After reported abuse at Christian boarding school, some say Missouri law must change
A Lee’s Summit lawmaker didn’t hesitate after she read last Sunday about the abuse girls said they had endured at a southwest Missouri Christian boarding school.
Rep. Keri Ingle said she emailed the chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect as soon as she finished reading the extensive report in The Star. Ingle is a member of that committee.
“I requested a hearing,” said Ingle, a Democrat. “I have a lot of questions.”
She and child welfare advocates think it’s time to take another look at the state law that exempts the Circle of Hope Girls’ Ranch and other faith-based schools from state licensure and oversight.
The Cedar County boarding school, run by Boyd and Stephanie Householder, has had four substantiated reports of abuse since 2006, according to the Missouri Department of Social Services. One report was for neglect, another for physical abuse and neglect and two were sexual abuse allegations.
But because Circle of Hope is exempt from state licensure, DSS “does not have authority” over the facility’s operations, an agency spokeswoman said.
“When I hear that there were four preponderance of evidence findings … and yet the facility still stayed open, I have tremendous concerns about that,” Ingle said. “As well as the loophole that allowed them to continue to operate despite these preponderance of evidence findings.”
Ingle is a Licensed Master Social Worker who spent seven years with the Jackson County Children’s Division, the child welfare agency inside DSS.
Girls who talked to The Star about the Circle of Hope told of punishment that included withholding food and water and being forced to stand against a wall for hours for even minor infractions. They also described how they were restrained — a procedure in which they said that after shoving a girl to the floor, Boyd Householder would kneel and press his knee on the back of her neck while four other girls or staff members were required to push as hard as they could on the pressure points on her arms and legs.
In the days since The Star’s report, more former residents have come forward with allegations. Parents say their concerns and complaints went unanswered for years.
Lori Ross, a long-time child advocate in Missouri, said faith-based exemptions to licensure can be dangerous for any industry that provides care to vulnerable people, because there’s potential for lines to be crossed when programming is physically or emotionally harmful.
“State licensure can assure that minimal safety standards are created and adhered to,” Ross said. “Things like the number of vulnerable people a child care provider can care for, or the types of discipline a treatment center can impose.
“I believe these standards are necessary to prevent situations like Circle of Hope from happening and continuing unaddressed for years.”
As that push to reform the law moves forward, so does the investigation by southwest Missouri authorities and state agencies. Nearly two weeks ago, local and state law enforcement served a search warrant at the school.
That move came after authorities removed 25 girls from the ranch on Aug. 14 and 15. Many girls were immediately taken to a facility in Joplin and workers with DSS called parents to pick up their daughters. It is not clear whether the Householders plan to continue housing troubled girls at Circle of Hope.
In late July, a Washington couple drove 32 hours from the Seattle area to pick up their daughter who had gone to the school for two years. The family then went directly to the Sheriff’s Office and the 17-year-old told a deputy what went on inside Circle of Hope.
Cedar County Prosecuting Attorney Ty Gaither said he’s still waiting on investigative reports from state agencies and law enforcement.
“The request for charges has not come across my desk,” Gaither told The Star on Wednesday.
The Householders could not be reached for comment and their attorney, Jay Kirksey, has not responded to calls.
After the allegations against the boarding school began swirling on social media months ago, the Householders reached out to a man they’ve known for years.
Mike Stephens, a Republican state representative from nearby Bolivar, said Boyd and Stephanie Householder have spoken with him several times in recent months and they insist they are being falsely accused. Stephens, a retired pharmacist who now represents the area that includes Circle of Hope, said he’s never received a complaint about the reform school or the Householders.
“I am real upset and worried that they are being crushed, their lives are being crushed over allegations that I’m concerned about,” Stephens told The Star. “They’re just desperate. They’ve devoted their lives to the care of these children. And now their reputations are being trashed and ruined. They’re being vilified.
“They feel that they are completely innocent.”
Boyd Householder told Stephens about authorities searching the ranch.
“The Sheriff’s Office came, broke down their door .... and took their surveillance equipment,” Stephens said. “That is what I was told.”
The lawmaker said he has a “long familiarity” with Circle of Hope and has known the Householders for more than a decade, initially becoming acquainted with them when they started coming to his pharmacy to fill prescriptions. Caring for troubled youth, Stephens said, can be a “very difficult and challenging proposition.”
The teens know the system, he said, and know how to work it.
“These kids that end up in these homes, they are practiced and expert master manipulators; they just are,” he said. “You may not want to hear that.”
Based on his experience with the Householders, Stephens said he sees them as a couple who have “conducted themselves in a very upright way.”
“I know their character and I know their heart,” he said. “I just have a hard time embracing the idea that they are serial abusers.”
Several times during his conversation with The Star, though, Stephens pointed out that while he vouches for the Householders as long-time friends who are “deeply religious,” he can’t know what has gone on inside the walls of Circle of Hope over the years.
