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Thursday, April 14, 2005

CEDU Closing: George Locker's Criticisms

I am following the CEDU collapse closely, which some find a mystery. I do not.
This bankruptcy is more about child abuse than it is about cash flow.--George Locker

CEDU's collapse comes as no surprise

An Editorial from George Locker. Posted: Sunday, Apr 10, 2005 - 10:03:10 am PDT

George Locker from New York, who filed his suit in September of last year, explained "there are a number of lawsuits pending in San Bernardino County, and also in Idaho. In Idaho, a group of parents and children allege a pattern of neglect and abuse at two CEDU facilities, one of which closed soon after that lawsuit was commenced. "As the truth has emerged about CEDU," Locker stated, "it simply became unviable."

George Locker wrote the following letter to the editor:

 

I am following the CEDU collapse closely, which some find a mystery. I do not.

This bankruptcy is more about child abuse than it is about cash flow. If you look at the bankruptcy filing, you will see $1 million for assorted lawyers and $500,000 for settlements. Why so much money?' Brown/CEDU was doing bad things to kids, in Texas, in Idaho, in California, and many parents were (and are) suing.

Brown, apparently, was not using its liability insurance, but was hiring its own expensive defense attorneys and entering into costly settlements (all now wiped out), no doubt subject to non-disclosure clauses. Brown's/CEDU's practices were beginning to catch up with them.

Brown/CEDU first made, and then lost, a lot of money isolating kids in remote locations. These isolation practices, which in my view are abhorrent, are illegal in California, but apparently, not in Idaho. It is the heart of the Brown/CEDU program.

Parents who can't or won't work with their kids, and the educational consultants who feed off their desperation, are attracted to places like CEDU that enforce isolation of parent from child. These so-called "emotional growth" schools are a cynical and sordid industry, which cries out for federal regulation.

I am the father of a then 13-year-old girl, who was forced to spend 4 months isolated at CEDU's Running Springs facility in 2003. I am also a plaintiff in a lawsuit against CEDU in California. At the Running Springs facility, which was a profit center for Brown, over a period of years CEDU engaged in outrageous conduct and wholesale violation of the children's rights. Examples of state-issued citations include 40 cases of child-on-child sexual abuse, with full staff awareness and no staff intervention or reporting; bread, cheese and water meals for three days in a closet, as a routine punishment.

On average, one child a week ran away from the Running Springs campus, which is 6.000 feet up in the San Bernardino mountains.  One child who disappeared in February 2004 has yet to be found:  Daniel Ted Yuen

Why did the educational consultants recommend and praise such a place? That is a more important question than why CEDU went bankrupt.

In mid-February 2005, after months of investigation by police and social service officials in California, citations were served on CEDU its cross-the-board policy of:

  • denying and monitoring the children's phone calls,
  • censoring and limiting their mail,
  • limiting and disrupting parental visits,
  • failing to have any 'needs and services' plans,
  • enrolling kids without mandated first visits,
  • engaging in out of state transfers that bypassed children's homes, etc.'

Dr. George Condas, the last director of CEDU, implemented all of this unlawful policy at Running Springs. He has not been quoted in any of the coverage.

In March 10, 2005 Non-Compliance conference, California Department of Social Services, Community Care Licensing Division, ordered CEDU to change its isolation and enrollment practices at once. The citations and the extent of the abuses would have become known.

The Teacher's Fund (TIAA-CREFF)  and other investors, which previously may or may not have known the extent of Brown/CEDU's unlawful conduct in California, the quantity of past and future litigation, and the recurring charges of abusive and negligent behavior toward children, could not afford to be associated with such a business. Perhaps this is why chapter 7 dissolution was chosen rather than chapter 11 reorganization.

GEORGE LOCKER
New York, N.Y.

George Locker is a real estate attorney in New York City:
George S. Locker Attorney at Law
100 Park Avenue Suite 1600
New York, New York 10017 T
el. (212) 496-0593
Fax (212) 496-9857

George Locker filed suit, on his own behalf and his daughter's,  against CEDU and its parent, The Brown Schools, on Septebmer 20,2004, in Los Angeles Superior Court.  The girl, then 13, attended Cedu's middle school program and lived on the campus near Lake Arrowhead from August 2003 to January 2004.  He is alleging false imprisonment of his daughter, violation of her rights to liberty and privacy, and false advertisement among other complaints.  The source of the rights violation is that  school officials blocked contact between them.

"CEDU deceives parents,' Locker said during a telephone interview from his home. "It holds itself up as this wonderful place and it's not. It's a despicable place.'

Locker said his daughter's mail was read by CEDU employees, his weekly phone calls to his daughter were screened by school officials and he was not allowed to visit his daughter often. School policy allows for one monthly parental visit but parents cannot visit the school unannounced, Locker said. He added that his daughter was treated like a prisoner because her every move was controlled by school officials. "She still has nightmares and becomes extremely sad when she remembers her time there," Locker said. He said his daughter was placed at the school without his consent by his former wife.

