Our son ---- was
abused and neglected during his stay at the Academy at Cedar
Mountain (ACM), in Cedar City, UT from December 2003 through
August 2004. Our statute of limitations is near expiring, so
I am looking to hear immediately from other parents or children
who had similar problems during their stay during that time
frame. We were told by their director, Mr. Cameron Tea, that
the ACM fired one of their college student counselors and
suspended two other counselors. The ACM used college students to
supervise our children from 4 PM to 8 AM and on some of their
field trips. The firing and suspensions occurred after Mr. Tea
discovered on their “Mexico” vacation trip, subsequent camping
trip, and during evening hours the ACM counselors provided our
children with alcohol and marijuana plus allowed our under-aged
children to have sex together. We also heard from a fellow
student that many of the parents pulled their children from this
facility shortly after we did. In fact, within two months of
when we pulled our son, an article in the local Cedar City Utah
paper said the ACM student population dropped to fifteen. When
we pulled our son Mr. Tea said they had over thirty children
enrolled. What we heard third hand is apparently some of the
parents got together with an attorney. Given the serious
problems suffered the ACM owners and insurance company
negotiated a full tuition refund plus attorney fees. Because
that school claims some medical privileges they refuse to
disclose any of the information on the fellow students at that
time and apparently those who got refunds signed non-disclosure
agreements.
We enrolled our
son in the ACM program because they were strongly pushed by one
the medical counselor our son was seeing. Our son has a rare
form of dyslexia that causes him to transpose syllables and
small words, making reading a constant and frustrating
challenge. He is a very bright fellow, so if he hears the
information he does well. Our Sacramento, California San Jan
School District did well by him providing counselors and help so
he did well through grammar school. In middle school budget cuts
eliminated that kind of help and he was still bright enough to
squeak by on what he heard from the teachers, but began falling
behind. By the time he started high school he had missed just
too much and was in trouble. Rather than provide help that our
school district could not afford, they dumped our son into their
developmentally disabled classes. Our son was one of the top
athletes in the area, an outstanding musician, exceptionally
good at math, and just a few weeks away from completing his Boy
Scout Eagle rank. He went from being a peer leader to suddenly
being constantly harassed for being put in the “retarded”
classes for his English, Geography, History, Social Studies, and
all other reading intensive classes. These classes are for those
who range from serious deformities to learning disorders. That
peer pressure coupled with my having life threatening health
problems and my wife struggling with her own problems to totally
overwhelm our son. Our son’s medical counselor strongly pushed
the ACM. He told us the ACM had their own on staff full time
psychologist, consulting psychiatrist that worked out custom
programs for each child, and full staff of teachers and adult
supervisors would help our son to effectively deal with his
disability. The ACM said the same thing and claimed to not have
anything to do with juvenile delinquents, but instead focused on
helping children with disabilities to learn how to effectively
deal with these disabilities. The ACM staff also said they were
closely aligned with the local university where the kids would
regularly be allowed to attend classes and get extra support.
The ACM management also said that they were associated with the
local Boy Scout Troop and would help our son finish his Eagle
project which was all he needed to earn that Boy Scout rank. The
minimum nine month ACM program was not cheap at $35,000, but we
were desperate because our son had fallen so far behind his
peers he was miserable, badly depressed, and getting worse.
Little did we know
that the ACM was a fraud. We were not told until doing research
long after we pulled our son from that school that the ACM paid
our medical hospital counselor we trusted a $5,000 referral fee.
We learned that instead, of being a school that specialized on
children with learning disabilities, the ACM was almost totally
filled with teens with serious behavioral problems meaning most
had bad problems with alcohol, drugs or criminal behavior. The
ACM did not have the promised psychologist on staff, did not
have a consulting psychiatrist, and none of their teachers were
certified or trained to help children with learning disorders.
Instead of a carefully medically sound individualized plan as
promised, the ACM used the same four step program for teens
troubled with alcohol, drugs, and crime issues which is so
onerous that schools using this program have been closed all
over the country. This ACM program subjected our son to a 24/7
structured lock down that took away all privileges and forced
him to comply with their “structure”. They took away our son’s
weekly telephone call home if he said anything negative about
their program. They stole the $80 incidental money we sent him
every month leaving him without the funds to replace his clothes
or replenish his toiletries. Although the ACM “required” three
and preferably four family visits in a year, the ACM actually
did not want us there at all and strongly dissuaded us from
visiting. During my visit I found the ACM stole almost all of
the $80 a month that we put into our son’s drawing account for
his clothing and toiletries, plus the students stole a good
portion of his nicer clothes including even his shoes. I also
found the ACM used our son and their other students as forced
labor to not only do almost all of the work and improvements
around their school, but also to do labor intensive work for the
owners’ other properties and activities. For instance, the
expensive trip/tour of Mexico which was supposed to be our son’s
vacation reward for passing their multi-step program for
juvenile delinquents ended up instead being more forced labor to
comply with some owner church group obligation to send labor to
help build homes for the disadvantaged in Mexico. After not
hearing from our son for weeks after that Mexico trip, I became
very concerned. Our calls were intercepted with the ACM staff
saying that our son had misbehaved and lost his telephone
privileges. Finally, our son snuck a call to me at about 2 AM.
He shared the nonsense going on with the ACM. I contacted Mr.
Cameron Tea their director as soon as they opened. Mr. Tea
admitted the serious problems with the alcohol, drugs, and sex
plus firing one staff member and suspending two others. I
advised Mr. Tea we were immediately pulling our son the
following weekend. Mr. Tea’s promised to immediately refund our
prepaid tuition for following month and the six weeks prior
associated with the Mexico debacle and these other problems.
Apparently we were
the first of many who pulled their children. Of course we got
nothing but one empty promise after another from the ACM which
changed owners and claims no responsibility for the prior
problems. They officially stole about $8,000 in tuition plus
another roughly $230 supposedly left in our son’s drawing
account. They unofficially stole our $35,000 tuition, $640 in
drawing account, and at least $4,000 more in our traveling to
and from that facility.
