, where staff and students function as a large family. Students eat meals family-style around the table for breakfast & dinner every day of the week. They participate in daily chores, movie nights, games, and other crucial aspects of community living.

Students have one to three roommates and decorate their rooms to be their own. Housemates have the opportunity to develop deep friendships, and many students have referred to their Chrysalis peers as “sisters.”

Teaching Life Skills

The benefits of our unique, intimate setting allow students to practice making genuine friendships, and even sort through conflict resolution. Through these relationships, our students are able to see themselves clearly and accurately – perhaps for the first time – via mirroring that which can only be provided by caring peers and adults who are close enough to see through any facade and into the heart of their friend or student.

As one would expect, life skills gradually emerge along the way, mostly in an organic way that students hardly notice in the moment, but which will become all-important as adolescence gives way to young adulthood. These practical skills are carefully taught, intentional and prescribed because they’re essential to a healthy community. Others are almost invisible, simply embedded in the routine of daily life at Chrysalis, and are therefore virtually absorbed by our students. In this context, students increasingly begin to manage themselves and all the important skills they’ll use in the next stages of life.

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