Troubled Times for ‘Tough Love’

In this tiny hamlet nestled in the red canyons of southwestern Utah, the biggest business is in a sprawling, vinyl-sided building whose doors are carefully locked. Inside are some 350 youths whose parents desperately want them to change.

Cross Creek Academy is a private school for troubled teens, an institution that tries to turn its pupils away from drugs, alcohol, gangs, sex and other forms of dangerous and destructive behavior. The owners say they succeed the vast majority of the time -- a view echoed by many of the parents.

“Our success comes from ... trying to reunite families in a whole and working environment, and I think we have been successful in doing that,” said Ken Kay, president of the umbrella organization that represents Cross Creek.

But there is another view of what goes on behind the closed gates and screened windows at Cross Creek and at the 10 other institutions in the United States and overseas belonging to the organization that Kay heads, the World Wide Assn. of Specialty Programs and Schools, or WWASPS.

Some parents have charged that the for-profit schools market themselves as “tough-love” oases for troubled youths but are badly run institutions that mistreat their students and leave deep emotional scars. The parents have spoken out angrily in interviews, in their lawsuits, in court testimony and on Web sites.

One drama played out last summer in a courtroom in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. Acting on a petition filed by a concerned aunt, Virginia Circuit Judge Michael Moore ordered the removal of the woman’s 12-year-old nephew from the WWASPS school in Jamaica after hearing graphic student testimony about abusive discipline, filthy living conditions and poor medical treatment at the facility.

Recently, dozens of teenagers fled the association’s school in Costa Rica when it was raided by local authorities. The school’s owner was put in jail overnight, and Costa Rican prosecutor Fernando Vargas said the facility would be investigated for alleged human rights abuses.

Other schools associated with WWASPS have been shut down in Mexico and the Czech Republic. Police closed the Czech school after receiving reports that the American children there were being tortured and illegally incarcerated.

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A Major Player

For private ventures catering to troubled teenagers in America, business seemingly has never been better. Some 400 such educational enterprises -- which range from boot camps and wilderness programs to locked-door facilities -- exist in the United States, and the field is growing so fast it is often dubbed the “Wild West” of education.

These schools, which employ novel educational techniques, are subject to far less official scrutiny than state-financed ones because they are private.

Even for schools recruiting most of their students from other states, there is little federal oversight.

“There are more federal regulations governing the interstate transport of chickens than children,” said John Lawrence, Democratic staff director of the House Education and Workforce Committee.

WWASPS is clearly among the major players in the tough-love field. The WWASPS network has nearly 2,300 students, whose parents pay from $30,000 to $45,000 in annual fees.

WWASPS schools are the “biggest kids on the block,” says Lon Woodbury, an independent education consultant in Idaho who conducts an annual survey to determine the top-rated tough-love schools. “The criticism I’m hearing about WWASPS I’m not hearing to the same extent about the others,” Woodbury said.

“We understand that anything that is worth doing, anything that is innovative, anything that stretches out there and looks for new territory, is controversial,” said Kay, the WWASPS president. “We just recognize the fact that we are going to have more controversy than anyone else because, as far as I know, we are the largest.”

According to records from the Utah secretary of state’s office, the association was incorporated as a nonprofit corporation on Jan. 8, 1998, with Kay as president and trustee. Kay said WWASPS furnishes marketing and support services for its affiliated schools, which are independently owned and operated. The association headquarters is in an office park in St. George, Utah, about 20 miles from the Cross Creek complex in La Verkin.

“We are a membership organization that doesn’t own any of the programs or affiliates that we have,” Kay said.

However, some government officials who have looked into the association say it is part of a single, very profitable education empire, with Robert B. Lichfield of La Verkin, described in WWASPS’ incorporation papers as a corporate trustee, at its hub.

Lichfield said in an interview that a partnership he controls does own many of the school properties but leases them out to others to operate.

“I’m not interested in day-to-day [management] or in ownership of schools and programs at this point in my life, thank goodness,” he said. “Because I need to spend time with my own children.”

The total gross revenue of WWASPS-affiliated schools may approach $70 million a year, according to estimates based on the number of students and fees charged.

“They set it up so they are individual schools, but they all go back to Lichfield,” said Sgt. Brian Williamson, a policeman in Bullhead City, Ariz., who looked into WWASPS when plans were being made to open a school in his city. After the city attorney reported that it appeared students were to be kept under restraint, the Bullhead City Council in 2001 unanimously scuttled a plan to convert a bankrupt hotel and convention center into a WWASPS school.

WWASPS officials say they have salvaged the lives of thousands of teenagers who appeared to be on the road to prison or the cemetery. Only a small number of the youths have bad experiences, they say, and a recent parental survey by WWASPS found 98% of the respondents would recommend the schools to other parents.

“I don’t think you judge Disneyland by the four or five complaints they get every day ... about their rides or methods or whatever,” Lichfield said. “You have to look at the end results. And when you look at our results, they’re great.”

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New Methods

Gauging the long-term impact of tough-love methods is difficult because the field is so new. The first boot camps for misbehaving adolescents appeared in the mid-1980s. Some independent studies suggest that carrot-and-stick approaches to altering adolescent behavior in general produce no lasting benefits, while others say they are effective in the short term.

