MO Christian Boarding School To Close After Decades Of Physical, Mental And Sex Abuse

[Gondwanaland]

The Agape Boarding School, which has been revealed to have a long history of abuse against the children placed in its care, and many connections to local community and law enforcement that have protected it, is finally closing its doors. Its school doctor, and numerous employees have been accused of physical, mental, and sexual abuse over its time of operation, and the state Attorney General has said that at least 22 more should be charged (and for much more serious crimes), but due to Missouri law that is up to the local prosecutor who has done the bare minimum in charging a couple people.

The AG had been trying to use the court system to force the school to close the last several months, and trying to get the director placed on a child abuse registry to keep him away from other schools.



Just one of many recent revalations of these christian 'boarding schools for troubled youth' that have turned out to be nothing more than abuse mills - and apparently Missouri has quite a few of them.
https://www.kcur.org/news/2023-01-11...se-allegations

Dozens of former students have gone public with their allegations of physical, mental, and sexual abuse at the Stockton-based Christian residential facility, which opened in 1996. For the last few years, Agape has been at the forefront of the state’s reckoning over abuse allegations at unlicensed faith-based boarding schools.


Agape Boarding School, the Stockton-based Christian residential facility under scrutiny for alleged abuse of its students over decades, announced it will shut down Jan. 20.

According to a statement provided to The Independent Wednesday afternoon by John Schultz, an attorney for Agape, the school has “made the decision to stop providing services to the boys in its care.”

“Agape’s decision to close is voluntary,” Schultz said, “and solely due to the lack of financial resources to continue caring for the boys.”

The closure is long-awaited for dozens of former students who have gone public with their allegations of physical, mental, and sexual abuse at Agape, which opened in Missouri in 1996 and has, for the last few years, been at the forefront of the state’s reckoning over abuse allegations at unlicensed faith-based boarding schools.

Allen Knoll, a former student and advocate, said he is “ecstatic for all of the survivors that have fought for so long bringing this issue to the forefront,” and called the news a “huge deal, after two and a half years of fighting.”

In numerous lawsuits, former Agape students detail a range of allegations, from having food withheld as punishment to being forced to submit to physical labor and extreme exercise to being taken off prescribed medications.

Last month, there were only 25 students at Agape, down from 121 in early 2021.

As long-time director Bryan Clemensen explained in testimony earlier this month, Agape has been struggling financially, forced to transition to a group-home setup amid dwindling numbers of students. There used to be a budget of $4 million per year, Clemensen said last month, which was down to $400,000 — quickly adding that now, “I’m sure it’s not even that.”

Missouri’s attorney general, along with the state Department of Social Services, filed for an injunction on Sept. 7 seeking to close Agape, alleging an “immediate health and safety concern” to the children there. It has been tied up in court ever since, over procedural matters.

The Department of Social Services said in an email to The Independent that they are “in consultation” with the attorney general “regarding steps forward with pending litigation” against Agape, and that their “top priority is to ensure the safety and well-being of Missouri children.”

The attorney general said by email: “I am proud of the work that this office has done to protect the students at Agape, and I will continue to use every tool at my disposal to make sure children throughout the state are able to thrive.”

Other avenues for state action frustrated former students too: Criminal charges against school leaders fell short of what the state attorney general recommended, and a push by the state to put the school’s director on a child abuse registry — and thus ban him from working at the school — was upended, for the time being, last month.

Agape’s focus now, Schultz said in the statement, is “getting the boys who remain in the program safely transitioned to their parents or to foster care, other group homes or residential programs.”

Knoll said he doesn’t believe the decision to close is truly voluntary.

“They can say it’s voluntary all they want but they fought tooth and nail to remain open,” Knoll said, despite pressure to close, continuing that “It’s a great victory for those that have shared their stories.”

