WEST VIRGINIA
Washington Post
By Cleve R. Wootson Jr. February 7
The children shipped to Miracle Meadows boarding school usually arrived with a long list of behavioral problems.
Some had been diagnosed with ADHD, bipolar or oppositional defiant disorders that had frustrated schools and family members for years. Others had been given a choice by a judge: Miracle Meadows or jail.
So school administrators, in particular Susan Gayle Clark, who started the Salem, W.Va. school affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1988, ruled with “an iron fist.” But the strict discipline often crossed the line into abuse, investigators found.
Worse, court documents filed last week say, a “culture of silence and secrecy” covered up years of physical and sexual abuse.
Two former students of the shuttered school are suing, claiming staff members handcuffed them to beds, raped and beat them. School administrators knew about the abuse at the school, the lawsuit claims, but covered up the criminal acts to keep the school open, with tuition reportedly at $2,000 a month per student.
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