These “are brainwashing programs primarily, and brainwashing obviously works in some situations,” said Jerry Miller, a former state official in children’s affairs in Illinois, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

Drug problems, plummeting grades, gang membership, resistance to authority and a fascination with witchcraft are among the reasons cited by parents for enrolling sons or daughters in these schools. For an additional charge, a child can be spirited away to the schools by an “escort service.”

Among WWASPS supporters are parents such as Ron and Janet Tacy of Boca Raton, Fla., who sent their son to Tranquility Bay in Mandeville, Jamaica, after his grades went into free fall and he got into trouble because of heavy drug use. After 18 months, he returned home, suddenly eager to attend college.

“On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give this thing an 11,” said Ron Tacy, a former trucking company executive. “It’s clean; it’s loving. They care about kids.”

Added Janet Tacy: “It may not be for everyone, but it saved our son’s life. John’s a changed person.”

Another fan is Nancy Cole, a former borough assemblywoman from Fairbanks, Alaska, who has sent her son and daughter to Spring Creek Lodge Academy, the WWASPS-affiliated school in Thompson Falls, Mont.

“These are people who care about kids and show it emotionally,” Cole said. “This is a place where your child is appreciated, and even loved, for who he is.”

But the combination of troubled teens and desperate -- but often vocal and affluent -- parents also has proved to be a combustible mix, leading in some cases to feelings of bitterness and betrayal when the program doesn’t live up to expectations.

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Families File Suit

Lawsuits alleging abuse and neglect of students have been filed against WWASPS by families in Utah and other states. According to the clerk’s office at the U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, four federal lawsuits against WWASPS, member schools, Lichfield, Kay and other codefendants are pending. WWASPS and its codefendants have successfully defended themselves in one similar suit, and three others have been dismissed, court records show.

“We have not lost a lawsuit that I have been aware of,” Kay said. WWASPS schools have refunded tuition to some unhappy families, he said, but never paid a penny more.

In what appears to be an escalation in tactics by angry parents, a Los Angeles law firm, Huron Law Group, sent out e-mails and faxes last month to gather information from families for a possible class-action lawsuit against WWASPS. Henry I. Bushkin, an attorney with the Century City firm, did not reply to a telephone request for an interview.

One problem with techniques used at WWASPS schools, some education professionals say, is that tough-love methods only aggravate deep emotional problems in some children. And these schools may have neither the trained personnel nor the sophisticated screening methods to determine which practices will work on which children, those professionals contend.

Janet Greenwood, an independent education consultant from Tampa, Fla., said she will no longer recommend WWASPS schools to her clients because “they’d take any kid we have and just look for an empty bed.”

Woodbury, the education consultant who is a former teacher and runs a Web site on schools for troubled teens, said: “You get a kid who is ready to tip over mentally and put him in a tough-love facility, and he’s going to freak out.”

WWASPS says its affiliates welcome parental visits and are proud to show off what they do. It arranged limited access for a Los Angeles Times reporter and photographer at its Cross Creek facilities but declined a similar request for Tranquility Bay in Jamaica.

Sixteen years ago, Lichfield opened the first of what would become the WWASPS complex in La Verkin with an investment of $8,000. Today, the association’s affiliates include 11 schools in four states and three foreign countries, with start-up ventures near Keokuk, Iowa, and Porterville, Calif., that Lichfield said have applied for WWASPS membership.

According to the association’s literature, its programs are based on a structured daily schedule, individualized academic instruction, emotional growth and development courses, and health and physical fitness programs. It uses a system of graduated rewards and punishments designed to help children shed bad or self-destructive habits.

Accredited by the Northwest Assn. of Schools and of Colleges and Universities, WWASPS schools issue diplomas to graduates completing the program and say their alumni have gone on to Harvard, the California State University system and other institutions of higher education.

Some families, however, say they have had trouble getting other secondary schools to accept credit for study at a WWASPS affiliate after transferring their child.

Officials of the Boise, Idaho-based Northwest Assn. stress they cannot vouch for the effectiveness of the WWASPS behavior-modification techniques. “Their educational programs are accredited by us, not their treatment programs,” said David G. Steadman, executive director.

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Touring Cross Creek

During a recent tour of Cross Creek, the 133 male and 216 female students, clad in blue and khaki uniforms, were studying in separate classrooms. Dormitory rooms equipped with bunk beds looked clean and spartan, if somewhat worn.

There were two small “acting-out rooms” -- the floor of one covered with ragged carpet. Former students say it is in those rooms that unruly or disobedient children are disciplined.

In the school’s gymnasium, a sobbing girl sat with her back against the wall as a female staff member ordered other students to keep away.

“This place has helped me,” said Victoria, 17, of Jackson, Miss., a Cross Creek student who said she was suicidal before being enrolled. She was among a group of teenage girls selected by the school that The Times was allowed to interview on condition no last names be printed.

Another student was more skeptical. “If you don’t want to change, these programs can’t make you,” said Robin, 16, of Las Vegas. Hearing that, Victoria said, “Maybe one out of five it helps.”