“I wasn’t in a closet watching every move every day,” he said. “I don’t lay claim to knowing everything that has gone on all the time. … Were there lines crossed in their approach? There’s no way for me to say so. And I want to make that clear.”
Ingle cautions that from her experience as a social worker, what you think you see in people isn’t always what is true.
“People can appear to be upstanding citizens in all other facets of their life … and still harm children,” Ingle said. “I experienced that a plethora of times during my career at the Children’s Division, where someone who otherwise seems to be on the up and up has the capacity to hurt people that they are in charge of.”
Laws denying oversight
The complaints about the boarding school go back to 2007, a year after it first opened to three girls.
Subsequent investigations didn’t spur change. Not even in the law that exempts some faith-based residential treatment facilities.
Residential treatment programs for troubled teens — many of them religious-based — have been operating across the country for decades, often exempt from any oversight.
In investigations conducted in 2007 and 2008, the U.S. Government Accountability Office discovered thousands of allegations of abuse at residential treatment programs between 1990 and 2007, some of which involved death. Investigators posing as parents also found widespread use of deceptive marketing practices.
The GAO said there were no federal oversight laws that pertained specifically to private residential programs, with the exception of psychiatric facilities receiving Medicaid funds.
For years, lawmakers have tried to address the issue. The most recent attempt, the Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2017, would have prohibited physical or mental abuse; disciplinary techniques such as seclusion; withholding essential food, water, clothing, shelter or medical care; and the use of restraints that impair breathing or communication.
The proposal also would have directed the Department of Health and Human Services to implement a review process for overseeing, investigating and evaluating reports of child abuse and neglect in such programs and establish a process to assist states in oversight and enforcement.
“There are hundreds of good residential treatment programs that provide services which can truly help youth recover and transition from serious behavioral problems or traumatic experiences,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, one of the bill’s co-sponsors. “But without stronger federal regulation and oversight, programs that engage in abusive practices will continue to slip through the cracks, leaving behind traumatized and abused children and families.”
Like similar proposals before it, the bill died.
Missouri law requires private agencies that provide residential treatment for children and youth to be licensed by the Department of Social Services’ Children’s Division.
But that law includes several exemptions. Among them:
“Any foster home arrangement established and operated by any well-known religious order or church and any residential care facility or child placement agency operated by such organization.”
That means Circle of Hope is not required to be licensed by DSS — and therefore, DSS does not have oversight over it.
“The Department of Social Services does not have authority over the operations of license-exempt facilities,” said DSS spokeswoman Rebecca Woelfel in an email to The Star.
The statute also says that DSS cannot require those claiming an exemption to prove that they should be exempt.
That law, which went into effect in 1982, has only been amended once in 38 years. That was to change the term “mental retardation” to “intellectual disability.”
Ross said she’s not surprised that the state law hasn’t significantly changed in nearly four decades.
“Missouri has a very strong lobby against state regulation on anything that involves religion, even to the detriment of our children and vulnerable adults,” Ross said. “Situations like Circle of Hope happen all the time, and are happening now in other facilities across the state, but rarely receive public attention.”
Without a facility being licensed by the state, she said, the only action the state can take after substantiated reports of abuse is to put a facility or school on the Central Registry.
“The facilities can continue to operate and other vulnerable people continue to be abused,” she said. “But even worse, families who are desperate for help and reach out to these places are often unaware of the dangers their loved ones may face.
“If the place is still operating, they will assume that it does what it purports to do.”
That’s why she and others say there are lingering questions for law enforcement and the state about Circle of Hope.
Did law enforcement investigate alongside the Children’s Division in years past? Was a case ever presented to the county prosecutor? When the four reports were substantiated, did the Children’s Division provide services or take any action?
“I would say the state would have the duty to step in if there’s a case like this one,” Ingle said. “Where we have numerous reports and four that were substantiated, I think we do have a duty to the children of this state to shut facilities like that down.
“What fell through the cracks that allowed this to happen? Other than this loophole that allows religious entities not to have to undergo the same licensing standards and therefore not have the same oversight?”
An early allegation
Donna Maddox was livid after arriving at Circle of Hope in November 2007 for her first visit with her daughter.
Kelsey’s clothes were filthy, she was sleeping on a foam mattress pad on a piece of plywood, and she’d barely done any school work in the three months she’d been there. And when the 14-year-old took her mom aside and described the verbal and physical abuse she said she and the other girls had endured, Maddox had seen and heard enough.
She pulled Kelsey out of Circle of Hope and took her home to Oklahoma. Then she started contacting every agency she could think of to report the concerns.
“I tried every possible angle,” Maddox told The Star. “I called the Department of Social Services, I called the sheriff, I called the Highway Patrol, the local police. I contacted the attorney general about the violation of the consumer protection laws because they were not educating my daughter, and I called the FBI.
“I even went to D.C. and walked around the Capitol, trying to let them know that these abuses were going on at these institutions. But basically, it was brushed off. Lots of people said, ‘Oh, that’s out of our jurisdiction.’ Someone could have done something, but nobody wanted to mess with it.”
