Antdissent at Excel Academy

This testimony was given by the author known as Antdissent. All rights belongs to the original author

Hello. I don't know whether the above post is still active (or even credible; this site doesn't seem to be geared towards political discussion), but there are a few things I would like to add about Excel Academy. I left there less than a year ago.

1. Staff members never drank the water. Never in the 22 months I spent there do I remember a staff member drinking the tap water. It did not come from the local tap water source. It supposedly drew from a well (I have no idea how this worked; there were just some big machines that were explained to be wells), but this doesn't really make much sense to me because the surrounding houses (the place was located across the street from country residential area). It was not connected to any of the local water management. It's waste water was removed by a septic company (the septic also often overflowed, forcing all students to smell it). The water was always a grey, murky color; this was explained to be from air bubbles, which still does not explain why the staff would never drink it. All students broke out with worse acne when they go there; it was generally explained to them as withdrawal to drugs. One of my friends, who was a former heroine addict, showed up there with horrible acne; and I actually remember it getting slightly worse when he got there. I would not be surprised if there was something in the water.
2. Almost all (it could be all; I can only comment from the lifestyle that was observable to the students) of the staff members had a huge paycheck. JJ (Jamie Risner) bought a new car every year and had a huge mansion. It's worth noting that this was after paying off local authorities; I do not know how widely this was done but I am aware that this was not uncommon on some issues. Although a large part of that was on our parent's pay (tuition was 5,000 a month plus a large sum for their extortionist policies of charging parents highly inflated prices for necessary supplies), I would not be too surprised on the possibility of contracts. I would like to see research and sources for this data. As far as contracts with the US government, I would not see this as any real indicator of that; but it is strange to note a very high number of ex-military staff* working at the place. There was also one who was a cop. He, along with another staff member, was in the Free Masons, although I'm not completely sure how relevant that is.
3. Yes, as I begun to learn more about leftist politics, I had started to draw similarities between Excel's conditioning techniques and CIA tactics. There was no waterboarding; but potential for physical abuse was high, especially in the earlier years*. The school was widely accepted to be a 'behavioral modification program'. Although that phrase is creepy enough, I will point out that 'behavioral modification' is recondition; what happened is there is very creepy, and I still notice some conditioning left in me from it.

Sleep deprivation was used, but was not widespread at the point which I was there. It was more of something used to break students which were open about their feelings toward the place****. In some cases, what was done was irregularly waking the student up at night; this was done under the excuse that the student was at risk for hurting themselves, although it was universally understood that that was the 'on the record' excuse used to make the action legally justifiable.

There was also something called the 'quiet room'; I am not quite sure what went on in there, and the details on it were widely suppressed among the student population. What I do know is that students were kept in there for as long as days at a time. During this time, a staff member would do things such as force them to do push-ups; adopt a 'you sleep when I decide you can sleep' policy; feed them a sandwich with a single piece of meat for meals; and require specified amounts of God prayers***** for food, water, and sleep.

A student’s food choices were strictly managed. One selection of food would be prepared by the students, although the quantities and types would be chosen by staff. Students were given a designated quantity for their serving; this was strictly enforced. Students would be required to eat all of their food; failure to do so would be punishable, often by reducing the student’s meals to a permanent restriction of in proportion half of other students’. Many students could not handle the size of servings; they were forced to eat all of it. Vegetarians were forced to eat their meat
When I first arrived, my appetite was severely limited by depression. I was put on half-portions, and the amount of food served also began to decline to a point at which most students were generally hungry. The food was, in many cases, disgusting; and made me gag. I do not know what I would have preferred to happen there. They starved me, but I was also dangerously overweight (255 pounds) from two psyche meds, both of which are widely known to cause severe weight gain. At this point, I am starting to learn that hunger is not something that is simply uncomfortable; I have started to realize that my current eating habits are unhealthy because I ignore my hunger until it is convenient to eat. I have also begun to realize that because of all my loose skin, I could look healthy when most people would have their ribs showing.

