Archive | February 2015
25/02/2015  

323. The Academy and Scotts Valley School

Long ago there was a program called “The Academy”. They had departments in Oregon and in Fiji.

Former students stated on Fornits:

My name is Grace and i lived at the Academy for 22 months. i barely survived the mental and physical torture of the Bridge campus and the Brainwashing life “seminars”i lived with a girl who was molested in Fiji, I was there when a boy with tourettes was made to dig a hole in bridge. i was there when male staff sexually harrassed female students in bridge.I saw patricia Thomass compleat lack of compassion. As a student i can tell you that no one there had any right helping people change there lives. A person who staffed my training and worked at the school and LIVED on the bridge campus commited suicide from a drug overdose. He was supposed to be teaching me how to live?
My two years there i spoke to Patricia once and all she did was push me to tell my parents to go to the Life Training Seminars ( 3 grand a session) that they forced on me.

i will give ANY information to make sure Patricia and Ryan Thomas NEVER run another program.

and

I attended The Academy’s Oregon and Fiji campus. six months at each and left when i turned 18 in april of 2005.

I was in Fiji there for about 5 or 6 months. while i was there, we did have someone from the embassy come by and we were instructed to be “on our BEST behavior” by the director, Victor Kissun (i think thats the right spelling)
dont speak unless spoken to. dont discuss anything you are not directly asked about. tell them how well we take care of you and how happy you are here.

it was effectively, a gag order and instruction to not make the school look bad in any way.

At the very least, i would say that this facility does condone the abuse of children when they see fit.

I saw a student be restrained and beaten by a staff member and another student. When i tried to stop this, i was
held down, had my hands and legs tied together behind my back and the other end of the rope tied to a beam in the ceiling so that i was unable to move or roll around anywhere. I was left like this for several hours. was forced to urinate on my self because they would not untie me. after this, i was held in isolation for about three weeks and had to sleep on the concrete floor.

After being released from isolation, things became alot better because i was able to trade american clothing, shampoo/conditioner and other items we had for Marijuana and Tobacco leaf and rolling papers. I once smoke Marijuana, with one of the staff members, on the front porch of the directors house while he was off campus. The students in my dorm were almost always chewing Tobacco and some times even smoked Marijuana in the dorm room.
I smoked Marijuana with about 4 or 5 staff members in the 6 months i was there. I never could have gotten away with that at the Oregon campus.

I am still in contact with others who attended these campus’ at the same time as my self. We would be happy to help out with any requests for information on this ‘school’.

The Academy as the first program was called didn’t bring profit in leading staffmembers created Scotts Valley School.

Update:

Late 2015 Scotts Valley School became the center of an investigation by the Department of Human Services. Among the issues the investigation targeted were:

  • food wasn’t always available for the students
  • improperly conducting reference and background checks since 2009
  • did not properly maintain required medication logs for the students

According to several sources, it closed in 2016. It was not a fun place to be as a a teenager

Sources:

20/02/2015  

322. Obsidian Trails Outdoor School

Obsidian Trails Outdoor School was a wilderness which used to operate in Oregon. At some point they employed a person involved in the death of another student in a Utah program before he came to this program. Later they lost a student which made the authorities order a stop to the program.

It didn’t sound like a fun place to be as a teenager.

Sources:

18/02/2015  

321. Kincora children’s home (Northern Ireland)

Sexual abuse took place at this children’s home as it is common in a lot of group homes and foster families. However it is not normal for the authorities trying to stop investigation into child abuse. It was what took place in this tragic case.

It is state to state that it could not have been fun to be there as a teenager.

2016 update

BBC among others published an article naming one of the staff members. Many of the boys were forced to interact with housemaster William McGrath in a very improper way.

Sources:

2022 update

The state have decided to approve demolition hoping that once the building is gone, the histories about the neglect of supervision also will be gone. However late 2022 new stories about abuse conducted by persons from the outside was brought by the media to the public.

Source:

15/02/2015  

320. Wagadh Gurukul International School at Sakwar in Virar, India

What is known is that 3 boys were found dead. Whether they were murdered or they committed suicide afraid of the severe use of corporal punishment is not known but it safe to state that it could not have been fun to be there as a teenager.

The police is still investigating the deaths.

Sources

14/02/2015  

319. Scindia School in Gwalior district of Madhya Pradesh, India

Suicide attempts and cover-ups are the first things popping up when you google this school. It is safe to state that it cannot be fun to be there as a teenager.

Sources:

13/02/2015  

318. Sagewalk

Sagewalk was a wilderness program which became nationwide notorious as result of the American version of the reality show “Brat Camp”. Unfortunately the show made parents believe that this kind of therapy was safe. In the end a 16 year old died one day after he was sent to the wilderness program.

The program shut down. Teenagers who had been there have stated that it was not fun to be there as a teenager on various social media sites.

Source:
Online survivors of boot camps for troubled teens play significant role in shutting down degrading abusive programs

12/02/2015  

317. Delphian school

One thing is if you want to go the Hogwarts of an certain what some claim is a religious organization. Another thing is to be forced to attend a boarding school just because your parents want to spend their money on this organization. If the latter is the case, it cannot be fun to attend Delphian School in Sheridan, Oregon.

The school does a lot to hide their connection to a certain organization on their website. Sources have informed us that a lot of books by the now deceased leader of this organization fill the bookshelves of this school so people shouldn’t buy the information posted on the website.

Here are a number of links about this school. We claim that it cannot be fun to be there as a teenager. You can judge for yourself.

Sources: