BY STACEY BARCHENGER AND ALAN GUSTAFSON • STATESMAN JOURNAL • APRIL 13, 2010
11/6/09
By Rachel Azevedo
http://kohd.com/news/local/148058
New developments related to the child abuse investigation into a therapeutic school for troubled teens east of Prineville. Mount Bachelor Academy's web site is now off line. When you type in the web address, you're directed to parent company, Aspen Educational Group. The state ordered the school to temporarily close Monday following nine substianted findings of child abuse and neglect.
Mount Bachelor Academy would not answer questions about a permanent closure, but did issue a revised statement Friday that says, quote:
"It is unfortunate that this one-of-a-kind program, which has been effective for so many, will no longer be available to teens and their families."
DHS has given the school 90 days to correct curriculum it found not in compliance with licensing standards. There are a dozen categories from behavior management to therapeutic services, all which list several corrective conditions.
"If those are not corrected satisfactorily within the time frame, then the agency will revoke Mount Bachelor Academy's license," said Gene Evans.
The school addressed findings by DHS that said students were forced to re-enact past trauma, both physical and sexual in nature.
Mount Bachelor Academy said, quote:
"It was designed to help kids confront the worst of their behaviors and take ownership of them, whether that be substance abuse, sexual acting out or other issues."
DHS says it sent its 200 page report to the Crook County Sheriff's Office Friday to review.
See also:
http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091020/NEWS0107/910200398/-1/RSSNEWSMAP
In an affidavit requesting a search warrant to seek documents and other evidence from SageWalk Wilderness School’s Southwest Obsidian Avenue office last month, Lake County Sheriff’s Deputy Chuck Poré wrote that he believes Sergey Blashchishen’s death was a homicide and the result of criminal mistreatment and reckless endangerment by the school.
The investigation into the death of a 16-year-old Portland boy who collapsed on a hike with a Redmond-based wilderness school this summer is focusing on reports that the boy may not have had proper nutrition and medical care before and during his hike through a remote area of northern Lake County.
No charges have been filed against SageWalk or any individuals, and the investigation is expected to continue for another few months.
But Poré said Monday that the information he gathered to make his case for a search warrant — including interviews with school staff members who said Blashchishen started showing signs of distress hours before anyone called 911 — are still pointing him in the direction of a crime.
“I have not changed my course from what I saw when I made the application for the search warrant,” Poré said.
Blashchishen died on Aug. 28. About two weeks later, SageWalk Executive Director Mike Bednarz said the Oregon Department of Human Services had ordered the school to send all of its students home.
On Sept. 14, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office executed the search warrant, taking more than 400 files and Blashchishen’s camping equipment.
On Monday, Bednarz said no students are currently at the school, but declined to comment further, citing the ongoing law enforcement and state Department of Human Services investigations.
Surprise pickup
SageWalk is one of a handful of wilderness schools in Central Oregon for teens dealing with emotional and behavioral issues or other problems, including substance abuse.
According to the affidavit, the boy’s mother, Lyudmila Blashchishen, wrote on a school form that her son was aggressive, sometimes rude and uninterested in studying or thinking about his future. On Aug. 26, Blashchishen’s parents enrolled him in SageWalk without his knowledge.
On Aug. 27, between 5:30 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., two “transporters” contracted by SageWalk woke Blashchishen at his home in Portland to take him to SageWalk, according to the affidavit. Blashchishen’s parents, who had been told to be away when their son was picked up, watched from a neighbor’s house.
Poré wrote in the affidavit that surprise early-morning pickups are a frequent occurrence for new SageWalk students.
Blashchishen arrived in Redmond around 9 a.m. and was later transported to a medical facility for blood tests and a drug screening, according to the affidavit. He tested positive for THC, a substance found in marijuana, but a staff member present for the testing said no additional questions were asked about Blashchishen’s drug use or his two-year cigarette smoking habit, which his mother had listed on a school medical history form.
Around 1 p.m., Blashchishen was blindfolded and put in a vehicle headed to the school’s base camp in Lake County. Around the area of Hampton Station, Blashchishen said he wanted the blindfold removed, and staff members agreed to take the blindfold off and let the boy lie in the back seat if he’d look only at the vehicle’s ceiling.
Blashchishen was never told where he was going or what would happen to him, according to the affidavit.
Once he arrived at camp, Blashchishen met other students. The conversation turned to drug use, and Blashchishen talked about purchasing the drug OxyContin.
Calorie count
The students later had a meal of rice and lentils. Though some students were allowed to ask for up to five cups of food, Blashchishen, as a newcomer, was offered just two, according to the affidavit.
DHS regulations for wilderness schools require all students to be offered no less than 3,000 calories of food per day.
