But hes not complaining. in solitary confinement, handcuffed them to beds, Alabama Youth Residential Facility Abuse Prevention Act. This results in many children being separated from their siblings and the only community that they know. Agap did not respond to repeated requests for comment and interviews via phone, email and a letter left at the schools reception desk. "Pinehaven has had challenges over the years, but so has everyone," Montana Family Foundation President Jeff Laszloffy said at a 2019 hearing. One former student reportedly mentioned Agap in a suicide note. Pour Salt Down Your Drain At Night, Here's Why, Tyler Kingkade and Liz Brown and Keith Morrison and Rachel White and Andrew Williams and Javier Rodriguez. We felt they needed God in their lives. The state, he says, had no clue how to get to a kids heart.. He ran the school on fear, says Colton Schrag, a former gang associate who attended the school twice between 2004 and 2010, and is not suing because the statute of limitations has expired. It also taught creationism and that women should be subservient to their husbands, while weaving biblical references into the materials. (Jill Toyoshiba/The Kansas City Star/Tribune News Service via Getty Images), Pennsylvania police seized gloves, flashlight from home of Idaho murders suspect. Cedar . For the first time, religious schools would be required to register with the state and undergo inspections; the attorney general would now have authority to close down facilities that posed a threat to students. Advocates are watching the Agap case, and suggest it illustrates why federal legislation is needed. In other words, Grandmother can spank the children as can Agap.. Former Calallen ISD teacher Joseph Sandoval sentenced to 35 years in prison for sexual abuse . The newly appointed attorney general, Andrew Bailey, had said he planned to continue pursuing closure. For so long, nobody cared.. Since Circle of Hope opened in 2006, at least 15 people said they reported abuse at the ranch to at least six local, state and federal agencies in Missouri, an NBC News investigation found, based . Allen Knoll, who attended Agap from 1999 to 2001, looks at Alabamas law as a template of what we can do across the country. The only thing that has held back change in Missouri, he said, is a lack of public knowledge about what goes on inside these schools. They led to a front-page story in the Cedar County Republican. According to AG Schmitts office, the Cedar County Sheriffs Department employs at least three people who used to work at Agap. The legislation would require the schools to register with the state, and create paths for the state to conduct safety inspections of the facilities and shut them down after abuse allegations. It received initial passage in the house and needs one more vote before going on to the Senate. DSS added . Its education and human services departments do not license religious schools, or any private boarding schools, and child protective services does not have the authority to investigate allegations of abuse or neglect at them; instead, they must refer those reports to law enforcement. The way Bryan tells it, in the 1970s, Kathy was a single mom whod found Jesus but still had a mischievous streak. That's no secret, as news stories in The Christian. There was a small room down a dark staircase with blue padded floors and holes punched in the wall. Families looking to adopt are invited to meet, play, and talk to these children, and we need help putting it on. I shadowed a staff member for about three days, we didnt go over procedures, no restraint training, no discipline training really no clear set of rules that the students werent allowed to break., It was not unusual for physical restraints to last four hours or longer, and leave bruises on the children, according to Clidence and three former students. Agape Ranch plans out programs, fund raisers, and community outreach monthly. The state Public Health and Human Services Department and the local sheriff did not fulfill NBC News records requests for information about any more recent complaints. They said that they were bringing me to my parents, he says. Related: More than a dozen people reported abuse at a religious boarding school in rural Missouri before the owners' daughter launched a campaign that got action. The five employees of the Agape Boarding School near Stockton were charged with a total of 13 third-degree felony assault counts, Cedar County Prosecuting Attorney Ty Gaither said. Staff called it the intake room. ET): After publication of this article, Cedar County Sheriff James Jimbob McCrary disputed an account by former Agap student Lucas Francis. In November, Schrag joined close to two dozen men and women protesting outside Agap, holding signs that read Torture Is Not Treatment and Lies Wont Protect You Anymore.. The Clemensens sent 100 boys home, and moved the rest to base housing. By the time Askins contacted her, she had been in therapy for years, and was deeply enmeshed in an online community of former Agap and Circle of Hope survivors. She posted Askins video to TikTok, followed by a second post alleging her parents regularly beat her and had forced a student to eat until