Phil Ludwig, Julian Youth Academy's director, gives some revealing perspective in the below article:
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The Record SearchlightJulian leader backs school; recent death of infant has drawn criticismBy Alayna Shulman
Posted November 19, 2011 at 9:46 p.m.
Phil LudwigThe leader of a Christian boarding school for troubled teens that has generated controversy after a staff member's mummified infant daughter was found hidden in a utility closet at its Whitmore campus said criticism that has risen since the death is unwarranted.
Staff member and former student Jessica Nicole Bradford, 23, was arrested Nov. 7. Sheriff's deputies said she admitted starving her 4-day-old daughter to death in September and keeping the child's body hidden in her room on the Julian Youth Academy campus for more than a month.
Bradford declined an interview request from the Record Searchlight. She has pleaded not guilty to murder and remains in the Shasta County Jail, with bail set at $1 million.
Phil Ludwig, the school's director, said that incident doesn't reflect on the academy, and the vast majority of former students say they had a good experience there.
"All clients of any business are not always going to be ecstatic about the service they got," he said. "If they're saying that we're abusing these kids, why are they waiting until this tragedy? Why are they focusing on themselves?"
But a former student at another Julian campus said she is certain the baby's death occurred at least partly because of the strict conditioning that goes on at the schools.
"They have such a lifestyle up there of hiding things and hiding people's issues and hiding this and that, that now look what's happened," said Dionne Lake, 26, of Huntington Beach. "She said to police she killed her baby, hid her baby after she killed it, and it's because she didn't want it to affect her lifestyle."
The schoolDespite criticism from former students like Lake, Ludwig said the academy for troubled teens runs a "relationship-based" program that most students and parents praise.
"All we're trying to do is provide an inexpensive way to help keep their child safe and get an education," Ludwig said of the school, where tuition runs around $3,000 a month, but can be as low as $500 monthly with a need-based scholarship. "We love kids, and that's why we do this."
Ludwig, a former San Diego police officer, described the school's religious affiliation as "mainstream" Christian.
"Even our Christian doctrine is, we don't force it on anyone," he said. "We're really mainstream, normal Christian people."
Ludwig said claims that students are force-fed or have to do manual labor are untrue. Those accusations have sprouted up on Internet websites in the wake of the Bradford story.
"We do not use food as discipline, ... we do not use corporal punishment," he said. "We never use human rights as discipline."
Instead, students are disciplined based on "positivity," Ludwig said, like writing down resolutions to their misbehavior, such as "I will show more respect to authority."
But Lake, who said she attended the school's now-defunct Julian campus in Southern California until 2001, said she still feels traumatized by her year and a half there, and it was more psychologically stressful than anything.
"If you say anything while you're there negative about the program, then you're punished; if you say anything negative about your feelings, you're punished," she said. "It's like a cult, that's actually the only way I can describe it. You step out of the car, you're automatically greeted by someone who has you go in a bathroom with them and remove your clothes. It's like a cavity search. It's traumatic."
Lake said there was a "no-talk" policy sometimes in which students aren't allowed to speak to one another or staff.
Ludwig said the school does have a policy that requires students write down their questions or comments at times if they're not crucial.
"It teaches a child that you can't demand attention just because you are ready to complain," he said. "We're teaching them there's a time and place based on severity and importance. If you're sitting there working, it's annoying ... it's all about, 'Well, you've got to listen to me right now.' We're trying to teach them mutual respect."
But if there's a threatening situation, students can always vocally address staff members, he said.
Ludwig said the school is currently accredited through one agency whose name he couldn't immediately recall, and it's going through the process of accreditation with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. Alice Hauser, an administrative assistant with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges' Northern California office, said accreditation with her organization is the most credible.
"We're the ones that work hand in hand with the department of education for California," she said. "There's a lot of other accrediting agencies that don't mean anything ... as far as we see, they're not affiliated with anybody that we recognize."
The staffSome staff members at the academy, like Bradford, are former students. Ludwig said he wasn't sure how many of the Whitmore campus's roughly 30 staff members are former students, and he wouldn't comment on what kind of position Bradford held.
Jessica BradfordBut to him, the fact that a student would want to stay on as a staff member shows the success of the program, Ludwig said.
"They come back with the attitude of wanting to help because they got help," he said. "To me, I think that's kind of an encouragement."
Lake said she thinks staff members are frequently hired because they've already gone through the program and are easy to control — and that's "a major red flag."
"It's almost like an insurance policy," she said. "They bend to his will, and they haven't been arguing about it. I think it's absolutely dangerous."
Bradford entered the academy at 17 and was hired upon graduating, according to the Shasta County Sheriff's Office. Lake said she thinks former students might also be hired after graduation because they'll work for less money than older employees would.
An ad posting on christianjobs.com lists a "house parent" position at the Whitmore campus as paying $9.25 an hour. The posting doesn't list any specific job requirements, though the ad does say applicants must consent to a background check.
"We ask that our staff be spiritually mature with great communication skills and be especially willing and able to listen. Staff need to have a heart for this kind of ministry. We want them to provide the love and support the students need while maintaining the discipline and accountability required," the ad reads.
Ludwig said his average staff member is 28 years old, and some have master's degrees of education or counseling. All have to go through a background check with the state justice department, he said.
But some things, like Jessica Bradford's situation, just can't be anticipated, he said.
"Who's going to predict that? This girl kept this so secretive her mother and her boyfriend didn't even know," he said. "It's not going to catch everything."
There isn't a requirement for employees to undergo any kind of psychological evaluation, he said.
Still, Ludwig, who lives in Orange County, said he has "complete confidence" that staff members run things soundly in his absence. He said he visits the campus for a training program for seven to 10 days a month.
"We are doing it right, and I'm confident in that based on our history and our background," he said.
The secrecyWebsites affiliated with the school, including teenrescue.com, its parent organization founded by Ludwig, haven't been running since Bradford's arrest. Links say "Down for maintenance" or "Not found."
The school's Facebook and Myspace pages are blank or private. One Facebook page for the group offers the school's Wikipedia profile as its only public information.
Other websites with information on the school refer questions to a 1-800 number in Chino, where Teen Rescue is rooted.
The school, which has been in Shasta County for around three years, isn't listed on Google Maps or in the phone book. It's tucked away in the foothills of Whitmore, some 50 miles from downtown Redding.
Ludwig said the secrecy surrounding the school is an effort to protect students from the situations that got them there in the first place.
The teens, who already have gone through troubled pasts, have had to deal with even more strife since Bradford's arrest, he said. They've been visited by a counselor to cope with the "awful, horrendous tragedy."
He said the focus should be on supporting them, and it doesn't make sense that people wouldn't have spoken out about alleged abuse at the school before now if it really happened.
"I can't get my head around how it's shifted from this tragedy to making themselves the victim," he said. "To crucify us in the press, to me, tells us the validity of the stories."
But Lake said she knows other people who had traumatic experiences at Julian, and they're afraid of the consequences of complaining.
"We get conditioned, like we can't say anything because ... we just want to graduate and be done with it. It's not necessarily textbook abusive, (but) I think it's still dangerous ..." she said. "I always get dismissed as a troublesome, disgruntled student. I'm not a disgruntled student, I'm a woman who has looked back at an issue that happened in her childhood and has spoken out about it."
© 2011 Record Searchlight.