George Condas, vice president of operations for Cedu, declined to comment, saying school officials cannot comment on ongoing lawsuits. Locker said Cedu School officials kept him from talking to his daughter. "It's a horrible feeling,' Locker said, "It's like when you go down to the mall and you realize your child isn't there by your side, and you get that gut feeling, and all you want to do is find your child. That's how I felt for four and a half months.'

I still think that MDC purchased Brown, and had Brown purchase CEDU, thinking both were cash cows.   Somebody blew the due diligence on pending litigation,  the actual value of the real property, and the risk of the income stream diminishing.

CEDU Posts

Related Posts:

Questions Parents Should Consider Before Placing A Child

Thursday, April 14, 2005 at 05:33 PM in Education: Therapeutic And Proprietary Schools |

Tags: CEDU, struggling teens, WWASPS

Comments

Alison M.

Hi Mr. Locker, I don't know if this page is ever checked, but I stumbled upon it when searching online to see what had happend to the Cedu facilities since closing. I am not sure if this page is ever checked, but I wanted to say that it is a comfort to know that there are people speaking out against the Cedu program. I was sent to Cedu for a duration of seven months just a year and a half ago (I was 17). I had come from another much less oppressive and restrictive emotional growth type of school (The Grove School in Conn.) when I arrived, due to some, honestly minor, mistakes which freaked the school out and led my mother to send me there. I had worked for years on the problems that had originally gotten me to an emotional growth school and had significantly matured, developed insight, and stabilized in that time (I was sent at 13). Cedu was, as my father (also an attorney, along with my mother) said, significantly parallel to communist governments and was, as I said, extremely oppressive. Now I know that's a little dramatic, but I felt strongly for the first time that I was being isolated under the control of corrupt people. They treated me from the get-go like I was a criminal, although I was extremely well-behaved (only received one 'restriction' there, no doubt for some ridiculous purpose that I can't even remember), and insisted (going with the assumption that I was a kid that was going down the wrong path in life) that everything I had improved and every new aspiration and goal I had set, starting anew years before, was incorrect and that I was too "sick" to see it. In short, they started to reverse my progress. Being used to being under the strict rule of others, I made my head hard and I rolled with the punches. I pretended to understand, but did not want to be involved in their teachings that, especially since I was already insightful and that made several of them angry, attacked me, discredited my progress and, in short, brainwashed people. Yes, I'd say that basically, CEDU was a brainwashing program. Those who stayed for two years basically had to succumb to their idiosyncratic notions and ideas of how one should conduct oneself each day. It made itself out to be magical and useful in acheiving dreams, but that is honestly a load of crap. My phone calls were monitored, mail from my stepbrother was thrown away before I could read it, lies were told, atrocious punishments were implemented, personal viewpoints were discounted, and negociation with students was not a concept they were at all familiar with. I think CEDU started as a noble program, but it fell fast. It requires a very delicate balance to efficiently carry out it's purpose in helping kids, which, first and foremost, requires the hiring of very qualified people, as well as caring. This was not done, especially as I'd see the middle school students being restrained by untrained staff. There were unjust things going on, i.e., the rule that we can call social services (or whoever it was) whenever and wherever we found it necessary, but were indirectly punished if it really ever happend, and had to hear from others constantly about how 'magical' and 'beneficial' it was to people's kids. We could not object, and, if we did, we were discredited- for clearly we, the sick delinquents, were too caught in our dwindling lifestyles to understand the degree to which they were helping us. Anyhow, after 7 months I was finally pulled out and was able to (finally!) attend a local public school (in vermont, near my home), graduate, and go to college in Los Angeles (Loyola Marymount Univ.- with no help from cedu, who encouraged my parents to forbid me from applying to college so that I could receive the full and beneficial Cedu 'education'). I know a majority of the staff hired were not evil, and were rather oblivious to what was going on,which was very much the problem. Others had their own personal issues-and they came in bundles. These issues greatly affected the way they viewed us and often we were the butt of their own mental breakdowns. Never had I been so terrified in my life. My life is now quite successful, and I am generally happy. However, like your daughter, I often have terrible nightmares and post-trauma that I cannot kick. Thoughts of that dark place often lurk through my mind, and I am sometimes so consumed by them that I burst into tears and break down. I feeel that visiting the place will perhaps help me overcome this, but I do not know if that is possible. Anyhow, I would love to hear your responses to any of this, and I just wanted to say that it is nice to have someone validating those of us who suffered. You are one in a growing number. I am quite sorry for your daughter too; going through cedu at such a young age, even for the duration of 4 months, must have been terrifying& scarring. I hope she is doing well and getting on with her life, as I do the rest of the people who have had to suffer through cedu. Warmest regards, Alison May

Posted by: Alison M. | Wednesday, June 14, 2006 at 12:45 AM

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