“It’s a great day for Missouri and for survivors,” Knoll said. “It’s a shame that Missouri with our new laws and our politicians weren’t bold enough to do it sooner, but it’s a great day.”

https://www.news-leader.com/story/ne...l/69653418007/
the school of course tried to play it off as financial troubles (which, sure they're likely going to have from the countless abuse lawsuits tat are now being filed against them), with no mention of their vile abuse of the children in their care.

A very long look and deep dig into their history (apparently some sort of Baptist group), and a lot more disturbing detail into the abuse, can be found in this piece by Rolling Stone (be aware, some naughty language is used)... and unfortunately it sounds like while they are closing their boarding school they may be operating group homes in an attempt to continue their abuse under a shell game to hide from new laws about these sorts of schools that have been introduced in Missouri.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture...ol-1234645835/
a couple quotes:

The state attorney general’s office claims that Agapé staff threw students into walls, pushed them to the ground, ordered them to perform 1,000 pushups, intentionally starved them, and forced them to sleep in handcuffs and wear them for as long as eight days. In civil suits, Agapé 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.” Agapé, through its attorney, denies the allegations, and says that no student there has ever killed himself.

The Agapé case is just the latest scandal to emerge from the billion-dollar “troubled-teen industry,” a loosely regulated network of therapeutic boarding schools, residential treatment centers, religious academies, and wilderness camps set up to help teenagers with drug addiction and behavioral problems. Many of these programs, which are estimated to serve as many as 200,000 kids at any one time, are allowed to operate with virtual impunity, thanks to federal inaction and permissive state laws. A 2007 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found thousands of abuse allegations between 1990 and 2007 — in 2005 alone, 33 states reported 1,619 staff members involved in incidents of abuse. The report, which also examined 10 cases where teenagers had died, noted that “there are currently no federal laws that define and regulate residential treatment programs.”

TOUGH-LOVE SCHOOLS CAN BE traced back to the 1950s, when a secular group called Synanon pioneered an approach to curing heroin addiction with isolation, humiliation, and sleep deprivation. Agapé, which according to its parent handbook costs $39,000 a year, is also influenced by Lester Roloff, a radio evangelist and pastor who founded schools for teenage girls in the late 1960s that relied on physical abuse and immersion in biblical teachings to reform them.

Missouri has been a particular hotbed for religious schools since 1982, when the state passed a law exempting faith-based residential child-care facilities from state oversight. Today, it’s home to at least 28 such institutions, though some estimates place the number at upward of 100, many of which are still operating under the radar.

In recent months, Clemensen has become the face of the controversy — a fearless leader doing God’s work to those fighting to save his school, a sadistic villain to those who aim to close it. Former students and their attorneys allege that for years Clemensen has been a toxic presence at the school, encouraging his staff to use violence to maintain order. It was Clemensen who introduced the practice of restraints in the early 2000s, says Ryan Frazier, attorney for Monsees and Mayer PC, which is representing 18 former students in suits against the school.

MANY OF THE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST Agapé staffers are easily found on podcasts and interviews on YouTube. Yet Agapé’s neighbors insist they never had any idea. Indeed, the version of the school students describe, community members say, is starkly different from the Agapé the town has come to know.

Stockton is located 130 miles south of Kansas City, a lazy drive down sunbaked roads lined with oak forests and rolling fields. Home to a population of 1,600, it has a tiny main square, the world’s largest processor of eastern black walnuts, and 21 churches.

Though the area is largely Baptist, Cedar County has a tradition of religious tolerance. On the wooded roads near Agapé, Amish men drive horse-drawn buggies; hundreds of members of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints live on a nearby compound called “the Ranch.”

In 1996, the Clemensens purchased 40 acres just outside of town. The site, designed as a Christian camp, had cabins, a shower facility, a mess hall, and a small chapel. They moved their wards in and set them to work clearing the site and fixing the property. Locals says the Clemensens ingratiated themselves by offering tours, and hosting Boy Scout breakfasts and luncheons for the local Methodist group. They held a blood drive, organized a Fourth of July fireworks spectacular, and began holding an annual rodeo. They insisted everyone call them “Brother Jim” and “Ma’am,” and their son “Brother Bryan.”

