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Controversial
Reform School Will Close Education: Pastor Will Shut Strict
Religious School for Wayward Girls Rather Than Comply With a Court
Order to Obtain a License
NANCY RAY
May 16, 1991
Victory Christian Academy
has decided to close its doors later this month rather than comply
with a judge's ruling last week granting the state a temporary
restraining order to require the school to obtain a license or cease
operation.
The school for wayward girls
has operated since 1985 in a former FBI compound in rural Ramona,
behind locked gates and surrounded by a high fence topped with
barbed wire.
Pastor Mike Palmer, founder
of the fundamentalist Baptist school for delinquent teen-agers, said
Wednesday that he would not operate the school under state-mandated
restrictions and will close May 28.
"Our church does not have
the funds to fight the state, which has nothing but time and money,"
Palmer said. "I cannot continue to operate the school under state
regulations that give them the right to hire and fire our staff and
dictate our programs.
"The hardest part is that we
never had our day in court. The parents wanted a chance to give
witness to the good that the Victory has done for their children."
Palmer said some parents of
the rebellious girls who have been sent to the church school "to get
straight and to get religion" plan to file a class-action lawsuit
against the state on the basis that they have been deprived of their
civil rights by the closure.
Superior Court Judge James
R. Milliken granted a temporary injunction requested by the state
Department of Social Services on Friday, requiring the school to
obtain a state license to operate or close its doors by 7 a.m. May
28.
Palmer said he was not
involved in the parents' planned legal action and that its outcome
would have no effect on the future of the school. He said he has no
plans to open a similar school in California.
Girls now at the school will
be returned to their parents, Palmer said, "because there is little
I can do to place them. There are very few such schools and they are
all expensive, compared to what we charged at Victory."
"It was their way or no
way," Palmer said of the state's demand that the school be licensed.
"I have said all along that I will not operate under their rules."
Tim Rutherford, attorney for
the school, asked Milliken to extend the time for closure past the
scheduled June 1 graduation date, explaining that 18 of the
teen-agers were scheduled to graduate from the school, invitations
had been sent out and about 400 visitors were expected to attend the
commencement. Milliken denied the request.
The judge ruled that Victory
was an academic institution that used "behavior modification" on its
students to bring them into line. As such, he said, the school fell
within the jurisdiction of the state agency and was required to
obtain a license in order to continue operating.
"This has been a rigged
thing from the start," Palmer said. "We could fight them in court
and I think we could win, but the money just isn't there. I can't do
miracles.
"I doubt that there is a
school in the state that does not use behavior modification. I'm
sure that they picked on us because we are small. We are not
organized like the Catholics or the Mormon Church."
A Department of Social
Services spokeswoman said the state agency considered Victory
Christian Academy "a board-and-care facility" that required
licensing "for supervision of the treatment of the minor children
there."
On Feb. 14, state welfare
officials and local law enforcement officers armed with a search
warrant examined school records and interviewed some of the
youngsters in the school to obtain evidence that the school was
dispensing medicines and using disciplinary methods not permitted in
unlicensed boarding homes.
A former student at the
school told the state agency that she had been kept in a small room
without light or human contact for more than a week, during which
she was forced to listen to religious tapes, force-fed baby food and
given cold showers until she agreed to follow school rules. She also
said Victory staff members searched through the students'
belongings, confiscating private correspondence and personal items.
In a 1989 state case against
Palmer, charging that he was operating a board-and-care facility
without a license, the minister argued that he was operating a
private boarding school similar to many church-supported private
schools not required to be licensed.
The case was settled. Palmer
pleaded no contest to charges of operating a community care facility
without a license and was placed on two years' probation.
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