• The place began to get much less abusive once Aspen Education Group bought it in 2001**. From what I have heard, very little changed at first; but then Aspen began to more aggressively investigate the practices of the school and found it to be a huge liability risk. They did not want to get sued, and therefore began to place some limits on Excel, which the school tried its best to cir***vent and ignore. It was still really bad when I got there, and I was lucky that I didn’t begin to crack (and therefore break rules) until Aspen had started to more aggressively protect students’ lawsuit-worthy rights in early 2006. I believe that this testimony provides a look at what the school may have been like before Aspen began to intervene against the most egregious human rights violations the school committed.
• Keeping in mind that I’m generally paranoid about things, I feel that the buyout is the only thing there that I have not directly observed which I know to be true. The flow of information was highly managed***, and I still cannot figure out what the hell was happening there. The intentions, goals, attitudes, and internal conflicts of staff members are not something that I can figure out. With the way they managed to brainwash parents, I would not be surprised if quite a few of them could put on a convincing act. I often try to figure out who (sometimes questioning even if the entire operation, by removing the students’ identity and therefore allowing them to build a new one free of the brainwashed culture****) was really there to help me and who was playing along to the tune of an inflated paycheck. I generally arrive at the conclusion that the entire place was run by greed.
• Anything not related to the school was not permitted to be discussed. This was enforced, and it was punishable to even say “Family Guy”. Nothing from the outside was permitted to touch upon our consciousness. The privilege to talk about sports, movies, and video games (of the last two, those few that were considered ‘appropriate’) was, however, permitted to be discussed by those who were not in trouble. The ability of students to talk with each other was also highly regulated. Those students who were on ‘blackout’ from each other were not allowed to acknowledge each other’s existence in any way, verbal and nonverbal as well as direct and indirect. This was much more strictly enforced between students of the opposite sex; some males wound up developing a strong fear of girls. All students who were on ‘six months and under’******* as well as all students of the opposite sex were on blackout from each other.
• One teacher there seemed to be a bit of a leftist, although I still cannot trust most staff to provide truth. He once pointed out that one of the practices there was conditioning, then commented that conditioning means brainwashing before joking “You’re minds are so dirty they need to be washed anyway. Wouldn’t you agree?”
• Most students put on an act, but some students - me included - would not yield. In general, students either did things they'd be embarrassed of (constant snitching, enforcement of rules; we moved around campus like chaingangs with invisible shackles) to their peers because they were 'playing the game' or be embarrassed of the way they acted because the place cracked them while they were there. Several of my friends who 'played the game' have since then expressed that they find the non-cooperative stance to be the more commendable of the two; I don't blame any students or parents and find neither stance to have any more merit than the other.
• God prayers were sheets covered with the words "God have mercy on [name of person]". They were a standard punishment. Students who were in 'consequence' were required to write 2,000 of these a week.
• ’Six months and under’ was a deceptive wording. It generally meant that anybody who had been good for six months was eligible to come off ‘six months and under’. People who were not off six months could not read books other than things for class work. I never came off and was frequently in trouble, in many cases thrown to the ground and later put in consequence, for reading books. I also wound up introverting into my classes.
  
  As well as the six months and under, status there were the statuses of ‘on shadow’ and ‘appropriate’********. People on shadow (I was on this pretty much the entire time) were required to stay with their assigned shadow, another student, at all times other than when sleeping, showering, and using the bathroom.
• These were people who were generally trusted to snitch on students in ‘life skills’ for breaking the rules. To give an example of something that might come up, I got put on a ban from swaying back and forth and pacing; this was once brought up. Breaking blackout and talking about ‘inappropriate’ (in general, things outside of the school and program) subjects were common things brought up.
  
  People played the game by a strong system of rewards and punishments; some students even began to internalize the indoctrination of the school as morally good. The largest rewards were visits with parents. Parents could visit the students for ten hours once a month (phone calls were fifteen minutes for once a week and always monitored). In the beginning, these visits were on-shadow and on-campus (during the twenty-two months I was there I saw the outside of campus less than ten times); but if students were good, they could get visits without a shadow********* and go off campus. Sometimes they could have longer visits than five hours each of the two days the parents were there. In some cases, they could even stay with their parents at a hotel. The privileged few (those who were seen to be completely indoctrinated) could even visit home for a weekend. In all cases, visits were only once a month.
  
