http://www.thespectrum.com/news/stories ... 78976.htmlS. Utah-based company battles abuse claims
President responds to Costa Rican crackdown on troubled youth facility
By JANE ZHANG
[email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jud Burkett/The Spectrum
Ken Kay, president of the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, answers questions about the workings of the Dundee Ranch in Costa Rica and other WWASPS behavior modification facilities, including Cross Creek in LaVerkin, Tuesday at his home in St. George.
Audrey Alexander, 18, of Canada, right, and Mariah Woods, of Tulsa, Okla., said they are sorry to be leaving the Academy at Dundee Ranch, a behavioral management school near Orotina, Costa Rica, 55 miles west of the capital of San Jose, Saturday.
Narvin Lichfield
ST. GEORGE -- The owner of a youth behavioral management school headquartered in St. George has been released by the Costa Rican government after a 27-hour detention based on a "human rights violations," government and company officials said Tuesday.
While Narvin Lichfield is still forbidden to leave the Central American nation for six months for possible criminal charges, the president of the organization for at-risk students said the arrest and a previous raid to the Dundee Ranch Academy were orchestrated by a prosecutor who was "totally out of control."
Fernando Vargas is a "rogue, rambo-minded guy," said Ken Kay, president of the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, or WWASPS. "Without question, (he's) totally out of control, almost to the point of being a mad man. I'd like to see a psychological evaluation done with him."
Vargas and officials from Costa Rica's child-welfare agency, PANI, visited the ranch's campus in Orotina on May 20 and told the students to "do whatever they want," Kay said in an interview Tuesday evening at his home overlooking St. George. About 40 of the school's 205 students started a riot, he said. Lichfield was jailed two days later.
The Costa Rican authorities have received complaints from students, parents and a former Dundee director about unsanitary facilities and harsh treatments toward students, said Peter Brennan, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy.
"Any allegations like this, if involving health or welfare of children, we considered them serious," Brennan said in a telephone interview Tuesday afternoon from Costa Rica's capital city, San Jose.
The incident has drawn international attention to the popular tough-love approach toward at-risk teenagers and created a storm surrounding the six-year-old WWASP, a nonprofit and privately-held company that operates 11 schools in Jamaica, Mexico, Costa Rica and the United States.
About 53,000 American youths enroll in youth behavioral management schools, which include about 15 in Washington County, Kay said. As the largest school dealing with emotional growth and character education, he said, WWASP now treats 2,417 children nationwide, mostly ages 9 to 18 with oppositional defiant disorder and bipolar disorder. The average stay is 16 months.
About 400 of them pay $4,000 per month at Cross Creek treatment center in LaVerkin. With 400 employees from Washington County, Kay said, WWASP in the past six years has contributed at least $6 million to the Southern Utah economy.
And until last week, 205 students had enrolled in the Dundee Ranch Academy, a specialty boarding school for $2,000 per month, Kay said. Students were told to follow school rules, advance through six ladders, and earn rewards that can include sport fishing and monkey watching trips. Teens who get violent and who run away will be expelled, he said.
"These are the rules, period. No question about it," Kay said. "The whole idea is to learn the skills, get educated."
But students and parents have sent complaints about the school since it opened 19 months ago, Brennan said. He would not say how many complaints the embassy has received, but said all of them were forwarded to Costa Rican authorities. In March, Amberly Knight, whose six-month tenure ended in August 2002 as Dundee's director, reported that students were harshly punished, he added. Costa Rican government officials, who had complained that Dundee students lacked proper immigration status, decided to investigate what they call physical and emotional abuses.
On May 19, Kay said, government officials issued a notice to Dundee officials, pointing out 15 areas for the school to improve in 30 days. Before officials responded within the 24-hour deadline, he added, Vargas and child welfare officials visited the campus. Students soon went out of control, but the officials soon left.
"Some students had sex, some began smoking, which was strictly prohibited for the minors in the Ranch, some began to assault students or staff they didn't like, some began looting, while others vandalized property," Kay said. "Then why (did) they go and release these kids (with) no clothing, no passports, no papers, no money, no food. And they turned them loose in a remote area of Costa Rica. Then they left. That to me is a human rights violation."
The Spectrum's attempts to contact a PANI spokeswoman failed Tuesday afternoon. Brennan, however, said, the Costa Rican government alleged Dundee violated "human rights because "Costa Rica operates according to what Costa Rican law says."
Kay said two thirds of the students have gone home with their parents. Dundee was soon closed. He expected two thirds of the students to return to other programs.
Complaints against WWASP are not rare, Kay said, because the families they deal with are "disarrayed." But there hasn't been "a substantiated case of abuse or mistreatment," he added.
As a 30-year-old woman, Kay said, Knight wanted to be transferred to the United States in order to enhance her chances to get married.
"She's a disgruntled employee," he said. "She was mad. She wanted more money."
Discussions in an online chat room were divided this week. Some parents wanted to lock up Dundee's owner, saying they were deceived by WWASP's advertising techniques. Some, however, blamed parents for putting their children in danger. But others wanted to hear the administrators' explanations.
Originally published Wednesday, May 28, 2003
