Mount Bachelor Academy Parent Guide Installment 1

[Anonymous]

The so-called guide is absolutely disgusting.  I'm an old lady and raised three kids.  After years of reflection I can say the absolute truth is this:  the mistakes I made as a parent (making choices that were not beneficial or were downright harmful to my children) were when I ignored my instincts and followed the advice of the "experts" (although I never abandoned a kid to a program).  The triumphs (good choices that were beneficial to my children) always happened when I ignored the "experts" and did what I thought was right as a human being, first.
My advice to parents:  fix yourself and the environment into which you brought your children first.  If you do that you won't raise children who need "fixing".  Ignore the "experts".  They got a degree and gotta do something with it but you are the one who has to live with your decisions, not them.  At the end of the day they go home to their own mess where they may or may not take the advice they give you.  Don't be seduced into letting "someone else" monitor  your child's well-being.  If you really think you are as screwed up as they program pushers want you to believe, don't punish your children for it by abandoning them to a "program"; get help for yourself so you can be the parent you should be.  If you don't your kids will pay the price now but you will pay the price later.

[Whooter]

Aspen keeps people in their program with the help of paid thugs called escorts. In my case, if you tried to walk fifty miles to the nearest town, you would inevitibly get picked up by escorts before you made it more than a few miles, if you took the road. Escorts have tazers and handcuffs and will force you into a car and take you to Albert's place. Albert is the ex-special forces guy who started the escort company, and his basement has a reinforced door and bars on the windows so kids can't get out. When they have "calmed down" and it's been emphasized that they will be sent to a lock-down facility if they don't come back, most choose to return to the school, if they have the chance. However most are sent to a wilderness program for 1-2 months and then deposited right back at Mt. Bachelor Academy. The people who run this school are abusive monsters and the place needs to be shut down.

I can tell you that the above post is absolutely false.  I know of several kids who ran off and never had to deal with paid thugs, like you stated.  Some of the kids came back on their own and others were picked up by local police and brought into the station to call their parents or taken back to the program they ran from.  Kids are not kept in peoples basements.

[Ursus]

Aspen keeps people in their program with the help of paid thugs called escorts. In my case, if you tried to walk fifty miles to the nearest town, you would inevitibly get picked up by escorts before you made it more than a few miles, if you took the road. Escorts have tazers and handcuffs and will force you into a car and take you to Albert's place. Albert is the ex-special forces guy who started the escort company, and his basement has a reinforced door and bars on the windows so kids can't get out. When they have "calmed down" and it's been emphasized that they will be sent to a lock-down facility if they don't come back, most choose to return to the school, if they have the chance. However most are sent to a wilderness program for 1-2 months and then deposited right back at Mt. Bachelor Academy. The people who run this school are abusive monsters and the place needs to be shut down.

I can tell you that the above post is absolutely false.  I know of several kids who ran off and never had to deal with paid thugs, like you stated.  Some of the kids came back on their own and others were picked up by local police and brought into the station to call their parents or taken back to the program they ran from.  Kids are not kept in peoples basements.

Lol... And YOU would know, having attended and/or worked for every single program there ever was and is, each of them for the entire duration of said program's existence...

Geeeezzz... talk about living in multiple parallel universes simultaneously!  

[RMA Survivor]

When I was at RMA, they had a bounty hunter named Mike Parr.  Ex-Special Forces Green Beret.  He later went on to create his own Wilderness Program, as if he was actually qualified for such work.  When I was at RMA, he was not only hired to bring student to the school by their parents, but also went out and tracked down students who had gotten out of the Bonner Ferry area.  Once outside of the immediate area, the local cops couldn't do much.  Bonners Ferry made a lot of money off RMA, so it was in their interests to work with them.  And students understood that if you ran away, goal number one was to make it out of the area so the local cops weren't actively looking for you.  Once out, it was Mike Parr who would be tracking you down.

Later, one of the RMA staff members named Richard Armstrong left with a female staff to become bounty hunters as well.  And not just bringing students there, but tracking down those who had run away.  Generally it was just simpler to wait for them to reach their homes and go in search of them at friends houses where they were likely to turn up.  

The industry uses bounty hunters, now known as Escorts, to bring kids to these schools and to hunt them down if they run away.  Very lucrative business.  Considering the fees charged, it is actually in the interests of both the Escorts and the programs these kids get sent to, to have a few run away now and then.  Both sides get a cut of the escort fees.  One for the referral, one for the escort work.  

The Sheriff of Bonners Ferry eventually began to question and wonder why so many students were running away from RMA?  The forty to sixty students per year was apparently a common thing in a town of 1,200 people.  Kids generally don't run away and take to the wilderness to escape Disneyland.  But they would to escape abuse.

[Anonymous]

Aspen keeps people in their program with the help of paid thugs called escorts. In my case, if you tried to walk fifty miles to the nearest town, you would inevitibly get picked up by escorts before you made it more than a few miles, if you took the road. Escorts have tazers and handcuffs and will force you into a car and take you to Albert's place. Albert is the ex-special forces guy who started the escort company, and his basement has a reinforced door and bars on the windows so kids can't get out. When they have "calmed down" and it's been emphasized that they will be sent to a lock-down facility if they don't come back, most choose to return to the school, if they have the chance. However most are sent to a wilderness program for 1-2 months and then deposited right back at Mt. Bachelor Academy. The people who run this school are abusive monsters and the place needs to be shut down.

I can tell you that the above post is absolutely false.  I know of several kids who ran off and never had to deal with paid thugs, like you stated.  Some of the kids came back on their own and others were picked up by local police and brought into the station to call their parents or taken back to the program they ran from.  Kids are not kept in peoples basements.

I've spoken to six or seven people who have been in Albert's basement. It has lights, a bathroom, some video games, and a bed, but it's still a basement with bars and a steel door that he keeps kids in. I haven't heard of a single person who ran away from MBA who did not have escorts called. The parents sign an agreement saying that it's ok to call escorts if they run away literally before the kid is ever at the school.

[joethebadass]

One thing that can prolong your discomfort and undermine your peace of mind is your child's attempts to convince you that he or she does not really belong at MBA. Many MBA students tell their parents that all the other kids are "crazy" and that the staff is abusive. Some of these accounts can be very alarming.

Here is an instance in which the staff are basically saying that all kids who say that the program is abusive are manipulative and lying. But hey, in the end it turned out that it really was abusive after all. The program abused children, and then slandered the children who came forward about the stated abuse.

[Mr. Magee]

Some of the Mt. Bachelor kids went to CALO to continue the abuse, only this time by Mormons.

[Pile of Dead Kids]

What do you mean "this time"? The entire industry is absolutely infested with them, and Aspen is backed by Bain Capital. You can bet your ass they were all over the place in it.