Poré wrote that SageWalk staff members could not provide information about what else, if anything, Blashchishen ate before the meal of lentils and rice. He wrote that the boy could have had as few as 400 calories during the day.
That day, Blashchishen wrote a poem, in which he described the camp scene — “squirrels/running around/blue skies/green bushes and trees/but I’m still hungry.”
Staff members Poré interviewed later said they did not recall Blashchishen saying he was hungry.
The next morning, at 11:45, Blashchishen, the other students, and three staff members had breakfast and set off for a hike south of Hampton.
Blashchishen carried his camping gear, food, water and clothing in a pack that weighed between 40 and 50 pounds, according to the affidavit. He set out at a “good pace” in the front of the rest of the group, though he didn’t know how far he’d be hiking that day. The terrain was dusty, with tall brush and little shade.
About an hour later, one of the staff members noticed Blashchishen walking strangely. The group took a break and Blashchishen drank water and consumed electrolytes.
When the hike continued, another staff member noticed that Blashchishen had started carrying his backpack in a different way, and he was “not resting efficiently,” but did not ask the boy if he was having problems, according to the affidavit.
Staff members told Poré that they did not push Blashchishen to continue on, but added that other students encouraged him to continue.
As the hike went on, the staff members said Blashchishen fell several times, but pulled himself up and kept walking. Just after 2 p.m., staff members called the school’s field supervisor to report that Blashchishen had vomited, but the hike continued.
Less than a half-hour later, about one mile from where the hike had begun, Blashchishen collapsed and lay on his back in the sun. The other students moved to the shade and began preparing lunch.
Blashchishen declined the offer of food and shortly after began flailing his arms and yelling in a foreign language, according to the affidavit. Staff members said the boy began to hyperventilate before his breathing slowed and then stopped altogether.
Call for help
One staff member told Poré that by the time Blashchishen stopped breathing, he’d been thinking about calling for help, but had not. At 2:36 p.m., staff members called a school nurse, who then told another staff member to call 911.
In the affidavit, Poré wrote that the call came much too late.
“This was not a call in progress explaining that Sergey was doing weird things and then during the conversation he collapsed,” Poré wrote. “This call began with the announcement of the cessation of life and the beginning of CPR. This is a call that should have gone first and directly to 911.”
Two staff members trained as emergency medical technicians performed CPR for about 45 minutes before an AirLink helicopter arrived from Bend. But by the time the helicopter arrived, Blashchishen was already dead. Deputies from the Deschutes and Lake County Sheriff’s offices were called to the scene.
Poré arrived around 7 p.m., nearly five hours after staff members had begun CPR and more than three hours after they’d stopped lifesaving efforts. He rolled Blashchishen onto his side to examine him, and was surprised to find the boy’s body still warm.
“Never before have I encountered a body that was warmer than my own touch, and it was especially remarkable as it was overcast and had been hours since death. ... Although I was gloved I was wearing short sleeves and could feel the heat radiation against my own skin,” Poré wrote. “My senses likened the feeling to touching someone who had just gotten out of a hot shower.”
The investigation continues
The State Medical Examiner’s Office has not yet released the results of an autopsy, and in a preliminary death certificate signed on Aug. 30 by Dr. James Olson, the deputy state medical examiner for Southern Oregon, Blashchishen’s cause of death was listed as “pending.”
But on the certificate, Olson listed hyperthermia — the condition that occurs when a person’s body temperature rises to abnormally high levels — as a possible contributing factor.
In his affidavit, Poré alleges that SageWalk was negligent on several counts. He wrote that school staff members should have asked more questions about Blashchishen’s tobacco and drug use before sending him off on a hike. In addition, he said the school failed to consider the stress that could have been created by the previous day’s early-morning pickup and blindfolded transport to the campsite.
Finally, Poré wrote that the staff members should have responded more quickly to Blashchishen’s signs of distress on the hike.
Gordon Gannicott, a Portland attorney representing Blashchishen’s family, said his clients agree with Poré’s conclusions.
“I think the family is upset about what happened to Sergey, and they have concerns about these type of programs. ... There’s a real possibility for danger with these camps. It appears that the behavioral focus is placed maybe above the medical focus in the food chain, and you end up with situations where the counselors, the people involved with the camps, are involving straightforward medical symptoms and signs in an attempt to shape behavior, and they should be responding more properly to medical issues.”
The state began licensing outdoor schools after the death in 2000 of a 15-year-old student, who was being held facedown on the ground by a counselor while on a hiking trip in Lake County. The student was attending Obsidian Trails, a Bend-based wilderness school that closed several years after the incident. A civil suit filed against the school by the boy’s mother was settled for an undisclosed amount.
