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Boarding schools close in Missouri, Florida amid
questions on discipline
St.
Louis-AP -- Two troubled religious boarding schools have closed
their doors.
Enrollment
fell at Mountain Park Baptist Boarding Academy in Missouri and its sister school, Palm Lane Academy in Florida, after questions about its
strict disciplining of at-risk teens.
The
schools relied on Christian fundamentalist teachings, strict
discipline and corporal punishment to work with teenagers with
behavioral problems.
A Florida teen was killed by two
other students at Mountain Park in 1996. More recently, a
federal jury awarded 20-thousand dollars to a former student who
said he was shoved against a sink by a worker. The student also
accused Mountain Park of wrongly denying outside
communication and limiting bathroom breaks and sleep.
Copyright
2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not
be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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