they threw up, then eat their own vomit. Paris Hilton's fellow PCS alums said they were stunned to see the heiress, who has amassed 12.6 million followers on Instagram alone, used the hashtag #BreakingCodeSilence in a social media post. After each event, the team assesses what went well, what could be done better, and how many children/foster families were positively impacted. It now has 12. Right away, staff shaved his head, handed him an orange shirt and a pair of Wranglers, moved him into a dorm that looked like Marine barracks, and introduced him to a dizzying litany of rules. Churches of Christ don't have enough preachers to fill all the open pulpits in our fellowship. Im trying to aim for a decent life, you know what Im saying? Operators advertise it as a national boarding school for at-risk or unmotivated boys. Francis said that Robert Graves, a Cedar County sheriffs deputy who had worked at Agap, sat in on a meeting Francis had with a social worker who was looking into abuse allegations at the school. Court records show that David Earl Smock is wanted for assaulting children under 15 at the Agape Boarding School, a Christian private school in Greene County. The founders, Boyd and Stephanie Householder, received 99 charges of sex crimes, child abuse . For secular youth facilities regulated by Missouris social services department, as well as those that have contracts with the state, social welfare agents conduct inspections at least twice a year to review staff training, check compliance with fire and health codes, and make sure employees have background checks and that children get proper medical attention. But instead of the therapeutic environment the schools leaders promised, Schrag and 11 others who were sent to Agap as children from the late 1990s up to last year, as well as four former staff members, told NBC News they saw Agap workers hold boys down and hit them. (Agap denies this.) "If you have children who are fearful that they're going to be sent back to these facilities, you see a lot of instances where children might recant their stories," said Caitlin Whaley, director of legislation for the department. After abuse allegations at Circle of Hope Girls Ranch, a religious boarding school near Agap, began spreading on TikTok last spring, the Cedar County Sheriffs Department opened an investigation, which the state attorney general joined and is ongoing. They were very detailed and professional. It took a disturbing criminal case to make it happen. Circle of Hope closed in 2020, and its owners, Boyd and Stephanie Householder, face 101 felony charges, including statutory rape, abuse and neglect of a child. In 1995, county officials shut them down after health inspectors found the school which by then had 140 students and 25 staffers had rotting food, holes in the walls large enough to allow rodents to enter, and exposed wiring. Just last summer, former students at a pair of Wyoming ranches alleged in an NBC investigation that they had been forced to perform backbreaking manual labor and subjected to traumatic physical and emotional abuse. The report, which also examined 10 cases where teenagers had died, noted that there are currently no federal laws that define and regulate residential treatment programs.. But in Missouri, only the local prosecutor can file charges, and Cedar County Prosecuting Attorney Ty Gaither has said no additional employees would be charged. Five months later, authorities raided Circle of Hope, seizing evidence and removing 25 girls from the ranch. Cedar County, Missouri, where Agap is located, is in the heart of the Bible Belt and Clemensen, his stepfather, Jim, who died in October 2021, and his mother, Kathy, long ago convinced the locals they answer to a higher authority. I dont want another kid to have to go through what I went through, Schrag said. State regulates church boarding schools after abuse allegations. All Rights reserved. The founders of Circle of Hope face around 100 charges, some alleging sexual abuse. Cedar County Prosecutor Ty Gaither asked the governors office for help in his investigation of the Agape Ranch and Boarding School west of Stockton. Within a few months, he says, three students ran away. They say theyre still haunted by nightmares, hypervigilance, and other symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. The industry is a multi-billion dollar industry that claims to help or fix troubled teenagers . After a months-long investigation, the AGs office recommended 65 charges against 22 staff members, accusing them of abusing 36 children. Agape had 132 students 13 months ago, its lawyer, John Schultz said. The Missouri House Committee on Children and Families issued a report in November concluding that there are numerous facilities in the state that have abused vulnerable children in their care, with no state oversight, for many years. Still, it was only a partial picture, based on interviews with former students and information from state officials, because Missouri doesnt keep track of how many religious boarding schools exist in the state. Meanwhile, Agap has phased out the boarding school, instead running multiple group homes on its property, which detractors fear is a shell game aimed