Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

Steve Rookie was intense when students "ran their anger" in raps at CEDU Rocky Mountain Academy.  He would say, "Yeah, yeah, let it all out" or something similar.

Steve one time made a kid cry by screaming James Brown yelps and "YEAH"s at him for 45 minutes straight. "DO YOU LIKE JAMES BROWN AS MUCH AS I DO? WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT JAMES BROWN WHEN YOUR FRIEND'S MOTHER IS DEAD!?" Purely to fuck with his head. he's a power hungry creep.

No, it doesn't really matter but considering Steve lived on campus at Monarch, brought his wife and children to the main lodge every day, would go cross country skiing with his wife and baby around kids' work assignments and mock them on his days "off" and was an all around creep, I have no problem making fun of him. It's not like he ever realized my personal life was none of his business.

I was talking to a student that attended Steve's new program and got some details about the place.
He said this:

"It was weird dude, students basically lived with Steve and his family at their house, with a little dorm type deal attached. We would work on his garden, i went to college so i was at school during the week. no drugs, alcohol or tobacco. u could get a job, if u wanted to hang out with a girl or someone opposite sex then u had to bring them to the house to meet Steve, fucking awkward. we had a bit of money (student account) and could buy stuff appropriated by Steve w/ receipts. u could have a car there. Restrictions and consequences mainly consisted of losing spending privileges, not being able to leave the house, shit like that, haha oh yeah no dessert every now and then. and we did do some introductory avatar courses, i really didn't understand that shit, exploring consciences or what not, weird shit."

it sounds like Steve was in even more of the 'dad' position that he took so much at Monarch. Does anyone know if Master of the Universe or something like that is related to avatar courses? he used to call himself that ALL THE TIME. I can't believe you had to bring people BACK to that place. i bet no one had a girlfriend or boyfriend long.

What about info about living conditions, the so-called schooling, possible level system, description of the types the punishments used by the program?`

Living Conditions:
There are male and female dorms on opposite sides of campus. Each dorm has a Dorm Head, they are in charge of the typically 4 other students in the dorm. Everything in the dorms must be left exceptionally clean every morning before leaving the dorm. The dorms are then checked by a higher level student and they see if they can find 3 things wrong with the dorm (pants not folded into thirds, sheets not pulled up over top of comforter, shoes not lined up, toilet tissue not folded into a little triangle at the tip for ease of tugging) then the dorm is in. If the dorm in question is found messy by the designated dorm checker the whole dorm or a single student  of being called out and humiliated in front of the entire school at a meal time. Most dorms shared a bathroom with another dorm. They were in the same building connected by a shared bathroom with 3 shower stalls and 3 toilet stalls. every Saturday we were made to deep clean the entire campus and staff members would come in and inspect every square inch of the dorm. Curtis Foster (a peer group leader) repeatedly made me clean the toilets with my comet, a rag and my bare hands, insisting that I get my hand down the flush hole as far as I could so I could get it all clean as he stood over me and watched.

So-Called Schooling
School takes place Monday, Wednesday and Friday. there are 3 classes every school day and you are able to get through your credits faster there because of the schooling through the summer and the shorter terms. Also at night you were required to sign up for 2 creative arts classes. so you were technically taking 5 classes all while learning nothing. the school work there was incredibly easy and dumbed down. the staff that had attemped to revamp the School half of Monarch School quit out of frustration because all of the focus was on the "emotional growth" cirriculum.
when we weren't going to school (which was all but 9 hours per week) we would work in work crews or on our own if we were in trouble. we would attend group sessions twice per week, (each was 2.5 hours long) where students and staff alike would get their scream on at each other. (more specifically would verbally abuse one another and themselves sometimes for the entire duration of the group). we were forced to say things like "i tell myself I'm stupid, ITMI not good enough ITMI [negative this or that specific to the person] (fat, ugly, unwanted, etc.)

Level systems
I don't remember the level systems very well as I only got to 2. not that I wasn't there for a long time, most kids were on level 4 or 5 by that point, I got dropped 2 peer groups and my stay was suddenly going to be 26 months long. luckily I got out after 15 long months, but alas to another fucking place, this time in Utah.

