FAMILIES FIGHTING TO CLOSE THAYER
By Ray Scherer
[email protected]Mothers of two former students at the Thayer Learning Center near Kidder, Mo., vow to support shutting down the military-style boot camp for teenagers.
Thayer has been at the center of controversy since opening its doors in 2002. A California couple, Gracia and Victor Reyes, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Buchanan County in early February, claiming their son, 15-year-old Roberto Reyes, didn't receive medical care in a timely manner last fall. Roberto died less than a week after enrolling at Thayer, with a state child fatality review panel initially ruling his death resulted from a brown recluse spider bite. State officials continue to investigate circumstances around Roberto's death, with a report by a state legal team in the Missouri Department of Social Services still pending.
Thayer officials said they6 have been cooperating with the state in the investigations, but have so far declined to speak about the Reyes' lawsuit or the complaints.
The fact that someone died while in the facility's care has served to deepen the cause of parents who assert their children were mistreated at Thayer.
Many people around the country, such as Joanie Nations of Henderson, Texas, decided the school was the last resort to instill discipline in her 13-year-old son, Anthony. She enrolled him in Thayer last summer to the tune of $47,000.00 in tuition.
"I thought I was seeing it all, but it turned out I proably wasn't," Ms. NAtions said of her personal research into the center's offerings. "I knew it would be tough, because it was a boot camp. I didn't do it for anything but love for him. Now there's a dead child.
A red flag came up when a Thayer official told her Anthony was suffering from what was a labeled a minor ear infection. But the supervisor failed to follow up on informing Ms. Nations of the treatment.
She received a phone call later from St. Joseph resident Tim Rocha, who was working at the center at the time. Mr Rocha had earlier told the News-Press the story of his own brief work experience at Thayer.
"You need to go and get your boy," she recalled Mr. Rocha saying in the conversation.
initially disbelieving, she eventually convinced herslef to make the 11-hour drive to rural Caldwell County to bring Anthony back home.
On the return trip to Texas, he told her the ear infection was more serious than what she was told, and that officials didn't remove him from the facility's daily regimen of exercise.
"He never got a moment to rest," Ms. Nations said.
The bloddy drainage from his ear soaked his pillow, and he was kept from using the restroom on other than assigned breaks despite drinking a large amount of water as ordered by camp leaders.
Ms. Nations said she's convinced that Thayer has other motives besides rehabilitating troubled youths. She is in the process os securing a publisher for a book she wrote on her son's experience and to express concern for studetns' welfare.
"They need to be shut and the people that run it need to be jailed," she said. "They're in it for the money."
Another mother, Karen VanZant of Seattle, also took it upon herself to learn more about Thayer after her ex-husband told her that he had enrolled their 16-year-old daughter Sarah, in the camp last summer.
"The more poking around I did, the more panic-stricken I got," Ms. VanZant said. "I was so frightened for my daughter that I asked my mother to drive down there. She was held at bay by a security guard."
When Ms. VanZant finally received a phone call from Sarah, months after not talking with her, the reports on Thayer were glowing. Sarah called Thayer co-founder Willa Bundy "the most wonderful person in the world," she said in recalling her daughter's words.
Willa Bundy owns the school along with her husband, John.
A former Thayer teacher, Connie Szczepanik of St. Joseph, said she witnessed abuse at the center last spring and was fired after receiving notes from a student that were to be passed on to the family. She hopes that eh facility will be forced to shut down and that officials face prosecution.
"It was misreprentsented to me completely," Ms. Szczepanik said of her before-and-after impressions of Thayer. "It was extremely negative. That poor young man had to die to bring it (abuses) to the surface. I hope somebody gets something done, finally."
Courtesy of Tim Rocha
