State regulates church boarding schools after abuse allegations. Operators declined to comment about the investigation. Related: I am proof that money doesnt protect against abuse, Hilton told state legislators, speaking in support of a bill that would better protect children in troubled-youth treatment programs. In 2021, Agape's longtime doctor, David Smock, was charged with child sex crimes and five employees were charged with low-level abuse counts. We felt they needed God in their lives. The state, he says, had no clue how to get to a kids heart.. It is one of the 2 times he saw his family between 2006 and 2010. Many Stockton residents consider Agap a mark of honor. They have law-enforcement ties, too. Share. Several former staffers opened up similar schools nearby: There was the Legacy Academy Adventures, on a property owned by David Smock, Agaps longtime doctor who would later be accused of molesting students; there was the Masters Ranch Christian Academy, which later opened two more campuses. Contact Jorden Tramp, Donor Relations & Event Coordinator at. Selena Gomez Taking a Break From Social Media After Hailey Bieber Drama: I'm 'Too Old for This W hen Andrew Breshears arrived at the Agap Boarding School in 2018, he was a sandy-haired 12-year-old who weighed less than 100 . When I first got there, I just stayed on the low, trying to do my best, hoping to get out, he says. I shadowed a staff member for about three days, we didnt go over procedures, no restraint training, no discipline training really no clear set of rules that the students werent allowed to break., It was not unusual for physical restraints to last four hours or longer, and leave bruises on the children, according to Clidence and three former students. Weve had 6,000 students and only a small percent are making these claims, and I could give you the names of many who thank me. Rolling Stone contacted one of them, Matt Carlson, who says he spent the better part of a year at Agap in the early 2000s. He is a manipulator, says Breshears. The Missouri House Committee on Children and Families issued a report in November concluding that there are numerous facilities in the state that have abused vulnerable children in their care, with no state oversight, for many years. Still, it was only a partial picture, based on interviews with former students and information from state officials, because Missouri doesnt keep track of how many religious boarding schools exist in the state. The boarding school typically has about 150 boys enrolled, ages 12 to 17, and they share the ranch with farm and exotic animals, including cows, horses, llamas, water buffalo, camels and zebras, according to the schools website. Carlson said he never witnessed abuse and credited the school with temporarily keeping him off meth and teaching him how to lay tile. At least two other states Montana and Arkansas carve out licensing exemptions for religious facilities. The school states on its website that its staff are trained in proper restraining tactics, which are only used if a child is a threat to others and last for just a few minutes. Students called it the Padded Palace., Punishments allegedly ranged from calisthenics to wall time, where kids stood with their foreheads and noses touching the wall, except when sleeping, doing schoolwork, or eating. Its good to be back with family, he says. Agape Boarding school has had its share of abuse allegations over the years. Right away, staff shaved his head, handed him an orange shirt and a pair of Wranglers, moved him into a dorm that looked like Marine barracks, and introduced him to a dizzying litany of rules. Wednesday afternoon, a House committee questions Missouri Department of Social Services leaders about their investigations into boarding schools. Clidence said Agap fired him in March 2015 when the school asked employees to sign a nondisparagement agreement, and he refused. It now has 12. Recently, individuals associated with Agap have been accused of a growing list of crimes. The Kansas City Star reported that the Householders deny all allegations . The desire of 51:10 Youth Ranch is to provide a safe place for children, horses and families. Locals says the Clemensens ingratiated themselves by offering tours, and hosting Boy Scout breakfasts and luncheons for the local Methodist group. Yet, when a social worker visited the school a year ago to follow up on a report that boys had been forced to run outside in the freezing temperatures and sleet, Francis said he claimed hed never seen abuse at Agap. Jim Clemensen, a former California Highway Patrol officer, initially decided to open a group home in Stockton, California, before setting up Agap on an old Air Force base in Othello, Washington. Jacob smelled foul and the . (KY3) - Missouris attorney general is investigating a second Cedar County boarding school. They called the school Agap, meaning Gods love for man. Thanks to the generous support of The Frazier Family Foundation, Gala sponsors, Gala attendees, and the community, $369,402 was raised in support of the next two homes at The Ranch during the 2021 Legacy Gala: A Matter of Time! Allegations of physical and sexual abuse at Agape and Circle of Hope Girls' Ranch prompted a state law in 2021 requiring stricter oversight of such facilities. The