Punishment
The types punishments were immense. I had to dig out a stump that weighed around a ton by myself, I was not allowed to talk to, look at or even acknowledge any of my peers even staff members besides the headmaster Tim Earle and my Peer Group Leader Sarah Loseman for about a week or two at one point. I was usually restricted to talking to only certain students during my time there, they would put me on bans from my friends just to break me down.
The biggest punishment for me though was having to go through the workshops again when they dropped me from my original peergroup. I had to go through all of the brainwashing, boundary breaking and physical and emotional abuse all over again. they would also take away whatever was important to you (guitar, art, books, knitting - you name it) just to keep you down.

We were not allowed to do anything "out of agreement". "out of agreement" or OOA was just monarch bullshit for "against the rules". There was no actual list of what was in or out of agreement, it was just based on what Tim Earle said, but mostly on what the other asshole students and staff would hold you to when you were around them. so pretty much all music was OOA and talking about it, playing it on an instrument, humming, singing or even casually referencing it would get people on your ass instantly saying "you can't say/play/hum/sing/think that". anything out of agreement we did we were supposed to remember and write down on an "OOA list" any time we were asked to do so, so we could then make up for everything on that list by doing "consequences" like doing dishes or digging out stumps.


the real thing they didn't want anyone to talk about were the insights or workshops. these were the same as all of the other cedu type school workshops just with different names. they would lose it if you were to share what happened in the insights. I even found an insight manual one time for the 3rd insight called Unity. I think this is the equivalent of the "friends" workshop but i'm not sure. there was a whole bunch of talk about "no man is an island" and stuff. they have since stopped doing the workshops and from what I have heard (which isn't much) they do group 3 times per week.

if there is any other information on this shithole that would be helpful please let me know as I would be glad to help as well as ask around about it.

I happened to be in Sarah Loseman's peer group and had Curtis Foster seek me out over other kids to bully. He always wanted to let kids know who was boss. I remember being grasped on the neck many times by Mr. Foster. He was always talking about how he was a family man and how he loved his wife, (who later came to work as the person who approved incoming clothing for the students) and children and would always let people know how "sensitive" he was. Since I was there for about 15 months I was constantly around him and may not be the best judge about his character but he's definitely NOT a pedophile. He would always talk about his old jobs and how violent everyone was with kids. I also know from his life story (everyone was required to constantly tell their life story, at least once per week, staff included somewhat) that he has problems with being violent. During 'Insights' known as workshops in most other schools Curtis would often be the main staff facilitating and when it came to physical or emotional boundaries there were none. In one particular workshop staff would force kids on their hands and knees while having 4 other students push down on their back too and yell at them "THIS IS ALL OF THE PRESSURE FROM YOUR FAMILY, FRIENDS, ARE YOU GOING TO CHOOSE TRUTH OR DEATH?" that was a big thing in that workshop, they would tell you that life was black and white, that living in gray areas would lead back to our negative behaviors and then they would polarize "truth" and "death" as if there was no other way to get through the insight without being fully honest and forward, forcing kids (who have been up screaming and hitting pillows for the past 12 hours with little to no sleep) to come out and confess everything that they have done wrong and every rule they had broken.
Now Sarah Loseman, She was my peer group leader until I got broken down and told confessed to all of the rules I had broken. which was enough to have me dropped not just one peer group but two, extending my stay to 26 months, potentially the longest stay of anyone at monarch. She called me into the staff office after telling me this awful news and proceeded to call my parents in front of me and explain why this was best for me and my therapy. they had the parents wrapped around their finger, before every parent campus visit the staff including the headmaster Tim Earle and owner Patrick McKenna (stambursky [sp?]) would groom the parents into not believing all of the horrible stories we would tell them about group and the staff members screaming at us and forcing us to do arbitrary hard work like pulling stumps out of the ground. It was all part of our therapy and it was all part of Monarch School: Education for Life.

I hear Monarch is stopping the workshops from now on, possibly group as well!

Gateway Academy in Draper Utah. I also went to Three Rivers Wilderness in Bozeman, Montana which was the least ridiculous place.