at shielding it from the new laws. He lost his red shirt and became familiar with the one place no student wanted to end up: Brown Town. That status, characterized by the brown shirt a student was forced to wear, according to lawsuits and depositions, came with extreme workouts, the loss of talking privileges, and a restricted meal plan that often consisted of a slice of bread and peanut butter, or a tortilla with a scoop of cold refried beans. Their lawyer denies the allegations and says that their innocence will prevail in court. They literally took the practices of Agape and opened up Circle of Hope, so we know for a fact that there is one other school that is ran just like Circle of Hope, and that place is what Circle of Hope modeled their school after, said Amanda Householder, daughter of Circle of Hope operators. Use tab to navigate through the menu items. Children as young as four-years-old may have had up to five foster . They allowed it to happen.. But a Senate staffer helping to write the legislation cautions that in order to get a bill passed, they will likely have to tie compliance to funding, and are unlikely to mandate it. The foothills of the Ozarks sat in the distance. The criminal division of the EPA investigated and charged Jim Clemensen for improperly disposing of hazardous material. And he said, No, theyre not., In 1996, the Clemensens purchased 40 acres just outside of town. Clemensen said the decision to close "is voluntary and solely due to the lack of financial resources to continue caring for the boys.". In 1996, Agap moved to a 200-acre ranch in Cedar County, Missouri. He says he was once ordered to perform 4,500 pushups for cussing and told if I didnt get it done, I couldnt eat my next meal. (Though Breshears says he couldnt do it, Agap denies ever denying a student a meal.) They denied it. Agape Boarding School Abuse Lawsuit - Pennsylvania Schools Details: WebFormer students of Agape from Alabama, Texas, and Michigan have filed two civil lawsuits against the Boarding School for multiple charges that include physical, agape ranch abuse Verified 5 days ago I for sure think it would be harder to bring charges, because then your standard of proof is going to be higher, said Daniel Pollack, a social work professor at Yeshiva University. Wednesday afternoon, a House committee questions Missouri Department of Social Services leaders about their investigations into boarding schools. After the state removed students from the school in August, Circle of Hope voluntarily shut down. It was late on April 20, 2007, he said, and the staff at the all-boys boarding school in southwestern Missouri wanted him to confess that he and two other boys were going to try to run away. But then, Breshears made friends and began to reconsider his allegiances particularly, he says, after he witnessed classmates getting restrained. Breshears spotted a baseball bat poking out of an equipment bag. Today, its home to at least 28 such institutions, though some estimates place the number at upward of 100, many of which are still operating under the radar. hen Andrew Breshears arrived at the Agap Boarding School in 2018, he was a sandy-haired 12-year-old who weighed less than 100 pounds. STOCKTON, Mo. In 1991, Todd Bindley, then 13, moved in. He grabbed the bat, charged toward the front of the cafeteria, and shattered a plate-glass window. Throughout the 1980s, Kathy and Jim fostered children whose parents were in jail. New court filings reveal some of the most brutal allegations of abuse at Agape Boarding School so far, including former students' account that two staffers sexually assaulted him. Jim Clemensen, a former California Highway Patrol officer, initially decided to open a group home in Stockton, California, before setting up Agap on an old Air Force base in Othello, Washington. If you resisted any, they would start kneeing you, hitting you, just mashing your face into the tile or concrete, wherever it was.. Then-Attorney General Eric Schmitt's office contended that 22 workers should have been charged, and with more serious crimes. Agape bills itself as a 30-year-old Christian outfit that "has helped thousands of troubled teens" in part "by showing God's love daily to these boys." But those who identify as abuse survivors . At first glance, the facility for at-risk and unmotivated boys a Baptist institution in Stockton, Missouri wasnt so terrible. Many of these programs, which are estimated to serve as many as 200,000 kids at any one time, are allowed to operate with virtual impunity, thanks to federal inaction and permissive state laws. Gaither declined to comment, but told the Cedar County Republican that Agap has the right to administer corporal punishment. Locals says the Clemensens ingratiated themselves by offering tours, and hosting Boy Scout breakfasts and luncheons for the local Methodist group. It was Clemensen who introduced the practice of restraints in the early 2000s, says Ryan Frazier, attorney for Monsees and Mayer PC, which is representing 18 former students in suits against the school. The school's focus now is "on getting the boys who remain in the program safely transitioned to their parents or to foster care, other group homes or residential