No criminal charges were filed in connection with the 2000 incident.
DHS spokesman Gene Evans said his department’s investigation into Blashchishen’s death is ongoing, but declined to comment further.
Poré said he still needs to conduct more interviews and sort through the hundreds of pages of documents seized from the SageWalk office before he can decide if he will recommend that the Lake County District Attorney’s office pursue criminal charges.
But in the affidavit, Poré wrote that his interviews with staff members had led him to believe that problems had occurred at the school.
“The pattern suggests that SageWalk, as a day care facility having a seemingly special right to press children to their maximum and beyond, is without the capability to separate symptoms of misbehavior from symptoms of approaching death,” Poré wrote. “(My) interviews strongly suggest that, at least for the last nine months, SageWalk may have taken children to the precipice of disaster and been lucky. On Friday, August 28th, 2009, this luck ran out.”
Erin Golden can be reached at 541-617-7837 or at egolden@bendbulletin.com.
KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. — A former Klamath Falls high school teacher accused of having a relationship with a female student has been charged with sex abuse.
KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. — A former Klamath Falls high school teacher accused of having a relationship with a female student has been charged with sex abuse.
The Klamath County district attorney's office says 30-year-old Frank Renner was arrested Monday and later released after posting bail.
He faces misdemeanor sex abuse and official misconduct charges.
Renner's relationship with the student was reported April 27, prompting his resignation from his job as a Mazama High School physical education teacher.
Klamath Falls school officials say Renner started teaching at Mazama this year, and he was hired on a temporary contract.
The Clackamas County sheriffs office said 21-year-old Travis Ferguson was arrested Tuesday following an investigation by a deputy assigned as the school resource officer for Rex Putnam High School.
Ferguson is an assistant coach for Thelo United, a club soccer program in the Portland metro area.
Deputies said a relationship between Ferguson and the girl developed while he coached her in the club soccer program and not the high school, where he assisted last year.
Ferguson was released after he was booked at the Clackamas County Jail and ordered not to have any contact with any persons under the age of 18.
Public schools across the country, hurt by state- and local-government cutbacks, are tapping an alternative source of cash: Mom and Dad.
Parent groups and local nonprofit organizations have long raised money for activities like class trips, school dances and after-school clubs. But many parents say they now are shelling out for core curricular items that were once publicly funded -- from classroom supplies to teachers' salaries.
This fall, a parent group in Columbia, S.C., bought 100 dictionaries for a middle-school teacher who had requested them. In Kentucky, the Middletown Elementary School parent-teacher association has been discussing helping to pay the salary of a teacher aide whose job might get cut. And in Sunrise, Fla., the Sawgrass Elementary School PTA is kicking in $3,000 for news magazines that the district used to buy for classroom use. The group also is considering eliminating funding for specialized after-school clubs to free up money for classroom study programs.
"There's no question that PTAs are having to reprioritize," says Michael Ryan, president of the Sawgrass Elementary PTA. "It couldn't come at a worse time for us in many respects since fund raising is so difficult because of the broad economic issues."
Sawgrass Elementary is part of the Broward County Public School District, the sixth-largest in the country, which is expecting a $100 million reduction in state funding for the 2009-2010 academic year, according to district superintendent James Notter. That amount would be twice the size of the budget cut of just two years ago, he says.
Many school districts are facing similar cuts as governments run up deficits. Some 41 states are projecting midyear budget shortfalls this fiscal year, compared with just seven states a year ago, according to a survey by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit research group. If current trends continue, combined state deficits for next fiscal year will be around $145 billion, compared with the $89 billion shortfall estimated for the current fiscal year, the center calculates.
The Iowa City Community School District, which serves 11,000 students, won't be receiving $783,000 from the state it had already budgeted for this school year, says superintendent Lane Plugge. School officials expect to tap reserves from local property-tax revenues to continue providing programs and services in coming months.
Also digging deeper is the Iowa City Community School District Foundation, a nonprofit that traditionally supports non-core student enrichment programs. Now, the group is seeing a big uptick in requests from teachers for books to supplement library collections and computer gear that the district typically used to fund, says Jacki Brennan, the foundation's executive director. Last year, the foundation was able to come through with half of the funds for $130,000 in requests from teachers for supplies and core programs. This year, "I anticipate lots more requests, way more than we can fund," Ms. Brennan says.
As schools lean more on parent groups, those groups, too, are affected by leaner times. In Oregon, the nonprofit Lake Oswego School District Foundation is lowering its fund-raising goal this year to $1.5 million from $2.2 million last year as local residents seek to save more and spend less. Middletown Elementary's PTA in Kentucky says donations are about one-third lower than at this time last year, even after an extra fund-raiser. And in Colorado, the Poudre School District Foundation says it is hearing from donors that they'll likely be giving less this year.