They have law-enforcement ties, too. According to AG Schmitt’s office, the Cedar County Sheriff’s Department employs at least three people who used to work at Agapé. One of them is Robert Graves, a student turned staffer who joined as a sheriff’s deputy and married Kathy and Jim’s daughter, and is listed as a member of the board of an Agapé-affiliated church. Sandoval, Agapé’s dean of students, worked shifts at the county jail. He would later set up a transport business to collect teens, hiring off-duty deputies to help him.

Former students wonder if it’s because of this that authorities failed to act sooner. Schrag says he tried to escape around 2007, when he was 15. “I got picked up by the Cedar County Sheriff’s Department, and I tried to tell the guy, like, ‘They’re beating us, don’t take me back there,’” he says. “And he said, ‘No, they’re not.’ He cuffed me up and dropped me back off at Agapé. I tried to find a record of it, but there was none.” (The Cedar County Sheriff’s Department did not return calls seeking comment.)

Several former staffers opened up similar schools nearby: There was the Legacy Academy Adventures, on a property owned by David Smock, Agapé’s longtime doctor who would later be accused of molesting students; there was the Master’s Ranch Christian Academy, which later opened two more campuses. None of these raised eyebrows — until former Agapé staffers Boyd and Stephanie Householder opened Circle of Hope Girls’ Ranch. That’s where someone went too far.

Earlier this year, Smock, the school’s longtime physician, was charged with 12 felony sexual-molestation crimes against those in his care. In August, Sandoval was charged with arranging the kidnapping of an emancipated teen in Fresno, California, on behalf of the boy’s estranged mother, and then having him driven, handcuffed, 27 hours to Agapé. (Both have pleaded not guilty.) In November, a man who is reportedly a former Agapé employee was charged with 215 counts of possession of child pornography. Nonetheless, the outcome of the civil suits is far from certain.

After a months-long investigation, the AG’s office recommended 65 charges against 22 staff members, accusing them of abusing 36 children. (The recommendations are not public, so the implicated staff members are unknown.) But under Missouri law, it was up to Cedar County prosecutor Ty Gaither to file charges. In September 2021, he charged five Agapé staff members with a total of 13 counts of third-degree assault, the lowest degree of felony. Bryan Clemensen was not among those charged. (As of publication, one defendant’s case was dismissed, three pleaded guilty to misdemeanors, and one is awaiting a hearing this month.) Gaither declined to comment, but told the Cedar County Republican that Agapé has the right to administer corporal punishment. “In Missouri, parents are allowed to discipline their children,” he said. “People who have care, custody, and control of those children have that right, as well. In other words, Grandmother can spank the children …  as can Agapé.”

I have little doubt that that local prosecutor has connections to the school or to the law enforcement in the area that has connections to the school, etc...... or equally likely has some connection to one of the local related churches.

[One Bad Pig]

It's hard to know what exactly to make of this. Clearly things went too far, and the place should be shut down. On the other hand, I don't trust Rolling Stone one whit when it comes to stuff like this, some of the punishments described don't seem out of line (withholding food, excessive exercise, forced labor are unproblematic as long as they are done with discretion), and there seem to be an awful lot of former staffers (did they leave because they disagreed with some of what was going on, or to propagate it elsewhere?).

[Gondwanaland]

Was looking around, just found this.... yet another person who used to work there before the early 00s, went off to Kentucky to found a similar school with the same idea, same Baptist influence, and same abuse inherent in the original - seems this school was a sort of training ground for how to set up your own abuse mill given the number of former employees who have gone on to create their own:
https://www.messenger-inquirer.com/n...LuVkgoDaIaQs_k

Kentucky State Police responded to a first-degree criminal abuse complaint Oct. 24 at the Pilgrims Rest Ministry of Reconciliation, an Ohio County boys boarding school affiliated with the fundamentalist Baptist faith.


