http://www.beyondbusiness.net/index2.htmProvo Canyon School
By Angela Smith
I am very tired of parents shipping their children off to far away schools and reform programs. Parents need to take responsibility and figure out where they went wrong and how they can change the situation without destroying their children. The baby-boomer generation is so focussed on their own desires that when a child becomes inconvenient that child becomes disposable. This is not acceptable.
These parents want children who don't have ideas. They want corporate kids who do as they are told, stay quiet, and never rock the boat. They seem to have forgotten the wildness of their youth and are unable to deal responsibly with their children when the behavior exhibited is not what they find to be desirable.
Children are people. Teenagers are people. They are individuals who have developed into who they are because of the upbringing they received. If the parents don't know how to deal with the "monsters" they create then they ship them off to militant nazi camps to be maimed, killed, or brainwashed into submission. This is not acceptable!
If your teenager is out of control it is YOUR FAULT! TAKE SOME GODDAMN RESPONSIBILITY! If your teenager is staying out all night, partying, doing drugs, being sexually active, and skipping school, then there is a problem. The problem is that you in your brilliant wisdom didn't do a good job raising them. You didn't have time to spend with them so you spent money on them. Now, when they are old enough to cause some real financial damage or social embarrassment you want to make rules. Rules that were never in place as they were growing up. Rules that make absolutely no sense to a young person who has never been shown the ropes. When these rules are not obeyed you throw up your hands and send them to HELL! You say, "Maybe the devil can do something with you, I can't." But, what you are truly thinking is that you don't have the time to be a parent. You have a life, and you will be damned if some snot-nosed teenager is going to infringe on your adulthood. You had enough people infringing on your life when you were a kid. So, now this kid of yours is on his/her own. If you don't want to parent, don't become one! Once you take on the responsibility of parenting, you can not dump it off on someone else when things get a little more inconvenient than you would prefer.
Get group counseling with a qualified family therapist. Talk to your kids and find out what the problem is and how it can be resolved. Speak to them and work out an agreement that works for everyone involved. Don't assume that because your name is Mom or Dad that this person is going to swing whichever way your particular wind is blowing. You didn't raise them with rules. You let them get away with everything. As a teenager, the same rules should apply. If you want to change the name of the game, you need to explain. This takes time, people! You can't say you don't have time and send away your little problems to hellish boot camps and reform programs. If you do, you are screaming to your child that you don't care. You are telling them that they don't matter. And, you are sending them to a place so rigid and strict that it will drive them insane. You can't send a person from a completely free environment to an extremely oppressive environment just because you don't like the inconvenience. It isn't right.
I spent three months in a reform school called Provo Canyon School located in Provo, UT. I had spent the previous three months in a psychiatric hospital for depression. I heard about this great private school from a fellow patient and it sounded wonderful. The school was supposedly college preparatory and the focus was education. I was abused by my stepfather and I didn't want to return home. This school sounded like a dream come true. It was a co-ed campus with a merit system. The focus was supposed to be school. But, that is not what went on. I talked my mom into letting me go to this school. She was hesitant, but didn't want to say no because she wasn't sure what the living situation would be if I returned home while she was still married to him. She agreed to let me go.
While I was there I witnessed abuse in the extreme. Staff members were physically abusing students and demanding that students attack each other at their request. One girl was put in a coma. When she was seen around campus again she had a broken nose, broken ribs, and a broken arm. Prior to my leaving a boy tried to escape. He returned in a body cast. I asked them why they didn't tell their parents what was going on. They said their parents didn't care. I couldn't believe it. But, now I know it's true. It makes me sick. Teenage girls were locked in rooms, beaten, starved, and drugged. I don't know if the boys suffered the same or worse. I, being a female, was only allowed access to the girls area of the compound during non-school hours. People were punished for not making their beds up to PCS standards. However, PCS standards were never known. We were just told what wasn't good enough.
My mom rescued me. I wrote her and my grandmother and even my absentee father until I was saved. I was so grateful. But, I was also very resentful. I was resentful that I had to spend three months in that hell hole.