  The more everyday rewards were things like additional food, the ‘privilege’ to sit on padded surfaces, the ‘privilege’ to watch movies when they played on the weekends, the ‘privilege’ to play card games and board games on weekends, and the ‘privilege’ to eat sweets (when they were passed out) and drink juice on the weekends.
• Still, parents would often report things the students’ said to them. It is truly unbelievable how brainwashed to parents were. I have no idea how the place managed to keep me there for twenty-two months; that they’d even keep me there more than a month turned out to be a little bit of a shocker for me.

The facility closed 2008. An incident involving an employee who also happened to be a local police officer who took a student to the local jail where the student was forced to be undressed in front of the inmates made local news coverage.

Sources:

• Dear Fellow Anti-Mind Control Activists: (A thread on the message board belonging to Kitty Radio)
• Factsheet of the facility (Fornits Wiki)

Heather McGee at Excel Academy (From:Heal-online.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 Heather McGee, who posted the original story on HEAL-online's webpage

Hi my name is Heather McGee. Everything in my statement is true. I give HEAL permission to use my statement.

I attended a therapeutic boarding school called Excel Academy in Conroe Texas at the age of 15 in 2000. It is very painful to write this, but I feel maybe my experience could benefit others that may be in danger or even in similar situations.

I was a problem child growing up I also had other issues such as alcohol abuse and drug abuse. I was not sent to excel just for my substance abuse I was sent mainly for my behavioral problems. I was diagnosed with bipolar at age 14 from there on I pretty much just escalated, acting out yelling at my parents and becoming violent.

As parents they did what they "thought" was right and put their trust into the hands of excel academy. My mother had told me I was needing to change schools and in the position I was in at that moment I was excited, I was willing to take any opportunity I could to get some help. Mom and Dad drove me to Texas. They told me I was going to attend a private Christian school. I was excited absolutely thrilled; I had no idea that I was just about to experience something that would affect me for the rest of my life.

Mom and I got out of the car and went into the office. A heavyset lady talked to mom a minute and then Hell walked in, her name was Jamie, Jamie was the head of the staff. She walked in, I took one look at her and just knew something did not seem right. Other girls also walked in behind her. Jamie didn’t say much to me except (heather come with me). I was put into a jumpsuit and had to take all jewelry out including anything from the "outside" I was put into an orange jumpsuit with (runaway call 911) on the back of it. I didn’t think much of it. And honestly as I'm trying to write all this I must have blocked out most of the things that occurred there for my first 3 months so forgive me if none of this makes sense.

As my time there progressed I noticed the things that happened there were not in any way appropriate. The physical and verbal abuse there was very high, and when I say physical and verbal I mean from the staff not children attending the school. I'm thinking back to as many situations I can remember, on a daily basis there I was abused physically and verbally. I was not like most of the children there I argued and talked back with the staff which if I had only known I was going to get hit or verbally attacked I would of never argued.

Eventually I just became quiet and gave up on everything, we will get to that later on though. About 6 months into this program and when I say 6 months that’s when I start remembering just "some" of the things that went on. I had came into excel a little heavy from my drug and alcohol abuse and or many other things. After being there 6 months I was actually considered obese and was reminded of my weight problem daily from Jamie and the other staff members. I was called fat, fat ass, fat shit, slut, whore, loser yes LOSER and FAT was one of Jamie’s favorite things to say to me. Most of the children that came there caught on to the scene pretty quickly and just remained silent afraid they might risk the abuse too.

I know you are probably wondering why we did not just tell our parents the truth about excel well here’s why we were monitored daily and nightly by girls called "shadows" these girls had been there for a while and had figured out if they act like they like the program and put on a smile they would be out of there soon!!!! So my shadows which I had about 5 followed me everywhere including shower time and when I had to use the restroom.

They would write down everything u did wrong and tell Jamie. Most of my shadows tried to not write too much down afraid Jamie might ' GO PSYCHO" but they also knew if they didn’t write anything down they would get it just as bad. So during LIFESKILLS, a class we attended after regular school hours the shadows of the girls would read out the BAD things the girls had done. I remember soo soooo well walking towards the cafeteria where lifeskills was held and having the sickest feeling in my stomach along with pretty much every student there. I would shake and want to cry I remember if Jamie did not show up that day which she did often due to issues that were unexplained and or kept from us the student would have this sense of relief come over them almost like a feeling like thank you god thank you so much god I can at least BREATH.

