Video testimony about Academy at Ivy Ridge - Volume IV

Academy at Ivy Ridge was founded in 2001. They used the curriculum invented by the WWASP organization. In 2005 they were forced to restructure because their high school diplomas was issued on a basis of a poor education quality. Melees among the students didn't improve anything. In 2009 they closed down without having contributed anything positive for the students who were forced to attend the school.

A former student visited deserted campus the former school. The building have been left empty for many years as its reputation in the local community has left it hard to sell. The suicide rate among former students who have passed through the WWASP curriculum is alarming high and rumors speak of the campuses widespread out over several states and countries as haunted places housing the lost souls of the teenagers abandoned by their families at the schools.

The student made a number of video testimonies. Two can be seen below and other will be published in future blog-entries. First video in this blog entry here:



and second video in this blog entry below:



All rights to the videos go to the original author known as j0nas420


Sources:

• See In the Matter of the Academy at Ivy Ridge, Assurance of Discontinuance Pursuant to Executive Law Section 63, Subdivision 15 (Attorney General of the State of New York)
• School For Troubled Youth To Issue Tuition Refunds (Office of the Attorney General)
• Melee Keeps Spotlight on Hard Life at Academy (New York Times)
• Director: Ivy Ridge to close until fall (Watertown Daily News)

Various testimonies about Stockton Boys Ranch in Missouri

These testimonies were made on Yelp.com. All rights goes to the original authors

Gabriel C.'s experience

Worst 14 months of my life here. I was physically and mentally abused. Please email me for my story or more info. If you don't want to take my word for it, I can give you plenty of other references that will tell you the same thing. Please DO NOT send your son here.

gabey_chow@yahoo.com


wisdom l.'s experience

This place is a hell-hole located in a shit-hole of a state. Avoid at all costs. Honestly, if you want your kid and the family to have a better relationship try FAMILY THERAPY. Not send your kid off to a completely different state, not be able to have a first visit until 3 MONTHS LATER, and have other visits every other 3 months. I spent 30 min in the morning reading the KJV Bible and another 30 before sleeping. I also went to CHURCH EVERY DAY...twice on Wednesdays and Sundays. SOOO boring, I pretty much fall asleep every time because of how stupid and illogical the place was.

Oh yeah all this place does is hire staff that belittle the students all day, and is run by a ego-maniac by the name of Bryan Clemenson. These people are stuck in the past and refuse to understand that civilization is moving forward as a whole and don't need backwards ideas from the stone age.


Brett W. Harper's experience

Child abuse, child labor, scare tactics, cover ups, staff being expelled for using horse tranquilizers, other things I will not mention. This school has been shut down in Washington and California for child abuse and failure to adhere to state laws and has only been successful in Missouri where they stay far away from most people who could potentially report their failure to adhere to child abuse and labor laws and state regulations, and where the laws on child abuse are nice and lax.


I spent 4 horrible years here! I was subject to military style PT's or "Physical Training" by X Marines and Army staff when I was just 14 years old. I have PTSD, spinal problems, and all because of this school and I have doctors that will back that up! I would sue but that is spiteful. Besides I care not about gaining anything from them or hurting them. Just take it from an ex student or talk to any other students that have left there (NOT THE ONES THERE BECAUSE THEY MAKE SURE YOU DON'T SAY ANYTHING BAD ABOUT THE SCHOOL BY CENSORING YOUR LETTERS AND PHONE CALLS AND LISTENING TO YOU EVERYWHERE!)

Before I got to this school I didn't know what drugs were, but after talking with students there I did. This school is a TERRIBLE idea for any parent feeling they need help bringing their son closer to them or God.

Want proof? Here ya go... "Be sure your sins will find you out." Facts don't lie; this many people don't just "make stuff up":

• http://sharperiron.org/forum/thread-should-niu-separate-from-bju
• http://www.nospank.net/n-l88r.htm
• http://agapeboardingschooltruth.blogspot.com
• http://www.teenliberty.org/mtnpark.htm

If you feel your intentions are good you really need to work on your methods. Your success rate is TERRIBLE! Over half of my graduating class is dead or in jail. Some success you have there right? You have a lap pool, nice cars, your staff have half a million dollar homes yet you ask for donations "for the kids" and charge as much as you do? Your no better than the televangelists who only want people's money and use religion as a way to get that money!

I challenge you all to think about what I have said, read through the material linked, take your time, do your research, and make an informed decision before sending your son or daughter here. Thanks!

Sincerely,

Brett W. Harper




Sources:

• The original testimonies (Yelp.com)
• Stockton Boys Ranch (A thread on the Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora)

Video testimony about Academy at Ivy Ridge - Volume III

Academy at Ivy Ridge was founded in 2001. They used the curriculum invented by the WWASP organization. In 2005 they were forced to restructure because their high school diplomas was issued on a basis of a poor education quality. Melees among the students didn't improve anything. In 2009 they closed down without having contributed anything positive for the students who were forced to attend the school.

A former student visited deserted campus the former school. The building have been left empty for many years as its reputation in the local community has left it hard to sell. The suicide rate among former students who have passed through the WWASP curriculum is alarming high and rumors speak of the campuses widespread out over several states and countries as haunted places housing the lost souls of the teenagers abandoned by their families at the schools.

The student made a number of video testimonies. Two can be seen below and other will be published in future blog-entries. The first part:



and the second part:



All rights to the videos go to the original author known as j0nas420

Sources:

• See In the Matter of the Academy at Ivy Ridge, Assurance of Discontinuance Pursuant to Executive Law Section 63, Subdivision 15 (Attorney General of the State of New York)
• School For Troubled Youth To Issue Tuition Refunds (Office of the Attorney General)
• Melee Keeps Spotlight on Hard Life at Academy (New York Times)
• Director: Ivy Ridge to close until fall (Watertown Daily News)

JaneDoe'nt at an unknown therapeutic boarding school

Don’t be fooled. NATSAP is not a regulatory agency, and they do NOT investigate any of these facilities.