Details of the incident are unclear. Both KSP and the state’s Department for Community Based Services (DCBS) have declined to provide information about the case — citing an ongoing investigation into the facility.


“Premature disclosure of records generated in the course of this active investigation of alleged physical and sexual abuse of juveniles, at this early stage, would do irreparable harm to the investigation,” said KSP’s official custodian of records, Stephanie Dawson, in response to an open records request.

While government agencies are tight-lipped, former students say the abuse at Pilgrims Rest has been occurring for more than a decade. Records obtained by the Messenger-Inquirer show that KSP and DCBS investigated the school in 2011 and 2012, and again in 2020 — but law enforcement declined to pursue charges in those instances.

However, abuse allegations apparently persisted, leading to the latest ongoing investigation.


Neither Pilgrims Rest founder Kelly Vanderkooi nor any of his staff members have been charged over the matter. KSP said its investigation “has only just begun.”


Vanderkooi did not respond to numerous calls and messages seeking comment.


Pilgrims Rest’s Early Years

Before starting Pilgrims Rest around 2004, Vanderkooi worked at the Agape Boarding School in Missouri. Agape currently faces its own abuse accusations in lawsuits and criminal charges filed last year against some of its employees — allegations that have nothing to do with Vanderkooi’s time there.


After working at Agape, Vanderkooi moved to Kentucky and started the Pilgrims Rest school in London. According to a KSP report, Vanderkooi said “social services tried to shut him down in London, which led to a lengthy civil suit.” The Messenger-Inquirer could find no records about a civil suit involving Pilgrims Rest or Vanderkooi.


Vanderkooi moved Pilgrims Rest to Ohio County around 2006, establishing a compound that includes a two-story schoolhouse and guest home among the idyllic, rolling farmland of Dundee.

About five years later, KSP and DCBS launched a probe into the boarding school after receiving information from a child protection services agency in another state.


Records show that authorities knew little about Pilgrims Rest at the time.


“As DCBS was not aware the school near Dundee existed, it was unclear if any inspections or certifications were required or had been performed,” a KSP trooper wrote in his initial November 2011 report. “This investigator found no government entity at the state or local level that oversees private schools such as this one.”


According to KSP records, investigators interviewed at least 10 students at the time. The suspects were Vanderkooi and David Shute, a former prison guard who worked as a school supervisor.


“Several students reported they had been made to do bear crawls and other exercises to the point their hands became injured,” a Jan. 6, 2012, KSP report stated. “There were also allegations of the students having their fingers bent backward and their ears pulled.”


One student told police and social services workers that Shute pulled his ear, causing it to bleed and impair his hearing. This alleged incident took place at Greater Vision Baptist Church in Owensboro, where Vanderkooi would frequently take his school, according to former students.

“He has been unable to hear out of that ear since it bled. He told Bro. Vanderkooi about his ear bleeding after he got back to the school, but no medical attention was sought,” investigatory records stated — though a doctor reportedly examined the student later and found no injury.


After interviewing witnesses and reviewing “appropriate hard copy documentation,” social workers found the student’s complaint against Shute to be substantiated.


“David Shute also admitted to pulling ears of the boys to get their attention even though he reported that he never caused any injury,” DCBS said in its report.


The same student also told authorities that Vanderkooi once stepped on his fingers for not bear crawling fast enough.


“Pictures were taken of scars on hands,” the investigatory report stated, adding, “One time when bear crawling, he cut his knee and had to have it glued shut. He stood up, fell back, and then woke up at the doctor.”


Another student complained of being choked by a Pilgrims Rest staffer, but social workers determined that the allegation was unsubstantiated due to the student reportedly making inconsistent statements during separate interviews.

A 10-year-old Carlos Walsh was among the students interviewed for the investigation. Walsh, who was sent to Pilgrims Rest at the age of 6, had originally told a social worker that Vanderkooi bent his fingers back and stepped on his hands during bear crawls.