Missouri AG launched a joint investigation with Cedar County authorities. It took a disturbing criminal case to make it happen. The five employees of the Agape Boarding School near Stockton were charged with a total of 13 third-degree felony assault counts, Cedar County Prosecuting Attorney Ty Gaither said. (Agap denies any knowledge of these allegations. Mow Grass and Maintain Landscaping. . Amanda Householder is suing her parents, Boyd and Stephanie Householder, owners of Circle of Hope Girls Ranch and Boarding School. I realized I cant be the only former student to have these problems, he says. According to AG Schmitts office, the Cedar County Sheriffs Department employs at least three people who used to work at Agap. Some former students have made the allegations against Agape Boarding School and Legacy Boys Academy in Stockton, Masters Ranch in far southern Missouri, and Circle of Hope Girls Ranch near . Yet the delays have frustrated state lawmakers. Youre going to be dead or in prison three months after you turn 18.. The way Bryan tells it, in the 1970s, Kathy was a single mom whod found Jesus but still had a mischievous streak. Thats where someone went too far. And he said, No, theyre not., In 1996, the Clemensens purchased 40 acres just outside of town. To keep order, Agap instituted a military-like hierarchy, indicated by colored shirts that denoted ranks. I just kind of felt like I was on my own, said Schrag, 28, who now works in the oil industry in Texas. Clemensen said the decision to close "is voluntary and solely due to the lack of financial resources to continue caring for the boys.". By the time he ended up in the Padded Palace, he recalls, I was bleeding all over my head and hands. So he scrawled the words Fuck Agap on the wall using his own blood. But under state law at the time, the schools didnt have to tell the government they existed, and it took years of complaints before child welfare officials shut down their operations in 2015, and prosecutors charged the owners and a counselor at the facilities with aggravated child abuse. The school still faces a wave of lawsuits accusing administrators of abuse. Full Gala Taping. For more on this story, watch NBC's "Dateline" episode, "Broken Circle". In 2021, Paris Hilton, who has also been lobbying in Washington D.C., testified at a Utah Senate committee hearing about her own experience in a troubled-teen facility there, alleging that she was verbally, mentally, and physically abused, involuntarily drugged, and locked in isolation. Agaps handbook states it has a strict hands-off policy regarding the students, and does not use corporal punishment. abuse at agape I have spent the last 5 days at agape boys ranch helping with the annual horse sale. If you resisted any, they would start kneeing you, hitting you, just mashing your face into the tile or concrete, wherever it was.. In March 2020, a former Agap student named Joseph Askins stopped in to visit, and witnessed abuse that shocked him. On Jan. 11, 2023, Agap Boarding School announced it will close its doors, a decision former director Bryan Clemensen says is due to a lack of financial resources. 79 were here. But a Senate staffer helping to write the legislation cautions that in order to get a bill passed, they will likely have to tie compliance to funding, and are unlikely to mandate it. Nathan Papes/Springfield News-Leader/Imagn. January 11, 2023 / 6:04 PM The school closed in 2020 amid investigations. NBC News reported on the allegations earlier this . Jennifer says she knows it will take a while to reconnect, and she worries about the psychic scars left by the school shes already noticed that her son hates horses now. By then, Circle of Hope had shut down after the state removed dozens of its students. Agape Ranch plans out programs, fund raisers, and community outreach monthly. Earlier this year, Smock, the schools longtime physician, was charged with 12 felony sexual-molestation crimes against those in his care. The Agape Boarding School was in Othello from 1992-96. The school's focus now is "on getting the boys who remain in the program safely transitioned to their parents or to foster care, other group homes or residential programs," its former director, Bryan Clemensen, said in a statement. Shrag is holding an Agape year book. By 14, Breshears says, he was fully in staffers crosshairs. They noted that DSS had confirmed a case of child abuse and added the name of the Agap staffer responsible to the Child Abuse and Neglect Central Registry, prohibiting him from working at a residential facility. For example, when many foster children age out of the system, they have lived in an average of 12 foster homes. More than 90% of young adults aging out of the foster system will become homeless, incarcerated, in prostitution, sex trafficked, or dead within three years. