(CMR) Seven American boys who were attending a school in Jamaica for troubled teens were reportedly removed from the institution by Jamaican authorities following allegations of abuse.
The school was started by an American and is reportedly registered in the US despite having a location in Jamaica.
According to NBC News, the boys are being held in the custody of Jamaican child welfare authorities more than six weeks after they were pulled from the Atlantis Leadership Academy in Treasure Beach, St Elizabeth.
The school is advertised as a faith-based institution serving teenagers who are struggling with substance abuse, anxiety disorders, and defiant behavior.
According to the email, which a parent shared with NBC News, the Jamaican Child Protection and Family Services Agency said it received information that children at the program “were being mistreated, amounting to abuse,” and as a result, had removed the boys. The agency planned to work with state child protection services to return the boys to the US.
NBC reported that the children are being held in Jamaican group homes, according to attorneys working on their behalf.
In a letter to parents, Randall Cook, the program’s director at Atlantis, said: “With our reputation and transparency, no one could believe something like this could have occurred, nor that we are in any way an abusive organization.”
Tarah Fleischman, 59, whose special needs son, Cody, is among the boys pulled from the academy, told NBC News that she is frustrated by the long wait to bring her son home to Wisconsin and upset by the mistreatment she alleges her son faced there.
Cody (16), who is diagnosed with Tourette syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and ADHD, arrived at Atlantis last May and has lost a significant amount of weight since then, she told NBC News. Fleischman was not allowed to speak to Cody while he was at Atlantis, but she was able to see him for about an hour last week, and he told her that he had been beaten at the school, according to Fleischman and an advocate who was present.
NBC News said this situation has alarmed youth rights advocates who previously raised concerns that many facilities that are part of the so-called troubled teen industry in the US operate with limited oversight. That has allowed abuse to go unchecked for years in some schools before authorities intervene. State and local agencies have even less oversight when children are sent abroad.
According to its website, Atlantis Leadership Academy is “an affordable, structured Boarding Academy serving young men who possess strong leadership skills, though they’ve taken some wrong turns in their lives.”
Cook, an American who previously worked as a consultant for troubled teen programs domestically, established the school in 2016 and registered it as a business in Idaho. Records show the program charged parents as much as $9,800 a month in tuition and said it would take in boys that others had rejected, NBC News reported.
On February 8th, the Child Protection and Family Services Agency removed the boys from the school. A week later, a judge in Jamaica denied the program's request to return them. An email from the U.S. Embassy to parents stated that the judge had ordered the school to turn over the students' belongings.
At the most recent court hearing, on March 15, the abuse allegations were reportedly not discussed, and the judge ordered another hearing to take place in April.
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