The School

I am currently working on a separate blog just for stories about The School. I will post a link here when it is ready.

The School was a program that my parents sent me to in 1997 when i was a teenager. It was a self proclaimed "emotional growth boarding facility". Essentially, you send your child there when you don't like who s/he is, and The School promises to turn them into a worthwhile citizen you can be proud of. Most parents gave a list of things about their children they wanted changed, and The School promised to focus on and correct those behaviors and traits.

There are many programs that offer something similar under less sinister guises, but they're all the same as far as i can tell. Then again, i have reason to be cynical. Unlike most boarding schools of this nature, The School did not possess an actual program, although over the months i was there they tried several times to develop one with little success.

The School was opened illegally and this was part of the reason it was later shut down. The woman who bought the property and owned and operated The School had her license revoked years before when a Wilderness program she operated was responsible for the deaths of three people.

Further problems arose for The School when allegations of abuse and mistreatment of the children made their way to the local police. From what i understand, an undercover officer was unwittingly hired as a staff member in a sting operation and saw enough to have the place shut down. This was after my departure, so i cannot confirm this, but i was told about it by other students who were there at the time and i did read about it in a local newspaper.

The School was then sold and bought by someone else who tried to revive it as a similar facility under the same name. Its bad reputation proceeded it however, and it closed its doors for good a couple years later. As far as i know it has stood abandoned ever since. If anyone recognizes this story from experience or their local paper and knows any different, please contact me privately and let me know.

My mother is a child psychologist who worked for a similar type facility in another state that i call BEU (bee-yoo) in my stories. BEU had a great reputation for successfully changing the behaviour of "troubled teens". It was so well established that allegations of abuse and neglect did little to hurt its reputation for over three decades. Some kids who had been to this place and had spent months to years there, then sent home, were later sent to The School when their parents were still not satisfied with them.

Both the director and the administrator of The School had been therapists at BEU. The story goes that they disapproved of BEU's cruel and abusive methods to psychologically, and physically, break down the children, so they decided to operate their own place that would actually help kids and treat them with respect. They spread the word and worked with my mother to get as many children as possible sent to their new program so they could start making some money and make this place the facility they dreamed of.

Soon several parents whose children had previously been at BEU and were familiar with these two therapists were on board. My mother did her part in sending quite a few children, including her own daughter, their way as well.

The two therapists from BEU/head administrator and director at The School, were the first to be fired a couple months later. They were cruel and antagonistic, physically and psychologically abusive, and the children that had known and liked them at BEU swore up and down that they were different before. They said that while they had grown to love them at BEU, they came to hate them at The School. None of the children or the staff that i came to know thought fondly of them in any way. The kids never knew why they were fired exactly, let alone had a restraining order put against them, but we didn't care. We were just happy they were gone. Ironically, they had been the reason many kids were there. But their departure did nothing to aid in the release of those children.

I was the seventh kid to arrive at The School. By the time i left, after a period of six months, there were close to twenty kids. As far as i know, there were never many more than that.

I have changed the names of locations and programs, the students, staff, and local townspeople to protect their identities.


My mother stopped working for BEU in the 90s when the emotional toll the mistreatment of the children took on her became more than she could bear. She did nothing to help the children there and never filed any reports against BEU. When i came home and told her about the experiences i'd had at The School, begging her to call the police or at least the parents of the children she had sent there and have them removed before they were more seriously harmed, she refused. Instead she insisted i drop the issue and stop bringing it up. When i continued to try and talk about it she sent me to live with relatives out of state.

BEU, like many Schools of its kind, is no longer operational. My mother is still working as a psychologist and teacher of psychology, and is very unhappy about this writing project.
It's been six years since we've spoken.


List of students
(to the best of my memory, dates of arrival and departure, and ages, are 
approximate)

Me, aka Jane: age 16, September 1997 to March 1998

Angel: age 15, August 1997 to December 1997

Julie: age 15, August 1997 to apprx. August 1998

Ricky: age 13, August 1997 to August 1998

Dex: age 13, August 1997 to December 1997

Seth: age 13, August 1997 to February 1998

Caleb: age 15, August 1997 to January 1998

Matthew: age 15, December 1997 to May 1998

Renee: age 15, November 1997 to May 1998

Ava: age 16, December 1997 to unknown date 1998

Leanna: age 15, December 1997 to unknown date 1998

Ethan: age 16, October 1997 to unknown date 1998

Bret: age 16, January 1998 to unknown date 1998

Jenny: age 14, February 1998  to unknown date

Amber: age 13, January 1998 to unknown date

Daniel: age 15, December 1997 to unknown date 1998

Stuart: age 13, November 1997 to unknown date 1998

Ashley: age 15, January 1998 to unknown date 1998

Talia: age 15, January 1998 to unknown date 1998

Doug: age 15, October 1997 to October 1997

Craig: age 15, February 1998 to unknown date

Ben: age 14, February 1998 to unknown date

Keith: age 13,  February 1998 to unknown date

Others, inconsequential to my personal story




List of Staff

Gregory: Psychiatrist

Lynn: Owner

Margot: Head Administrator and Program Director, previous to my arrival

Ruth: Program Director, married to Mark

Mark: Head Administrator, married to Ruth

Keith: Head Administrator and program Director, replacing Ruth and Mark

Frank: Teacher

Cari: General Staff and Advocate, good friends with Jo and Lana

Jo: General Staff and Advocate, good friends with Cari and Lana

Lana: General Staff and Advocate, good friends with Cari and Jo

Roy: General Staff

Glenn: General Staff, family friend of Frank's

Todd: General Staff and Advocate, married to Jan

Jan: General Staff, married to Todd

Jed: General Staff, married to Shari

Shari: General Staff and Advocate, married to Jed

Duane: General Staff

Ray: Ranch Manager

Raymond: General Staff, married to Sally

Sally: Secretary and Office Manager, married to Raymond

Tracy: Cook

Vic: General Staff

Others, inconsequential to my personal story