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Clemensen said that the abuse allegations are lies, and suggests they are inspired by the political ambitions of State Attorney General Eric Schmitt who was elected to the U.S. Senate in November and a small group of disgruntled former students hoping for a big payday. What they are claiming would never be OK, he says. The video was posted Sunday by Robert Bucklin, who says he survived physical and sexual abuse at Agape Boarding School near Stockton. Youre never gonna make it out.. 2023 The Associated Press. The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time Trending Closing Agap wouldnt be so easy, but throughout 2021 and 2022, the lawsuits began. Trump Melts Down Over Murdoch Admitting Fox Lied About Election Fraud. One student, identified only by his initials, describes being forced to run outside while a staffer tailed him in a four-wheeler with a stick attached to the front, threatening to ram anyone who wasnt moving fast enough. Schmitt was elected to the U.S. Senate last year and sworn in this month. The former director of Agape Boarding School pleaded with a Cole County judge on Monday to keep himself off the state's central registry of child abuse and . One former student said he was raped at Agape and called "seizure boy" because of his epilepsy. Agap did not respond to repeated requests for comment and interviews via phone, email and a letter left at the schools reception desk. Boyd and Stephanie Householders daughter says they worked at Agape for four years. 90% of young adults aging-out of the foster care system will become homeless, incarcerated, in prostitution, sex trafficked, or dead within three years. One killed in officer-involved shooting in Branson, Mo. Boyd opened the ranch in 2006 as a "school that he claimed could reform rebellious teenage girls," according to NBC News. On cue, at least two others started beating up an unsuspecting student to create a distraction. In civil suits, Agap students describe being choked with rebar and electrical cords, pushed through drywall, having their noses broken, and hit in the testicles hard enough to cause traumatic groin injury. They say several boys attempted to hang themselves, in what they call a pandemic among students. Agap, through its attorney, denies the allegations, and says that no student there has ever killed himself. The next evening, a man found Jacob begging for change at a neighboring county supermarket 10 miles from Blue Creek and called Clay County Child Protective Services. In 1995, county officials shut them down after health inspectors found the school which by then had 140 students and 25 staffers had rotting food, holes in the walls large enough to allow rodents to enter, and exposed wiring. Agape's trouble began in 2020 when former students came forward with abuse allegations. Though Ms. Allred's office has spent months soliciting a cash settlement, we were unaware that a suit would be filed. Children said pastors and staff members at both facilities choked and punched them, kept them in solitary confinement, handcuffed them to beds and forced them to box each other. People had reported Circle of Hope at least 19 times since it opened to three sheriffs departments, state child welfare and education officials, the highway patrol, and the state attorney generals office, according to interviews and records obtained by NBC News. It was easy to get in trouble for stupid shit, Breshears recalls. Throughout the 1980s, Kathy and Jim fostered children whose parents were in jail. Meanwhile, tales of abuse continue to emerge. The site was littered with old barrels, wood piles, abandoned cars, and insulation containing asbestos. It is a matter of time before youth aging out of the foster care system fall prey to the statistics. Missouri's Agap Boarding School will close its doors due to a lack of finances, school officials say but the . He smacked me in the face with his elbow for saying the f-word. 1:00. I am proof that money doesnt protect against abuse, Hilton told state legislators, speaking in support of a bill that would better protect children in troubled-youth treatment programs. The state Public Health and Human Services Department and the local sheriff did not fulfill NBC News records requests for information about any more recent complaints. Bryan, by then in his twenties, was working in a state-funded group home. LAST MARCH, BRESHEARS SAYS, he was on kitchen duty when a staffer said some chocolate milk was missing from the fridge, and accused Breshears and several other students of stealing it. He ran the school on fear, says Colton Schrag, a former gang associate who attended the school twice between 2004 and 2010, and is not suing because the statute of limitations has expired. Some who attended and worked at the school said otherwise. 180 Ministries, a ministry of Teen Challenge, located in Denver Colorado, is a residential substance abuse . (They do so much good for this town and you cannot believe the difference they have made in these young men, says Jackie Cargell, who has lived in the town for 57 years.) Cedar County, Missouri, where Agap is located, is in the heart of the Bible Belt and Clemensen, his stepfather, Jim, who died in October 2021, and his mother, Kathy, long ago convinced the locals they answer to a higher authority. The posts went viral even receiving a thumbs-up from Paris Hilton. On March 9, 2021, AG Schmitt announced 102 charges against the Householders, including rape and physical abuse. So they constructed wooden bunks on the second floor of their modest home, set up cubicles in the garage, and obtained work booklets produced by Accelerated Christian Education. 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