Ridge Creek School Letter
To Prospective Students and Parents
(a parody)
Dear Prospective Students and Parents,
It is always an extremely difficult decision whether to bring up something that has been unsettling and proved to have valid basis. Despite our trepidation in attempting to hide information and obscure the truth, we feel that we have an obligation to address this issue. By doing this, we hope to provide you with a clear understanding of the situation that is still occurring.
In 2006, several parents filed a petition for a class action lawsuit against the school. The suit was not simply a contractual dispute; although we certainly did fleece prepaid tuition out of parents. Despite a well-orchestrated, vigorous campaign to silence and discredit the plaintiffs, over 240 families joined the class suit. A judge that sure did like his chickens denied the class suit. The petition made several claims of harm, negligence, fraudulent advertising, unlicensed staff, fake credentialed staff, uncertified teachers, etc. thus giving credence to the allegations against us.
We launched a vicious, cowardly, and relentless negative campaign against the plaintiffs via the Dahlonega Nugget through our staff and associates. Our outrageous and untrue statements made to the media remained unanswered by the plaintiffs because they held to class action rules. The sad reality is that there was no recourse for the plaintiffs to address this fraudulent campaign to discredit their names.
As the negative campaign unfolded, it became very evident that our goal was to discredit and ultimately stop the truth from seeing the light of day. Shredding documents and the unfortunate fire created a large financial burden to the school; we had to step up our wining and dining of our referral sources, which was costly. As much as we tried, we still destroyed our referral process. We cannot blame our referrals as they had every right to worry about being sued themselves.
Throughout this ordeal, HLA chose to remain focused on our pocket books. We want you all to know The Chapel Fund was quite lucrative, while the party lasted.
HLA provided unlicensed therapy, but it is five years later and we are figuring a way to have a couple of licensed caregivers; utilizing interns will save on staff salaries.
We are a fully accredited college preparatory program through Advanced Ed (SACS) and fortunately, they only give us guidelines. Once we offer our “vision” - we can pretty much do whatever we wish. Advance Ed gives us the opportunity to cross-utilize teachers outside of their fields and shoot, we do not have to worry about providing a biology or chemistry lab for High School credit.
The Class Action Lawsuit of 2006 - the fowl-loving judge issued a series of orders requiring our leader to take heed of his chickens and fork over the as settled eggs. An appeal would have continued litigation for almost two years and cost more eggs. HLA agreed to a settlement of the case, for a mere fraction of eggs, which we were thrilled to take. Lordy help us if this went to trial. Unfortunately, the chicken judge had to pry the eggs from our owner, but that is okay because he has moved onto ducks. Since the lower left is so full of feces – it goes with our persona. Our attorneys have advised us to “rebrand”. Therefore, HLA ceased to exist and we created Ridge Creek School, Creekside Academy, Mountain Brook Academy, and we have a new surprise for you!
Since the resolution of this matter, Ridge Creek School is rebounding with students once again enrolling from the Department of Juvenile Justice and the Department of Family and Children’s Services, along with private pay families. Hey, it is the new green! A new contract is waiting on the desk waiting to be signed.. We are getting back on track; back to our old ways and our referral sources are all back helping us to repair the damage we did to our own school and the children in our care. If you have any additional questions regarding the integrating of DJJ and DFCS children with private pay children at Ridge Creek School, please rest assured that we believe it is important not to isolate the children from each other and we understand the importance of sharing facilities such as the dorms, cafeteria, classrooms, gym, and wilderness adventure. We support “no child left behind,” and thought we should address any concerns before any leaks or another riot.
By the way, The Dahlonega Nugget cooperated by retracting the 2009 riot. We cut a break there. Lucky for us, the editor did not listen to the 911 call, did not bother to read the police report, or succumbed to pressure. The Dahlonega Nugget gave us another break by placing this year’s riot on page nine resulting in a squeaky clean internet, aside from that lousy internet site where truth mongers congregate to disseminate the filthy truth.
We are pleased to announce there were just over [sixty] 911 calls from counselors at Ridge Creek School over the last two years which included several assaults, two riots, lots of runaways, a rape, etc. Therefore, that should place your minds at ease. In addition, the Office of Residential Child Care licenses us; they also afford us freedom to do as we wish.
Not to pat us on the back, but no child has died here, although we have come close, so that is cool.
Now for our surprise! We will be adding a fourth school to our complex in the fall called Highlands Preparatory School, which will be a Traditional Boarding School, amongst two licensed Child Caring Institutions and one Outdoor Child Caring Institution. Currently, Highlands Preparatory is set to take over the old campus of Hidden Lake Academy, now Ridge Creek School. Ridge Creek School‘s therapeutic students would move to Ridge Creek Wilderness dorms. We look forward to opening up Highlands Preparatory, where we might be able to feed into the other programs. We would like to assure future Highlands Preparatory School parents that lodging would remain separate from the DJJ /DFCS/private pay children at Ridge Creek School; shared facilities could include the cafeteria, gym, classrooms, the lake, and Adventure in Wilderness.
We are very excited for what appears to be a very confusing, yet profitable year. I truly hope you believe us; although we would understand why you would not.
GOAL offers scholarships to our school, check it out.
For those sports enthusiasts we are a member of a Christian conference; however, we assure you that we are not a Christian school.
Our school song:
“Chapel of Fraud” by The Maggots
Goin’ to the Chapel that was
never gonna be built
Goin’ to the Chapel that was
so totally bilked
Gee I really loved the money
They’ll never find it honey
Goin’ to the Chapel of fraud
In closing, we are aware our integrity is lost, but we promise to pay the staff this year so they do not walk out.
AOA asks, “Uh, who should sign this?”
AOA
Acting Office Assistant MSW M.D. PhD
Dahlonega Temp Agency
Hidden Lake Academy - strike this
Ridge Creek School
Ridge Creek Wilderness
Mountain Brook Academy
Creekside Academy - strike this
Highlands Preparatory School
