The lesson was brutal. For the simple crime of flirting, a young girl was forced to stand all night long in a kiddie pool brimming with ice water. If she staggered or appeared on the verge of passing out, the boarding school’s program director would douse her with even more frigid water. Worse yet, the girl’s companions, including a teenager named Sarah Ciko, were told to refill the pool with ice whenever the program director deemed it necessary. The kids watched this girl shiver for hours, following the adult’s every order.
“Everyone likes to think they would do the right thing,” says Ciko, now a 35-year-old mother with a teen of her own. “But no kid should be put in a situation like that. We could’ve said no, but then we would’ve gotten the ice, too. Or worse.”