Brochures about the schools published by WWASPS use lush photographs and glowing descriptions, but some disillusioned former students and parents say they found the schools to be near-prisons, with living conditions miserable and promises not kept.

In the Tazewell, Va., courtroom where Moore heard the case involving the 12-year-old, former students at Tranquility Bay in Jamaica described a world where breakfast consisted of stale crackers, bathrooms contained leech-filled puddles, and staff members sold marijuana to students. Moore said he had no reason to believe the students weren’t telling the truth.

Among those who testified at the hearing was Lindsey Wise, 18, who spent a total of 31 months at Cross Creek Manor and Tranquility Bay after defying her parents and using drugs. She said that if a boy or girl wrote anything negative about the schools or the WWASPS regimen in a letter home, he or she was punished.

Many times, Wise said, she was “placed under restraint” -- made to lie on the floor with her arms bent back by a staff member and a knee dug deeply into her back.

When she and other students at Tranquility Bay complained of the lack of sports, the director ordered them to perform 5,000 jumping jacks, 3,000 crunches and 200 pushups three times a day. “If we failed to complete them,” she said in testimony, “we were restrained.”

Feeling miserable, she said, she began obeying the rules and finally managed to graduate. Despite the claims of parental satisfaction from WWASPS, she estimated only 30% of the children enrolled make it all the way through the program -- an estimate Lichfield confirmed.

One student at Tranquility Bay died shortly after arriving there in 2001 after plunging from a balcony. Police said the death of the 17-year-old Alabama girl was probably a suicide.

J.J. Buckley, a Miami teenager who spent nine months at the Jamaica school, left after his mother arrived with an armed bodyguard to remove him. He said he had been surprised at first when he heard students screaming at all hours of the night. But the screams soon became a mere nuisance, and “after a couple of months, you say, ‘Why doesn’t that person shut up,’ ” Buckley told The Times.

Michael James “Romeo” Perry attended Casa by the Sea, the WWASPS school in Ensenada, Mexico, where he was struck by its contrast to the benign atmosphere of Boys Town, the famous outpost for troubled youth in Nebraska that he also attended. “Upon arrival [at Casa by the Sea], I was told it was a resort for a kid to go water-skiing,” Perry said in court testimony. “That’s not true.”

Perry, now 20, was testifying in February at his own trial in Conroe, Texas, where he was charged with murdering a 50-year-old woman in her home before stealing her red Camaro in October 2001. He is now on death row, prisoner No. 999444, awaiting execution by lethal injection.

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Closed in Costa Rica

One school that has come under particularly harsh accusations is the Dundee Ranch Academy in Orotina, Costa Rica, run by Lichfield’s brother Narvin. In May, Costa Rican authorities jailed the younger Lichfield for 24 hours on suspicion of detaining students against their will and human rights violations, among other charges. After his release, Narvin Lichfield announced he was closing the school indefinitely. He was barred by a judge from leaving Costa Rica for six months while investigators continued their probe.

Amberly Knight, a former director of Dundee Ranch, said in an interview that staff members regularly abused the students, including forcing them to stand, kneel, sit or lie on a concrete floor eight hours a day. She also detailed her claims in a letter to Costa Rican authorities.

“The purpose of Dundee Ranch is not to help teens in crisis or their families, it is to make millions of dollars for the owner,” said Knight, who resigned last August. “This is achieved by hiring unqualified, untrained staff, providing the bare minimum of food and living essentials and adding huge margins to additional services.”

According to Vargas, the Costa Rican prosecutor, some of the 200 teens at Dundee Ranch complained they were being treated worse than if they were in a prison.

When local officials arrived to investigate, many of the students went on a rampage, smashing windows and destroying computers.

Kay, the WWASPS president, accused authorities in the Central American nation of undermining the staff’s authority and fomenting the riot.

“Imagine a government official going to any public high school and telling the students they didn’t have to follow the rules or mind their teachers, and they would not be held responsible, punished or arrested,” Kay said in an e-mail to parents. “That is what happened.”

Despite the controversies, the WWASPS network has continued to expand. In Iowa, a school is set to open near Keokuk in a former county mental health facility purchased by the Lichfield partnership for $475,000, according to Lee County, Iowa, officials.

In California, Lichfield said, he has leased a building near Porterville in Tulare County that may become another WWASPS school, but the project has run into regulatory roadblocks.

The expansion shows how deep the need is for these kinds of facilities, he said, adding that the schools are doing the Lord’s work at a time when America’s moral fabric is fraying and its families are under increasing stress.

“We are here because teenagers today are faced with more problems than at any other time in the history of the world, in my opinion,” Lichfield said. “We are dealing with things that are so unbelievable.... And these kids are lacking a central character model, character insights and character values.”

Lichfield added: “Do I believe that God is interested in finding a way for them to get help? I do. Do I believe that Satan is interested in thwarting it? I do.”

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Times staff writers Shawn Hubler in American Canyon, Calif., and T. Christian Miller in Bogota, Colombia; special correspondent Auriana Koutnik in San Jose, Costa Rica; and researcher Anna M. Virtue in Miami contributed to this report.