A survey by California PTA, a statewide group, of about 500 PTA presidents in the state showed that nearly two-thirds of the groups have been asked by schools this year to pitch in more money for basic supplies and programs, from pencils and books to arts programs.
"One of the things we've always said to our members is, 'Your purpose is not to be a cash cow'" to cover regular school expenses, says Jan Harp Domene, president of the National Parent Teacher Association, an umbrella organization. "But we know they are playing a critical part in making sure children still have services that were once part of the budget, from music programs to adequate custodial supplies. These are not frills."
As local PTAs play a bigger role in funding school activities, the National PTA is reminding members in organization publications to adhere to fund-raising guidelines that aim to avert potential conflicts of interest and liabilities. Among the guidelines: PTAs should obtain a broad consensus in deciding what activities to sponsor. Local groups also should keep projects at arm's length -- providing schools with earmarked donations, for instance, rather than dealing directly with contractors.
Some groups are concerned that increased reliance on parents for funding can create inequities "because not all parent and community groups can pitch in to backfill services in the same way," says Pam Brady, president of California PTA.
To minimize this, National PTA encourages local groups to avoid making donations to programs such as science clubs or band boosters that wouldn't be shared by everyone at the school. "Donations should provide for all children," Ms. Domene says. Still, she says, some inequity is inevitable since parent participation in low-income communities is generally lower than in wealthier ones.
Other parents worry that increased PTA funding of core school items will in the long run encourage further cuts by school boards "if we're here making up the difference," says Mr. Ryan of the Sawgrass PTA. "Pragmatically, though, none of us are willing to take a stand and say 'We won't provide it this year.'"
But other PTA's are doing just that. The Eldorado Community School PTA in Santa Fe, N.M., this year has put the brakes on funding teacher salaries after it raised $61,000 last year to save a physical-education instructor's job. "After that we decided we're not going to pay district responsibilities like salaries" because of concern that it was setting a precedent that could not be maintained, says PTA president Kathy Ritschel. To the district, "we said, 'You guys figure it out.'"
Write to Anne Marie Chaker at anne-marie.chaker@wsj.com
For the first time, Portland Public Schools has hired an outside investigator to look into the financial and operational issues at one of its charter schools.
The investigator was hired Dec. 9, the same day the Portland Tribune published a story on its Web site about allegations of financial and operational mismanagement at the Portland Arthur Academy, one of the district’s seven charter schools.
The story reported that the school’s founder, Charles Arthur, was stepping down amidst the turmoil, although Arthur withdrew his resignation days later.
Kristen Miles, the district’s charter school manager, said hiring an outside investigator is a unique situation in the district’s nine-year history with charter schools.
“We’ve never had a situation that has required this before – drawn enough serious attention that the the district has needed to” investigate, she said. “It’s important to make sure everything’s on the up-and-up.”
Miles said the investigator works for the Oregon City private investigation firm Alexander Christian Ltd. and was referred by the district’s Risk Management office. The investigator is being paid $75 an hour. The contract runs through the end of the school year, Miles said.
On Dec. 19, the Tribune reported that teachers and staff at the Arthur Academy were upset that their Public Employees Retirement System accounts haven’t been paid into since May.
The story detailed the administrative struggles between Arthur and another school leader, John Liljegren, who disagreed about how fast the school should expand.
The Arthur Academy is the state’s largest charter school network, with six locations including those in Portland (7507 S.E. Yamhill St.), David Douglas and Reynolds school districts.
The Portland Arthur Academy’s charter runs through summer 2011, after the school board in February extended it for another three years.
jenniferanderson@portlandtribune.com
Portland, OR December 30, 2008 2:15 p.m.
http://news.opb.org/article/3914-portland-schools-investigating-arthur-academy/
Portland Public Schools is taking the unusual step of hiring an outside private investigator to look into student health and safety at one of its charter schools.
District communications director, Rob Cowie, says administrators learned of concerns about the Arthur Academy through a reporter at the Portland Tribune.
He says at least one parent alleged that there wasn’t a principal on site throughout the school day, and that in at least one instance, an ill child wasn’t tended to quickly.
Cowie says the district wants the private investigator to see if the complaints have any merit.
Rob Cowie: “Because any question that arises around student safety or welfare is something we take very seriously, we felt like we needed to respond, and bring someone on board who could go to the school and gather facts and information, that we could use to evaluate the basis of those complaints and allegations.”
Cowie says it’s too early to say what the district might do if the investigator turns up problems at the Arthur Academy in Portland.
The charter school non-profit operates in six school districts in Oregon.
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