programs," its former director, Bryan Clemensen, said in a statement. Agape Boys Ranch Entrance. His grandparents sent him to a mental hospital, then to Agap. The Kansas City Star reported that the Householders deny all allegations . Graves did not respond to a request for comment. Some who attended and worked at the school said otherwise. Jim and Kathy Clemensen a married couple whom people call Brother Clemensen and Maam started Agap in the early 1990s. He says one told local police that he had escaped from a Nazi camp.. Every year, Agape Ranch hosts our Adoption Connection event to help children in foster care find their forever home. Award honors influential children's minister. They noted that DSS had confirmed a case of child abuse and added the name of the Agap staffer responsible to the Child Abuse and Neglect Central Registry, prohibiting him from working at a residential facility. By JIM SALTER. Boyd and Stephanie Householder are facing more than 100 charges of sexual, physical and emotional abuse that allegedly took place at their faith-based boarding school in Missouri. ), Other students describe staffers encouraging classmates to fight one another, and cutting off communication with loved ones when they complained. They promoted me I was the youngest person to go red. I can at least try to show others that you dont have to keep it inside. He has been a trainer for 10 years specializing in substance abuse. Five more alleged victims have filed civil lawsuits against Agape Boarding School of Stockton, Missouri, and the Baptist church that supervises the Christian boarding school, bringing the total number of cases alleging negligence and abuse to 19. Youre never gonna make it out.. To him, it seemed arbitrary and needlessly brutal. Agape Boarding School is located on a 200-acre ranch in Stockton, Missouri. COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. The picture flashed on the big screen, and Brenda Gordon immediately . The Montana Family Foundation, an anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage advocacy organization, lobbied against the proposals, as well, and Smith said their opposition scared lawmakers who didnt want a negative mark on the conservative groups legislative scorecard. Thanks to the generosity of others, Agape Ranch will now be able to provide housing and mentorship for foster youth who age-out while they pursue higher education or career training. One deposed student describes attempting to jump off a staircase at Agap in a gesture of suicidal desperation which prompted a staffer to grab him, throw him six feet across the floor, sit on his back, and bash his head into the floor multiple times, leaving him in a pile of snot and blood, while screaming, Is this what you want? (Agap confirms restraining the student, but says it was not a form of abuse but an attempt to prevent harm to the boy.) Another former student said under oath that he was yanked out of bed and slammed to the floor for waking up late, kicked and punched in the balls by former dean of students Julio Sandoval, and kicked in the ribs and face in front of the rest of the school by Bryan Clemensen. People who have care, custody, and control of those children have that right, as well. It could last for days on end. The site, designed as a Christian camp, had cabins, a shower facility, a mess hall, and a small chapel. I hired Agape to cut the lawn. Operators declined to comment about the investigation. The former director of Agape Boarding School pleaded with a Cole County judge on Monday to keep himself off the state's central registry of child abuse and . The state has been fighting to close Agap ever since. Another describes a staffer holding a pocket knife to his throat. The Republican-sponsored measure requires religious boarding schools to register with the state, pass a health department inspection and ensure that staff meet minimum standards. In civil suits, Agap students describe being choked with rebar and electrical cords, pushed through drywall, having their noses broken, and hit in the testicles hard enough to cause traumatic groin injury. They say several boys attempted to hang themselves, in what they call a pandemic among students. Agap, through its attorney, denies the allegations, and says that no student there has ever killed himself. On the wooded roads near Agap, Amish men drive horse-drawn buggies; hundreds of members of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints live on a nearby compound called the Ranch., I got picked up by the Cedar County Sheriffs Department, and I tried to tell the guy, Theyre beating us,, says one former student. Closing Agap wouldnt be so easy, but throughout 2021 and 2022, the lawsuits began. I got picked up by the Cedar County Sheriffs Department, and I tried to tell the guy, like, Theyre beating us, dont take me back there, he says. If you're using the Bible or God to justify any of these things, that is sacrilegious. The Missouri Department of Social Services does not conduct regular inspections of private religious schools, but child protective services and police can investigate if there is a specific abuse allegation reported. 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