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April 10, 2005
Police Objects
to Kemper Military School Sale
Associated Press
BOONVILLE, Mo. -
Police here object to the proposed sale of the old Kemper Military
School to a boarding school network, citing concerns that the
school's students may be dangerous.
In a letter sent
to city administrators late last month, the Boonville Police
Department urged the city in central Missouri to forgo a sale to a
group affiliated with St. George, Utah-based World Wide Association
of Specialty Programs and Schools, according to The Kansas City
Star.
Some schools in
the association's network have been accused of abusing students and
the U.S. Justice Department has been asked to investigate. The
network denies the accusations.
World Wide
offers services and guidance to seven boarding schools in this
country and in Jamaica.
In the letter to
city officials written March 24, which follows a police
investigation into the network's background, police said: "It is our
recommendation that the risks far outweigh any benefits of the sale
of this property."
Both the
Industrial Development Authority and the Boonville City Council have
met with group leader Robert Lichfield to discuss an offer to
purchase Kemper, which closed in 2002. The city bought the
seven-building property the following year for about $500,000.
Boonville police
noted the school's proximity to a YMCA and worried the school's
clientele of troubled kids could be dangerous.
"It is clear
this would be a huge public safety issue. As we have stated, there
will be many troubled teens at this campus, and some could even be
violent offenders. It would be a public disaster if a student on
this campus hurt one of our children," the letter says.
Randall Hinton,
the proposed school operator, has worked at several of the network's
schools and said the students would not be dangerous and the school
would not be connected to the ones that have faced abuse
allegations.
A business plan
presented by Hinton to city officials said the school would enroll
teenagers who "need help in the areas of discipline, responsibility
and leadership skills" as well as those who have had problems with
minor drug or alcohol experimentation.
Hinton also said
that the school would market itself as a military school and not as
a school for troubled teens.
The Friends of
Kemper Foundation Trust also opposes the sale, saying it is not "a
solution to the city's problem of what to do with the former Kemper
campus."
The Boonville
Daily News recently ran an editorial that said, "We do not want
their program, we do not want their ideas and we do not want their
practices anywhere in our city, our county or our state."
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