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Abuse Allegations at School
Investigated
By: Bill Hirschman
June 2, 2005
A tiny boarding school for
troubled girls in Fort Lauderdale -- once used by the juvenile
justice system as an alternative to jail -- has closed as detectives
investigate allegations that four students were abused, state and
county officials said.
The sheriff's Child Protective
Investigative Services has targeted the Sister Soldier boot camp
school since the first child abuse allegation was leveled three
weeks ago, said Broward Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Liz
Calzadilla-Fiallo.
Details were not released other
than there are four alleged victims, some living in this area and
some out of state.
Denise Smith, president of the
company that owns the school, did not respond to messages left with
an answering service.
Since January 2001, the school
has served a handful of girls at a time with drill instructors
leading calisthenics, walking them through the county jail and
counseling on anger management.
The inquiry could last one or
two more months, but the sheriff's office has been told the school
stopped operating out of a house at 3271 Glendale Blvd.,
Calzadilla-Fiallo said.
Smith had other contacts with
the courts. She was arrested three times in the 1990s on forgery and
theft allegations. The first two cases were dismissed. She pleaded
no contest to grand theft of a vehicle but adjudication was
withheld.
Fort Lauderdale officials also
are investigating to determine whether the school violated zoning
rules for single-family homes, said city spokesman David Hébert.
Sister Soldier was receiving
referrals from the court system as well as its own clients six
months after it opened in 2001, Smith said in a news story at the
time.
The juvenile court system sent
"several girls" to the school in 2001 but stopped once officials
heard the school was charging the families as well as the courts,
said Ron Ishoy, spokesman for the State Attorney's Office.
On Wednesday, Ishoy said, "After
the state Department of Juvenile Justice began cutting their funding
for diversionary programs, we looked out into the community to find
suitable agencies to help keep the appropriate children out of the
criminal justice system. [Juvenile Justice] officials looked at this
particular program and approved them."
Sister Soldier is one of at
least two programs operated by JAM Youth Connections of Fort
Lauderdale, state records show. JAM also operates the co-ed Elite
Leadership Military Academy in Fort Lauderdale. Elite's supervisor
Theo Perez says his program is similar to Scared Straight.
State officials are wrestling
with which agency is responsible for overseeing Sister Soldier. The
Department of Children & Families has no jurisdiction over the
school other than hiring the sheriff's department to investigate
abuse allegations, said DCF spokeswoman Leslie Mann. She said the
boot camp is not a group home but a boarding school under the
purview of the state education department.
Sister Soldier is not registered
with the state education department, said spokeswoman Cheryl Etters.
JAM is not on the department's Web site as a boarding school or a
private school.
"The theoretical question is ...
when is something a group home and when is something a boarding
school?" Mann said. "There's a very cloudy line."
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