Maddox also contacted the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, asking whether Circle of Hope was registered with the State Board of Education. At the time, the Circle of Hope website said that it was.
In a Sept. 2, 2008, letter, an education department official told Maddox that non-public schools — private, parochial and home schools — “do not fall under the purview of the Missouri State Board of Education or its administrative branch, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.”
State law only grants the department oversight of public schools, the letter said. Non-public schools are not required to register with the department or the state Board of Education.
“On a voluntary basis, some non-public schools submit data to the department in order to be listed on our non-public information report,” the letter said. “However, the department has no record of the Circle of Hope Boarding School.”
That remains the case today, a department spokeswoman said.
Maddox had placed her daughter at Circle of Hope in late summer 2007 because she’d gotten in trouble for drinking alcohol at her Oklahoma middle school.
“Before school one day, me and some girls, I took a sip — a sip — of vodka,” Kelsey, who is now married and goes by Maddox-Dunn, told The Star. “And I got suspended for that.”
The day she returned to class, she was suspended again for getting in a fight with one of the girls who had been drinking. Donna Maddox — who as a child of alcoholics had been placed in foster care, aged out at 18 and ended up homeless — said she panicked and decided she had to “nip it in the bud” before things got out of control.
While the family spent that summer in Syracuse, N.Y., Donna Maddox researched some options online and came up with what sounded like a good solution: Circle of Hope Girls’ Ranch. So on the drive back to Oklahoma, she pulled into a church parking lot in Springfield, where Householder was waiting.
“She opened the car door and Boyd Householder grabbed my arm, twisted it around and yanked me out of the car,” Maddox-Dunn said. “I had no idea what was going on. It was awful.”
She still vividly recalls what happened when they got to the ranch.
“I had just eaten, and they were eating dinner,” she said. “It was Brussels sprouts. I was like, ‘I’m not hungry.’ He said, ‘If you don’t eat, I’m gonna shove that down your throat, and if you puke it up, you’re gonna eat that, too.’”
Like other former residents The Star has interviewed, Maddox-Dunn recited some of the rules the girls had to follow. Only two changes of clothes a week, just a few squares of toilet paper when using the restroom, 10 pushups for every second you go beyond three minutes in the shower. And absolutely no talking.
“You couldn’t talk to anybody,” she said. “One time I said, ‘The cheesecake smells good.’ And they made me eat cheesecake until I threw up, with another girl, just for saying it smells good.”
In the three months she was there, Maddox-Dunn said, “I only did school once, maybe twice.”
At one point, she said, she was ordered to write something in a letter to her mom that wasn’t true. When she refused, she was shoved to the floor and restrained by Householder and several staff members. “Literally, I was eating carpet,” she said. “Rug burns, bruises, everything.”
She said she had to fake being “saved” in order to be allowed a visit from her mom.
When her mom arrived, Maddox-Dunn took her outside, saying she wanted to show her the animals. There, in a rare moment away from the Householders’ scrutiny, she told her what had been going on.
“Then when she saw our rooms and saw that I had no bed, she saw the worn-out shoes and the dirty uniforms, she took my word for it,” she said. “And she took me out that day.”
Donna Maddox said she felt terrible for sending her daughter to Circle of Hope.
“I was shocked that I had entrusted my daughter to them,” she said. “I honestly thought my daughter was going to a caring, loving environment.”
Her stay at Circle of Hope, Maddox-Dunn said, made her life worse, not better.
“When I came home, I went really downhill,” she said. “I spiraled really quick. I used drugs, I had to go to rehab.”
Donna Maddox said she continued the effort to get someone to investigate Circle of Hope.
“I was trying to raise awareness to let everyone know I made a huge mistake, and to please don’t make the same mistake,” she said. At one point, she said, Householder told her, “You can complain to whoever you want to, but no one will ever believe.”
When she learned about the recent investigation, Donna Maddox said, she cried.
“I’m happy that action has finally been taken,” she said. “But look at how many children could have been saved from these abuses and these horrendous actions if they’d have done the right thing years ago.”
Maddox-Dunn said in some ways, she understands why nobody wanted to get involved.
“I get it,” she said. “There’s a lot of troubled girls. People are going to think that’s all it is, they just want attention. But these aren’t things you make up. I would take a lie detector test today. And I’m sure most of the girls would.”
She said she’s now “at a good place” in her life. “I have children, I have a husband, I’m very blessed.”
And she wants to turn her bad experience into something positive. Getting the law changed to stop allowing exemptions for religious-based residential treatment facilities would be a good start, she said.
“It’s just beyond me that they can be exempt,” she said. “Religion shouldn’t be above the law. Nobody should be.”
When her mom started calling authorities 13 years ago, Maddox-Dunn said, “I didn’t have any hopes.”
“But now, I feel like we’re really getting close,” she said. “We should not be afraid to speak our voice. We’re not the victims; we’re the survivors. If we’re victims, they’ve won. We’re survivors, because we’re gonna win.”
This story was originally published September 13, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