During lifeskills Jamie would call the students names such as gay fuck and bitch and so on it gets worse. She would stand the children up and humiliate them with anything she could think of and if you talked back to her she would spit in your face and start pounding on your chest with her hands leaving all kinds of bruises. And eventually she started cutting the girls hair it was called a" learning experience" in her words. And not cut our hair nicely, she would just take scissors and start cutting away sometimes leaving half of the girls hair not cut and the other half butched. I remember so well every time Jamie verbally attacked someone or physically abused them she would smile happily and it wasn’t a normal smile it was a sick sick smile almost like Jamie enjoyed seeing these children being tortured. A lot of children there were also put into the corner to stand sometimes all night long and sometimes all day long, in the corner we would eat tuna fish, not sandwiches, just plain tuna fish in a bowl.

On my sixteenth birthday I was in the corner and had been for about 6 months, my whole entire stay at excel I pretty much was standing in the corner of course attending school and going to bed (sometimes) but other than that I was always in the corner back to my sixteenth birthday my mother had sent a cake for me and some presents, I stood in the corner with tuna in a bowl and watched the other children eat the birthday cake my mother had sent only about 15 kids got to eat cake the rest were on discipline too. I never received my mother’s presents I was told to write a thank you letter to my mother for the presents she sent that I never received.

I have a learning disability also, I was not quick to learn and I was told I was a distraction to the other students in my class so I was put into a closet with a computer my mom sent and was put on a Christian home school program called alpha omega. I recall Jamie taking me out of class one day and telling me to fucking go inside my closet and I would do school from there she closed the door and left. My alpha omega program was e mailing my teachers homework and what not at one point I thought I was slick and tried to ask one of the teachers for help and to contact the police. Somehow my e-mail never made it through but Jamie knew about it quickly and I was punished again.

Girls in our dorm which was pretty much a huge trailer filled with bunk beds, stayed up all night taking shifts to watch the other girls sleep just in case of a runaway happening. If u sneezed wrong or even snored they had to write it down and at lifeskills the next day u were yelled at and abused. There were a lot of girls and some boys there with eating disorders, some were also vegetarians, these certain girls and boys were forced to eat beyond there limit including thirds seconds sometimes fourths. I remember some girls would throw up because they were to full and Jamie forced them to eat another plate. The ones that were vegetarians were forced to eat all their meat no matter what including the fatty tissue of the meat. I had 2 escapes at excel that was my food and my sleep. I tried to gorge myself with food when I could which didn’t last long because I was eating tuna fish the last year there.

My other escape was sleep; I would get so excited when it was bedtime. I could dream I could go into another world, I dreaded waking up sometimes I wanted to just fall asleep and never wake up again. Of course no child there got more than 5 hours of sleep. a lot of the time Jamie would come in the dorms both girls and boys and wake everyone up at whatever time she felt like it and make us all go do BOOTCAMP with the officers from Montgomery county jail. Officer Witworth was one I remember. I could see in his eyes he wanted all of us to do well and learn our lessons but he had no idea what was the actual case he was hard on us it was his job and if he only knew that to all of us bootcamp was better than getting abused.

I was woke up one night with a crock pot full of ice water Jamie poured it on my head and said get up fat ass, I and a few other girls and boys was taken out in the snow to do boot camp no matter how could rainy or hot it was she didn’t care. I have asthma and when I would get short of breath I would ask for me inhaler which she refused to give me unless I starting almost fainting. S couple time children would fall to the ground in exhaustion, Jamie would come up behind them and kick them and tell them to get the fuck up or the will get it worse. some would get up some would lay there unable to move. she would drag them into the building and we never really got to find out what went on. Boot camp had become a routine for me sometimes all day long sometimes just 1 or 2 times a day so I adapted. I remember when Jamie wasn’t watching, Officer Witworth would let us kinda half ass our workouts then if she came out or showed up he would go straight back to the workout. Officer Witworth had to come out often for just me I remember one time he came out told me to follow him to a picnic table and let me sit down across from him he sat there and talked to me asked me what I was feeling and why I acted the way I did, I was shocked and I was so desperate to talk to anyone at this point and I had maybe got a few words in until Jamie interrupted us and said HEATHER what the fuck do u think you are doing get out there and fucking start doing bear crawls. Officer Witworth just looked at her and came and helped her with my workout.

