Jordan McClure at the Monarch School (From:Youthrights.org)

This story was originally written on a webpage created to provide statements for a GAO hearing in 2007. The address is cafety.youthrights.org and it waits for your statement if you believe that your stay at a boarding school included unfair treatment or even abuse. All rights and credits goes to the author Jordan McClure, who posted the original story on cafety.youthrights.org

• Facility Attended: Monarch School
• Dates and Ages attended: February 2006 through May 2007
• State Facility located: Heron, Montana
• Reasons for being sent to facility: Poor Grades, overall defiance Residence prior to placement
• Home Accredited (if known – ie. JHACOA): NIPSA
• Regulated by the state: no
• Access to attorney and or advocate: absolutely none at the Monarch School
• Diagnosis prior to attendance (if any): n/a

Experienced the following:

• Trauma due to escort services: No
• Description: Escorted unknowingly by parents
• Communication and Privacy Rights Violations Yes
• Description Screened weekly handwritten letters, no negativity about the program allowed. Two monitored 15 minute calls per month Forced ultra specific uncomfortable details about past sexual, drug related information and overall exploitation of past experiences used to humiliate and conform.
• Mail monitoring Yes
• Description: manditory weekly letters mentioning nothing bad about the program, screened.
• Call-monitoring Yes
• Description: Two 15-minute calls twice per month.
• Filtered, Restricted or Interrupted Correspondence Yes
• Description: on campus visits for students not already 100% compliant with program
• Seclusion Yes
• Description: 'Solos' on a 14 to18 day outdoor trip, solos lasting up to 2 or 3 days
• (Seclusion) Self: Yes
• Description: was forced to stay on a 'work assignment site' digging a stump out of the ground and was almost crushed by the stump as i was instructed to get it out of the hole i dug around it. on bans, not allowed to talk to, make eye contact or acknowledge anyone, even staff, except for the headmaster and Peer Group Leader and therapist all day solo work assignments often, even on holidays
• (Seclusion)Witnessed Yes
• Description: others on work assignment
• Physical Restraint No
• (Physical Restraint) Self Yes
• (Physical Restraint) Witnesses No
• Peer conducted restraint: Yes
• Description: Peers would put fellow students in stress positions in workshops
• Forced labor Yes
• Description: every day except sunday
• Restricted Access to the Bathroom Yes
• Description: Had to ask permission, during 'workshops' students could only go on breaks. sometimes 5 or 6 hours inbetween breaks.
• Scare Tactics Yes
• Description: self: multiple staff (4 or 5) screaming at the top of their lungs directly at me while the 12-14 other students joined in during group, witnessed this almost every group, had group twice per week, monarch now does it three times per week. pounding it into the kids heads that they 'would be dead' if it was not for monarch. Frighteningly about 80% of the students thought this and talked about it often. during workshops staff would use physical force on students to help put them into a state of hysteria during 'therapy exercises' example: student on hands and knees with students and staff member pushing down on shoulders and mid back and screaming insults and judgements in your ears.
• Exposure to harsh elements (ie. Extreme heat, snow or rain) Yes
• Description: wilderness instructor made all students strip down to under layers ie. long underwear, dowse entire body and until full into the second stage of hypothermia (so we could see what it was like, more for us to fear this particular staff.
• Excessive Exercise Yes
• Description: work assignments often required heavy lifting during one workshop students would run in place as fast as they could until they absolutely could not stand anymore all while being yelled at and told that they aren't trying hard enough
• Food/Nutritional Deprivations Yes
• Description: during workshops kids would be fed cornflakes for breakfast, a cheese sandwich and for dinner macaroni and cheese. kids would be out of it and tired, very susceptible to influence in that state self: denied my vegan diet and was pressured to eat meat, many vegetarian students became meat eaters dude to taunting and harassment by staff.
• Physical Punishment Yes - forced work.
• Emotional, Physical, or Sexual Abuse by Staff Yes
• Description: constant verbal attacks in group as well as other attack therapy techniques. Staff would go off on students in the main hall in front of the entire school and go on and on screaming in the student's face

Education and Mental Health Treatment – [ Please rate: (1) Unsatisfactory (10) Superior

• Individualized Treatment Plan 1 2 (3) 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
• Description: Basically the same treatment for everyone, some students just had to stay longer if they weren't doing "well" enough
• Satisfied with training background of staff members who provided: Education (1) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
• Description: no training necessary
• Therapy (1) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
• Description: one therapist with a Ph.D, used the Monarch/CEDU/Synanon therapy mold.
• Support 1 2 (3) 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
• Description: Some of the staff genuinely cared but were tainted by the program. Staff were forced to go through the workshops with the students.
• Satisfaction with After Care provided: (1) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

• Do you now experience any of the following:
• Nightmares: Yes monthly
• Anxiety: Emotional breakdowns, exactly like the ones that students, including myself, were put into during workshops through bioenergetic and primal threapy. they occur under stress. (this is common among people i went to monarch school with)

• Additional Comments: The staff there are victims as well as the students, this place comes from a long line of places EXACTLY like it, CEDU, Rocky Mountain Academy and now Monarch School. Mount Bachelor Academy, Carlbrook, and Boulder Creek Academy use the same workshop and therapy mold.

References:
Datasheet about the boarding school at Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
The original statement on cafety.youthrights.com