But when questioned by KSP troopers, Walsh recanted his story and said his allegations were lies.


Walsh told the Messenger-Inquirer that he and other students felt pressured by their families and Vanderkooi to recant their allegations. He said he regrets doing so to this day.


“It kind of hurts because I have to stick with this for the rest of my life,” Walsh said. “If I hadn’t have done that, I’m sure we could have had the school shut down — if I just told the truth.”


Walsh said that while he was a student, he thought his experiences at Pilgrims Rest were normal.


“We thought of [Vanderkooi] as a mentor, and as someone who pushed us harder than we ever thought we could. And all the stuff he did to us, all the abuse, we thought we deserved it,” he said.


Today, Walsh runs a YouTube channel, where he speaks and interviews other former students about the alleged abuse at Pilgrims Rest.


“I guess what changed my mind is I’d tell all my coworkers what happened to me as a kid, and they were like, ‘Dude, where have you been.’ Because everything I was explaining was so foreign to them,” Walsh said. “That’s what changed my mind. Slowly over time, I realized this wasn’t right. I bear the scars and I have the marks all over my body. What happened there, I thought it was just normal.


“But it isn’t.”


Despite Walsh’s recantation, other students told KSP and DCBS investigators about having to bear crawl until their hands bleed, as well as having their hands stepped on, fingers bent, and ears pulled, according to police and social services records.


“Another concern focused on the reports of room leaders being allowed to discipline fellow students, which increases the risk of abuse or bullying,” social workers noted in their report. “[An investigator] also notes that students report that they are not allowed to observe or discuss discipline received by other students or they will receive the same discipline.”

Not surprised to see our resident swine trying to defend the abuse.

[One Bad Pig]

Was looking around, just found this.... yet another person who used to work there before the early 00s, went off to Kentucky to found a similar school with the same idea, same Baptist influence, and same abuse inherent in the original - seems this school was a sort of training ground for how to set up your own abuse mill given the number of former employees who have gone on to create their own:
https://www.messenger-inquirer.com/n...LuVkgoDaIaQs_k



Not surprised to see our resident swine trying to defend the abuse.

Perhaps read for comprehension next time, eh? If they're exercising people to and beyond the point of injury, that's clearly not being done with discretion.

I grew up Independent Fundamentalist Baptist. While I rejected that long ago, and I can't see my dad's church doing such a thing, I can see how such a tradition might be twisted to condone such abuse.

[rogue06]

It's hard to know what exactly to make of this. Clearly things went too far, and the place should be shut down. On the other hand, I don't trust Rolling Stone one whit when it comes to stuff like this, some of the punishments described don't seem out of line (withholding food, excessive exercise, forced labor are unproblematic as long as they are done with discretion), and there seem to be an awful lot of former staffers (did they leave because they disagreed with some of what was going on, or to propagate it elsewhere?).

From a relatively local source: Missouri boarding school accused of abusing students announces it is shutting down

And another: Agape Boarding School leaders in Cedar County, Mo. announce plans to close

As to your question regarding former staffers: Boarding school staffer left Missouri. Now he’s charged with abusing kids in Kentucky

A former staff member at Agape Boarding School in Missouri who later opened his own Christian school in Kentucky has been charged with abusing students there.

Kelly Vanderkooi, 52, was indicted by a grand jury in Kentucky last month on 21 counts of first-degree criminal abuse of a child 12 or under and 10 counts of fourth-degree assault (child abuse). Vanderkooi, who former Agape students say ran the boot camp on the Cedar County campus until the early 2000s, has operated Pilgrim’s Rest Ministry of Reconciliation School in Dundee, Kentucky, since 2005.

The charges come after a lengthy investigation by Kentucky State Police late last year. Vanderkooi’s son and daughter-in-law also were charged. The three were arrested last week.

“Detectives initiated an investigation at Pilgrim’s Rest School in Dundee (Ohio Co) after Social Services investigated allegations of abuse,” said a news release from the Kentucky State Police. “The investigation started in October of 2022 and detectives presented the case before the Ohio County Grand Jury.”