My whole stay there I was unable to talk to anyone I was on a BAND or restriction where if I opened my mouth to anyone I was going to be punished. Of coarse we were not allowed to speak of outside issues relating to drugs music friends etc. so most of the time if we were allowed to speak it was about excel only or our program. I thought it was just me at first I knew I was the "bad apple" there and I should be punished but as I stayed there longer I noticed everyone else there was being abused and punished in an inappropriate manner.

That way most of the children there remained silent. And if I had to do it all over again I probably would of too. As I began to fall apart emotionally loosing my sanity day by day I started cutting myself not for attention mostly because I thought maybe if I kept doing it they would kick me out and send me to a different program. Of coarse they did not, and wouldn’t in their mind they would be loosing money!! I started cutting deeper and deeper every time and at one point I had actually found a vein which maybe I could break and bleed to death, hopefully get sent to the hospital, but the vein did not break and that day Jamie found out and came and grabbed me out of my closet and dragged me to the cafeteria she then poured lemon juice and salt into my open wound I had made. Her and some other staff held me down as I screamed.

Two girls had actually succeeded in running away the first 6 months I was there, they had tried several times but they finally made it. When I found out about this I wasn’t sad I was not sad at all in fact along with other girls I was amazed and jealous and at the same time so happy for them. They never came back and I would just smile thinking of them and how brave they were.

One day when I was in my closet something seemed strange everyone was being so nice to me, the staff even came in my closet and asked me to write a paper on how I feel excel has helped me. Of coarse I dare not write anything bad because I took this as an opportunity to maybe get treated different, plus when u go a day with the staff smiling at you and not hitting or cursing at you seem happy. That paper was one of the hardest things I've had to ever do, I lied in that paper and just tried to write down what I wished could have been possible. My shadows took the paper and walked me into the cafeteria there I found my mother and the whole student body standing in there. My heart sank I was in complete shock I didn’t know what to do. Then I look over I see sally Jamie’s " girlfriend/ lover"/staff member) most 99% of the staff there was Jamie’s relatives. Anyway I look over and see sally with this face of death she looked as if she was going to explode not in a good way in a very very BAD way.

These events that occurred at excel academy were wrong, I am not the same at all this is the first time I have ever tried to even think back about the "excel days" I have mentioned it to my mom o few times and she wants to take them to court I do not excel has yes abusive and hurtful people working there and yes they brainwash every single parent that walks into that do claiming there child will die if they don’t stay here, but in no way in NO WAY did I receive any help, any therapy, any love that excel promised my mother, I apologize if all my writing my seem confusing it is very very painful to think back to those days and I ask myself this question every day did excel help me or did excel hurt me?

I do not blame my mother for sending me there I did indeed need professional help, and from what she knew I was going to receive help, I was an out of control child and my mother did her best to make sure I stay safe and alive. Why was I abused at excel why was my self esteem completely gone while I was there. I did not receive the help I needed I was punished and abused and its a day to day process of getting my head back up, I still to this day 5 years later have nightmares about excel academy, and those nightmares affect my mental ability my emotional ability, and also affect they way I react to peers family or my daughter.

I am a mother now I have a daughter that’s 2, I have my own house and I have a great relationship with my family and significant other. I wanted to make sure parents out there know what goes on at excel academy I want to try and make sure no child has to ever experience that kind of experience, no human being deserves abuse, I will do whatever it takes to make sure excel does not continue this inappropriate behavior and that they do not get away with what they have done, I will never be the same after attending excel, and I am aware I cannot save everyone but at least I can make a difference to someone at least I can maybe save one life, please PLEASE help me put a stop to abusive schools thank you and god bless.

Sincerely,

Heather McGee

References:
Datasheet from the Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
The original statement on HEAL-online's webpage