When a program wants to operate with NATSAP endorsement all they have to do is pay a fee and sign a piece of paper stating that they intend to follow NATSAP “protocol” – they are NEVER inspected nor does NATSAP have any means of checking to see if they actually operate according to the “rules.” NATSAP is also DRASTICALLY underestimating its numbers – these look more like the number of students in WILDERNESS-BASED programs (only a fraction of the total), but there are more like 100,000 kids in these facilities across the US. For an accurate and flawlessly researched account of these programs please refer to Maia Szalavitz’s book “Help At Any Cost: How the Troubled Teen Industry Hurts Kids and Cons Parents.”

As for how these kids – KIDS, remember, NOT criminals – all need “tough love,” consider my story and see what you think. I was NEVER in trouble with the law, I NEVER tried drugs or drank alcohol, and I was never even made to repeat a grade in school, and yet I was enrolled in one of these programs after my parents became convinced by their admissions staff that my talking back and general “attitude” meant that I was going to die. Literally, die. That is the kind of language these places use. And believe me, my parents are well educated individuals who don’t usually take wooden nickels.

Yes, I was an enormous pain in the ass and I had some academic troubles - I admit that. That said, once enrolled, I was subjected to the following (and my program was less harsh than many I have heard about and seen since leaving):

• I was duct taped, from ankles to chin, into a wool blanket and left in an over-air-conditioned 5’x5’ closet for almost 72 hours with nothing to eat but “food sanction rations” (dry tuna on an English muffin half and 6 oz of water, 3x per day – approximately 550 calories) as punishment for nonviolent infractions – I was not taken out for bathroom breaks but rather made to sit in my own excrement for that whole time;
• I was pulled out of school (I was an A+ student) for months at a time and made to carry huge buckets of rocks up and down an extremely steep hill for 12 hours a day on food sanction rations;
• I was made to dig my own 5’x6’x3’ grave with a hand spade, in January, with a denim jacket and no gloves – it took me more than a day because I was weak with hunger and the ground was frozen;
• I was publicly humiliated on a daily basis, including being told (in front of no fewer than 30 people) that I was “a blowup doll to be used for sex by men and then thrown in the trash when they found something better;”
• I watched girls made to relive rapes in order to find the moment when they “asked for it to happen with their behavior;”
• I was physically attacked by a staff member and shaken so violently that several years later I was told by former housemates that they still felt fear when they remembered it;
• I was made to sit either in a stress position or in an isolation room for almost a week because I “rejected the word of Jesus Christ during morning chapel service” (my family is Jewish, which they were well aware of, and I was never told HOW exactly I had erred);
• I was punished for telling a staff member that I loved my gay sister; I was punished by staff for expressing a belief in human evolution; I was made to eat meals off the dirty floor because I was “acting like an animal;” I was strip searched every time I entered the facility after a visit to the doctor or with my family;
• I was made to shower and use the bathroom while being watched for nearly two years – every single time I used the bathroom someone was standing less than 3 feet from me and staring at me; I was kept from seeing or speaking with my family any time I was treated abusively, and my family was told it was because I was “misbehaving and had lost my phone privileges;”
• I was refused medical treatment on several occasions, one of which led to permanent hearing loss in my left ear because they thought I was making up my ear infection “to get attention;” a student killed himself by jumping off a balcony a few months after I left; once a month or so someone would be absent from breakfast because he or she had drank cleaning fluid or tried to slit their wrists in the middle of the night;
• I was tackled and then body slammed by a 300lb male staffer for mopping a floor incorrectly and on another occasion for talking back; and worst, I WAS MADE TO DO ALL OF THESE THINGS TO OTHERS IN ORDER TO “MAKE PROGRESS.”

I am in my 30’s and I am JUST pulling my life back together. It took me years just to adjust to the “real world” outside of that compound in the middle of nowhere. And I am the EXCEPTION, NOT THE RULE. The majority of people who were there with me are going nowhere with their lives, because they don’t know how to live in the world anymore. And NATSAP? It helps give these places a thin veneer of respectability and accountability. They are a business, not a regulatory agency, and they make millions doing what they do. Do your homework, and spread the word - I've waited over a decade for someone to care about what was done (and is still being done) to us.

Source:
Original testimony to be found as a comment to this NBC News article

Video testimony about Academy at Ivy Ridge - Volume II

Academy at Ivy Ridge was founded in 2001. They used the curriculum invented by the WWASP organization. In 2005 they were forced to restructure because their high school diplomas was issued on a basis of a poor education quality. Melees among the students didn't improve anything. In 2009 they closed down without having contributed anything positive for the students who were forced to attend the school.

A former student visited deserted campus the former school. The building have been left empty for many years as its reputation in the local community has left it hard to sell. The suicide rate among former students who have passed through the WWASP curriculum is alarming high and rumors speak of the campuses widespread out over several states and countries as haunted places housing the lost souls of the teenagers abandoned by their families at the schools.

The student made a number of video testimonies. Two can be seen below and other will be published in future blog-entries. First video in this blog entry here:



and the second video in this blog entry here:



All rights to the videos go to the original author known as j0nas420

Sources:

• See In the Matter of the Academy at Ivy Ridge, Assurance of Discontinuance Pursuant to Executive Law Section 63, Subdivision 15 (Attorney General of the State of New York)
• School For Troubled Youth To Issue Tuition Refunds (Office of the Attorney General)
• Melee Keeps Spotlight on Hard Life at Academy (New York Times)
• Director: Ivy Ridge to close until fall (Watertown Daily News)