http://http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-tranquil14mar14,0,5883696.story?coll=sfla-news-sflaA year had passed and he still had a drug-addicted teen daughter, a stack of bills from child psychotherapists, too many sleepless nights and a missing wedding band.
Bill Myers said he paid the bills and regained some peace of mind. But he could not unravel the enigma that was his 14-year-old daughter, an A student at Piper High School in Sunrise, who stayed out three nights in a row and popped drugs like candy, Myers said.
Myers never found the wedding band. He said his daughter pawned it for drug money.
He searched Web sites on boot camps and tough love centers and eventually found Tranquility Bay, the Jamaica-based flagship of nine behavior modification schools affiliated with WWASPS, the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools.
South Florida, which sends more teens to the school than any other region in the country, is the center of a national debate about Tranquility Bay. While one group of South Florida parents rallies against Tranquility Bay, saying the school abused their children, dozens of others say the school accomplished what they couldn't: It taught their children respect and instilled discipline.
Interest in such schools is growing because many of today's teens have more expendable income and less responsibility, said Andy Anderson of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs, a membership organization for schools that deal with the behavioral attitudes of school-age children.
For an annual tuition of $30,000 to $50,000, WWASPS promises to reshape troubled teens in a structured environment that uses a system of rewards and punishments.
Myers said his daughter might be dead if he hadn't sent her to Tranquility Bay, in rural St. Elizabeth, Jamaica.
After two years there, she is a respectful, thoughtful girl who recently apologized for pawning his ring, he said.
But a group of five South Florida parents who pulled their children out of Tranquility Bay over the past three years claim their kids weren't helped -- and that staff members physically abused them, said Susan Scheff, a Weston parent leading the charge against the WWASPS network.
In a report sent to the State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Jamaica, and U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the International Survivors Action Committee, a self-described watchdog of behavior modification schools, accused Tranquility Bay of human rights violations. The report includes former student accounts of physical abuse, insect-infested quarters and inadequate meals.
WWASPS President Ken Kay dismissed the accusations.
"If we were abusing kids or doing anything wrong, we would not make it mandatory to have parents visit," Kay said. "No police department has been able to substantiate any claims of abuse."
Police in Jamaica say they have had no such complaints filed and know of no problems at the school. The U.S. Embassy in Jamaica and the U.S. Attorney General's office said they had no jurisdiction to investigate a private school.
For now, parents are relying on a Los Angeles law firm to address their concerns. Huron Maki & Johnson confirmed it has been investigating allegations against WWASPS for more than a year. "We're doing this for many previous students at the organization," said attorney Henry Bushkin. "There are South Florida kids involved."
Tranquility Bay has received so much negative attention recently that school officials refused to allow media, including the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, to visit.
How the program works
The WWASPS schools serve about 2,200 students from ages 11 to 18 in the United States, Mexico and Jamaica. Most students are white and come from middle- to upper-middle-class families, said WWASPS spokesman James Wall.
"You have a huge spread of kids who are certainly headed for a life of crime, and just kids who are defiant, serial liars whose parents just feel they need a kick on the backside to get them on track," Wall said.
Parents give Tranquility Bay control of their children and release the school from many responsibilities, including illness and injuries, as well as "any inappropriate interaction between staff and students."
"The whole thing is set up so that kids can move up a ladder and gain freedoms as they progress," Wall said.
The program consists of six levels. Students start at Level 1. They must earn points before they're allowed to look at each other or talk. When they earn enough points to move to Level 2, they can speak without permission. At Level 3, they can phone home. At Levels 4 through 6, they enjoy more privileges, such as visits from their parents.
But one infraction and a student can lose all privileges, after months of good behavior.
Kay said staffers physically restrain students who become combative and out of control. But he said the staff is now being trained to calm students using less physical contact.
Kay called the controversy "absolutely absurd," especially because the complaining teens have centered their lives around deceit and disrespect, he said.
"The abuse that's going on with youth today is not in this program," Kay said. "It's in negative rap music, poor role models, sometimes the public schools, and from all those drugs out there. That's the abuse."
Having regrets
Dominick Caravella had lost control of his daughter, Cassandra, 14. She was failing school and had been arrested for having marijuana.
He eventually sent her to Tranquility Bay.
"I figured if I spent a lot of money, it had to be a good place," said Caravella, a Coral Springs auto appraiser.
After seven months, Caravella ordered Tranquility Bay to send his daughter home. In phone calls, Cassandra had sounded sad and told him she was being physically abused, he said. She came home July 4, just shy of her 16th birthday. "I didn't recognize her. She was real puffy," said Caravella. "She said it was from lying on her face. She said they were treating her like an animal, she was starving, getting restrained, beat up."
In an interview after her return, Cassandra described a typical day at Tranquility Bay. She said she had to get up at 6 a.m., clean the room she shared with several girls, shower, wash clothes by hand, then eat a breakfast of porridge and crackers. The only book allowed was the Bible. Two hours later she went to gym class, then to shower in dirty stalls. After that, she had lunch, then more classes. She ended her day with group sessions and dinner, usually beans and stale bread. Cassandra said six staffers forced her to lie face down on the floor for a day as punishment for talking out of turn in study hall and looking at boys. "They asked me if I had enough, and I had to say, `Yes ma'am,'" Cassandra said.
Sometimes the workers would twist her arms behind her back, dig their knees into her back, and push her ankles into the floor, she said.
"They called it giving her a `good stretch,'" Caravella said.
"I cried every night," Cassandra said, "I didn't want them to hear me cry because they held that against me."
Myers dismissed such complaints as tales from conniving students who want their cushy lives back. He asked that the Sun-Sentinel not name his daughter because she is a minor.
"They give you the horror stories, but there's a thousand ways they (kids) know how to push your buttons," he said. "We spoil our kids rotten."
Karla Shores can be reached at
kshores@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4552.
