School poses a threat to children, say investigators

School poses a threat to children, say investigators

State probe confirms reports of child abuse, rules violations at Prineville-area campus

By Keith Chu / The Bulletin

Last modified: November 05. 2009 5:30AM PST

Mount Bachelor Academy, an alternative high school near Prineville, was ordered to immediately suspend classes on Tuesday morning, following a state investigation that confirmed nine allegations of child abuse and neglect and more than a dozen violations of state rules.

In its report, the state Department of Human Services found abusive practices at the school — including sexualized role playing in front of other students, sleep deprivation and extended manual labor as punishment — that were first reported by The Bulletin in April and denied by school administrators at the time.

The violations by Mount Bachelor Academy “establishes that MBA poses a serious danger to public health or safety of children at MBA and that MBA should not be permitted to continue operating as a therapeutic boarding school for children,” the state order read.

Mount Bachelor Academy is a private school for troubled teens, located about 26 miles east of Prineville in a remote part of Crook County. As of March, the school was home to 88 students and employed more than 75 staff. Tuition at the time was $6,400 per month.

The state ordered an emergency license suspension, writing that “effective immediately you must stop providing all services, educational or therapeutic, to children until further order of DHS.”

It also cited the school's executive director, Sharon Bitz, for failing to prevent the violations.

Neither Bitz nor Kristen Hayes, the communications director for MBA's parent company, Aspen Education Group, returned calls seeking comment about the order. Aspen is owned by Cupertino, Calif.-based CRC Health Group, Inc.

In Central Oregon, the company owns New Leaf Academy, a boarding school for middle school girls; NorthStar Center, a treatment center for young adults age “17.6-24,” and SageWalk, a wilderness school for troubled teens based in Redmond. SageWalk activities are also the subject of a criminal investigation following the death of student in August.

The MBA allegations

According to state investigators, the worst abuses occurred during student therapy workshops, called Lifesteps, which were “punitive, humiliating, degrading and traumatizing,” the report said. In the Lifesteps, and elsewhere, the MBA curriculum “included, but was not limited to, sexualized role play in front of staff and peers, requiring students to say derogatory phrases about themselves in front of staff and peers, requiring students to re-enact past physical abuse in front of staff and peers, permitting staff to engage in the usage of derogatory names, phrases and ridicule of students and deprivation of sleep.”

In March, a former MBA student told The Bulletin that she was made to dress up in a revealing French maid outfit and act out promiscuous behavior — including giving lap dances to male students, as part of one Lifestep. Many other former students, dating back more than a decade, recounted similar stories about role playing, sleep deprivation and stringent punishment.

Among the 18 total allegations in the state report, investigators said the school broke state rules by:

• Requiring students to engage in strenuous work projects and camping alone on an island in “inclement weather conditions” as punishment for bad behavior.

• Censoring phone calls to parents as a way to control behavior. Students weren't allowed to tell parents about what went on in Lifesteps and other “emotional growth” curriculum.

• Using bans, where students weren't allowed to talk, touch or look at others for a week or more, as punishment.

• Failing to develop individual treatment for students, depending on their mental health or substance abuse issues.

• Failing to provide trained therapeutic staff to meet the needs of students. The school had no staff member qualified to treat substance abuse or eating disorders, and only one staff member licensed as a mental health professional in Oregon. That staff member told investigators that he doesn't meet with every student or regularly participate in the emotional growth curriculum.

As a result of the many violations, the state issued a complaint against Bitz, the executive director, personally. If the complaint is not overturned on appeal, that would disqualify her from leading other similar schools in Oregon.

“The Executive Director either knew of the abusive practices of the agency, or she should have known what was happening under her authority,” the complaint said.

In an interview with The Bulletin in April, Bitz denied many of the allegations, saying that former students had exaggerated or were untrustworthy sources.

In background material accompanying the state's findings, a child psychiatric expert wrote that the methods at MBA risked “reinforcing self-blame and self-loathing attitudes already present in traumatized individuals. It is essentially retraumatizing.”

What's next

Under the correction order, Mount Bachelor Academy could reopen if it meets a nine-page list of required changes to nearly every aspect of its program within 90 days. The required changes include overhauling the behavior management system based on recommendations by a panel of independent experts, admitting only students that staff are trained and licensed to treat, providing individual therapeutic services to students, creating an independent mediator where students and parents can voice concerns about the school without punishment and replace the executive director.

It also has the right to appeal both the correction order and the emergency license suspension.

Reaction

Despite the state's findings, at least one parent of an MBA student said she doesn't believe the school deserved to be closed.

Virginia Stauffer, a marketing professional in Dallas, Texas, said the school worked to correct problems with its curriculum after the investigation began. Correspondence between MBA and the state released in a public records request by The Bulletin confirmed that the school had tried to revamp its therapy practices over the past several months.

“They did everything in their power to change what they were told the issues were,” Stauffer said. “They were keeping the most meaningful part of the therapy or the transitional workshops without the role playing or the staying up (late).”

And Stauffer said the sudden closure could spell trouble for her 18-year-old son, Max, who had grappled with drug and alcohol issues before going to Mount Bachelor Academy. She said she doesn't know where to send him next.

“I've exhausted every avenue,” Stauffer said. “My suspicion is he'll go back to his alcohol and drug abuse.”

Mike Zielaskowski worked as academic director at Mount Bachelor from 2001 until 2007. Zielaskowski said the facts laid out in the state's complaint, or what he'd seen of it, matched up with his experience at the school.

“Everything I've read is accurate,” Zielaskowski said.

Zielaskowski, who now works at Paulina Elementary School, said the nontraditional methods helped many of the kids who were at Mount Bachelor Academy as a last resort. But after the death of a student at SageWalk, the state may have been reluctant to let the school continue operating, given the possibility of harm.

“It helped a lot of kids,” Zielaskowski said. “At the same time, you've got some kids who it probably hurt.”

SageWalk has been shut down since mid-September following the death of 16-year-old Sergey Blashchishen, of Portland, on Aug. 28. Blashchishen collapsed while on a hiking trip in Lake County and then died on the scene.

The Lake County Sheriff's Office opened an investigation into potential criminal mistreatment and reckless endangerment by the school. Lake County Sheriff's Deputy Chuck Pore said Monday afternoon that he doesn't have a timeline for completing his investigation.

“There's more investigating almost every day,” Pore said.

The last school to face closure by the state was Crater Lake School, also based in Bend. That school voluntarily closed for good in 2004, rather than try to meet the conditions for reopening, according to previous Bulletin reports.

In 1998, former employees at Mount Bachelor Academy told The Bulletin that students were “subjected to frequent obscenity-laced screaming sessions by staff members; students are deprived of sleep; a group of girls emerged from one group therapy session with bruising on their arms after they were ordered to clasp their hands in front of them and pound a mattress for an extended period; and another group of girls on a backwoods intervention outing (was) rousted from their sleeping bags at midnight and forced to remove rocks from a dirt road for two hours in the middle of a cold October night,” according to Bulletin reports at the time.

Sharon Ferguson was a parent of a student at the school at the time and corroborated the staff members' allegations, but later that year, the Oregon DHS determined the school was a safe environment for children.

Ferguson, who lives in San Diego, said she's glad the school faces consequences this time.

“I can't tell you how good I feel about this,” Ferguson said. “I had just thought this is going to be like the last time, and they're going to get away with it again.”

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