It’s the second time in as many months that a former Agape Boarding School staffer has been charged with crimes against children.

As for the punishments mentioned... hardly serious unless taken to extreme. Misbehaving children being sent to bed without supper as punishment is hardly draconian, but obviously it's not a punishment that can be meted out night after night.

Similarly, being told to run laps or bleachers for misconduct was the typical punishment in P.E. class.

[Gondwanaland]

As for the punishments mentioned... hardly serious unless taken to extreme. Misbehaving children being sent to bed without supper as punishment is hardly draconian, but obviously it's not a punishment that can be meted out night after night.

Similarly, being told to run laps or bleachers for misconduct was the typical punishment in P.E. class.

Tell me you didn't read the RS article without telling me you didn't read the RS article.

[rogue06]

Tell me you didn't read the RS article without telling me you didn't read the RS article.

Tell me you can't comprehend that I was addressing what OBP said and not the article without telling me you can't comprehend that I was addressing what OBP said and not the article.

[One Bad Pig]

As for the punishments mentioned... hardly serious unless taken to extreme. Misbehaving children being sent to bed without supper as punishment is hardly draconian, but obviously it's not a punishment that can be meted out night after night.

Similarly, being told to run laps or bleachers for misconduct was the typical punishment in P.E. class.

Pretty much what I said.

[Gondwanaland]

Tell me you can't comprehend that I was addressing what OBP said and not the article without telling me you can't comprehend that I was addressing what OBP said and not the article.

The swine's comments have little to do with the abuses in the OP, bud. Nothing more than an attempt to downplay them

[Gondwanaland]

Wow. Just wow. So as Agape shuts down, yet another 'Christian School For Troubled Youth' is trying to set up on the same spot.

Oh, and the founder is..... wait for it...... a FORMER PRINCIPAL at Agape, who claims that the abuse didn't happen.

It just doesn't stop.

As the controversial Agape Boarding School closes its doors permanently today, other doors will soon open on the same property, also aiming to reform troubled boys through Christian schooling.

According to documents from the Missouri Secretary of State, a nonprofit called Stone of Help was filed on Sept. 15, 2022. At that time, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt was outspoken about his plans to shut down Agape Boarding School and prosecute alleged abusers.

State business filings show the address listed for Stone of Help is 12978 E. 1430 Rd in Stockton.

It’s 0.2 miles from the official address for Agape Boarding School in Stockton.

Jennifer and Jason Derksen’s names are listed on state business filings for Stone of Help Group Homes. Jason Derksen says the allegations of mental, physical, and sexual abuse at Agape were often exaggerated or untrue. He confirmed he was a former principal at Agape and that his wife Jennifer worked in the academic office there.

As the couple looks toward an opening date for Stone of Help, they’re seeking a similar clientele – boys with behavioral issues to enroll as students. Some former Agape students will join their roster, according to Derksen, who declined to interview on camera.

Derksen also told our investigative team that he wasn’t sure why a connection was being made between Stone of Help and the shuttered Agape Boarding School, despite the two sharing employees, land, students, and the same general business concept.

Schmitt moved out of his role as attorney general at the beginning of 2023 after being elected to the U.S. Senate. His successor Andrew Bailey says he plans to keep a close eye on Stone of Help and ongoing litigation against Agape Boarding School and its previous staff.

“We’re not going to let child abusers play a shell game and hide their abusive behaviors under different names and different entities,” said AG Bailey. “We’re going to use the legal mechanism of the state to prevent that from happening and protect children.”

Derksen tells KOLR 10 Investigates that Stone of Help is awaiting proper permitting from the health and fire departments, but anticipates the group homes could be able to open before the end of January. Agape had capacity for 150 boys. Stone of Help will have room for 30.


https://www.ozarksfirst.com/news/kol...dbCy0sDBa9UWRQ

Shell game within a shell game.