Years later a friend of mine who I had known at the hospital and Provo contacted me. We renewed our friendship for a short time. I found out he had resorted back to his life of crime and we decided it would be best if we ended our friendship. I asked him what the hell Provo was about and what the real deal was there. He had spent two years there and I wanted to know what the real rules were. He explained a sick hierarchy which included the staff. As students moved up the hierarchy they were given more freedom and more tasks. The tasks included weakening those on the lower tiers by beating them and breaking their spirit. I was so disgusted.
You may be wondering why we didn't sue them. We threatened to. I was fifteen years old and so glad to be out of that school. We went to a lawyer because Provo was threatening to sue us for the remainder of the tuition and fees. The lawyer wrote them and said we would be filing our own suit against them for the horrors they exposed me to and that we would expose them for the monsters they are. They never contacted us again. I wanted to forget. Unfortunately, I never have.
I remember the sounds of the wounded moaning in pain. I remember seeing my friend who tried to escape in a full body cast. I remember the girl who was in the coma. I remember the friends I left behind. It's a war. This school is still operating. This school is still tormenting our youth. They are not alone.
I beg of you, do not send your child to a program or school that is too far for you to visit weekly or daily if need be. Pick a program, hospital, or school that is in your state and near your home. If there isn't any available, find a different way to solve your family problems. The movie Sleepers was not fictional. This stuff does go on. People are being tortured and killed and the people in power hide it and the people of the public don't want to know. We can not hide ourselves. If we do, we kill our children and create a new breed of hate and monsters for the future. If my mom had lived near Provo, she would have visited on receipt of the first letter. She would have seen the condition I was in and I would not have been forced to stay as long as I did. Because, I was out of sight, I was out of mind.
I worked for a national bank for a while on the e-mail team a few years back. We received an e-mail from a woman who had sent her child to a program located thousands of miles from her in a U.S. province but not a state. It wasn't Puerto Rico. She had applied for a loan from the bank which had been approved. That money was used to pay the child's fees in this program. She hadn't heard from her child in months. She was very worried. She tried contacting the program heads and they gave her the run around. She had no money to fight. She was worried and scared. She knew of two children that were dead and others presumed missing from the program. She had a lawyer but she needed some real money in order to battle for the right to retrieve her child. She was told she had signed a waiver and that it was best if she didn't concern herself with her child. Now, she was running out of funds and still no word of her child. She thought threatening the bank would get some action. We couldn't help her. She signed away her rights. There was nothing anyone could do. She said she just wanted her son back. She didn't care anymore about anything but that. She was now devoting her life to his return.
Don't let this happen to you. Do not send your children to a place that looks good on paper. Don't send your children to a program far away from your home that you cannot monitor in person. Do not sign away your rights to contact your child. Believe that they need you and you need them. Believe that you are an integral part of their rehabilitation. Do not allow these groups and programs to tell you that you are not needed and that they know what's best for your child. They don't. They just want your money and to pursue their own sick fantasies with your children. Don't let them. For additional information from personal accounts of the tragedies at Provo Canyon School visit these sites
http://www.teenliberty.org, Boarding School Truth,
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Cyprus/6189/,
http://papamugz.tripod.com/, for more on my story click here, for everything I remember about my stay at PCS and my official statement click here.
I welcome feedback of all kinds. Most of the people who visit this site are other survivors who wish to contact someone who understands their suffering. Some people visit it to see what is said about PCS because they are looking for a place for their own children. Some visit because they are employees of PCS and wish to see what people are saying about their institution. Because of my own well-being, I have decided it is best for me if I do not post my e-mail address on the site anymore. I check the message board regularly. If you wish to leave feedback regarding this site or comment on what I have written, please leave it by visiting My Message Board, if you are someone I desire to communicate with, I will contact you. If you are someone that is a destructive presence, I will respond via message board only. Thank you for your understanding.
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This isn't a WWASP School??
