ENROLLMENT ORIENTATION AGREEMENT

 

 

We (I), _______________________________, have enrolled our (my) child, ____________

____________________, into Mountain Park Baptist Boarding Academy (MPBBA) on _______________, 20____.  During the enrollment orientation the 12 items on the attached sheet were discussed in detail to our (my) satisfaction. We (I) have signified by initial each of the 12 items discussed.

 

We (I) understand that the structure and rules under which our (my) child will be schooled and trained are very strict.

 

You will have our (my) full support and cooperation as you minister to the needs of our (my) child.

 

We (I) understand that Mountain Park Baptist Boarding Academy is no more than the name implies and makes no claims to be anything else.

 

We (I) understand that our (my) child may not always be in the immediate presence of an adult and therefore we (I) would not and could not hold the school, its staff, and its officials responsible for our (my) child’s welfare at such time.

 

_______________________________________________

Signature                                                          Date

 

_______________________________________________

Signature                                                          Date

 

_______________________________________________

Notary                                                              Date

My commission expires  _____________________, 20 _____.

 

COMPLETED PRIOR TO ENROLLMENT BY NON-ATTENDING PARENT

 

I feel that my presence is unnecessary and unwarranted for the enrolling of my child in the boarding academy. I understand that, although not present, I am responsible for all policies discussed during the enrollment orientation as indicated above.

 

_______________________________________________

Signature                                                          Date

 

_______________________________________________

Notary                                                              Date

My commission expires  _____________________, 20 _____.

 

 

 


1. Our desire is to see your child come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 10) We believe and teach that valuable changes in your child will be produced as he/she places personal trust in Christ (II Corinthians 5:17) (Romans 6). Since salvation is the beginning and not the end, we seek to provide an environment that will nurture the new Christian into a daily surrender of self to the person of Christ (Romans 8) (Galatians 2:20). We expect each parent to fully support this desire.

 

2. An enrollment of not less than twelve complete months is the contractual agreement. It is understood that this period may get your child to a starting place, but rarely gets your child to an ending place. The average enrollment of two years should be anticipated. It is recommended that you not consider removing your child before __________________________, 20_____ or high school graduation.

 

3. All mail is to go in and out through the parent. All mail is to be read by MPBBA staff. The students’ mail is not censored in any way. All mail goes out. Incoming mail may be returned if the content is deemed inappropriate by MPBBA staff. Photographs must meet MPBBA’s standard of dress and appearance in every way. Packages from home should include those items which a child will “use up” such as personal hygiene items, pantyhose, and school supplies.

 

4. The most important topic discussed is the telephone. It is on the phone that you re-establish your authority and control. The first few phone calls are especially important. The parent may call in. The child does not call out. The 1st phone call may come after the 3rd week of enrollment. 2nd and subsequent calls may come one every 2 weeks. Married parents may have 10 minutes per call. Divorced parents may have 7 minutes per call. The telephone number to use when calling your child is (573) 856-4216.

 

Phone call hours are as follows: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday – 3:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m.

Wednesday – 3:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m.. Saturday – 9:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m.. Special “1 minute” calls may be made on Christmas Day and on the child’s birthday. These calls must be made during regular phone call hours.

 

5. Visits may be set at intervals of four months. It may be longer than four months between visits but never less than four months between visits. At no time should a child return to the home state during the initial twelve months. It is best to schedule most visits during regular school breaks to avoid missing school days. Whether on campus with us or off campus with the parent, standards of MPBBA must be maintained.

 

The dates of all visits should be closely planned and coordinated with the assistance of MPBBA staff. Some dates require a student attendance thus eliminating the opportunity to schedule a visit. At times the MPBBA staff may recommend that a child not receive a visit or that the visit be postponed as a corrective measure. A possible visit schedule for your child would be: 1st visit______________________________, 2nd visit ____________________________, 3rd visit________________________. Visits are not to be discussed with your child.

 

6. In order to be effective we must have 100% support of both parents in all areas. We encourage parents to take advantage of the depth of experience that over twenty-five years has given. A parent should closely follow all policies discussed during the enrollment orientation interview. A parent should not become offended whenever something is returned to them as inappropriate.  A parent should not be negative at any time a change in policy is deemed necessary by MPBBA. If at anytime a parent becomes unwilling to give full support to all MPBBA policies, the parent should voluntarily remove the child from the academy.

 

7. Our accreditation as a Model School is by the School of Tomorrow. This identifies us among the top five percent of the more than seven thousand Christian schools using the curriculum. The School of Tomorrow curriculum is Christ centered and Bible-based combining academic excellence with Scripture memory and Christ-like character training. Our philosophy of education is further explained in the parent orientation packet from School of Tomorrow. This packet will be provided by MPBBA for the parent to complete upon returning home.

8. A discipline is maintained which is firm, consistent, fair, and tempered with love. Our staff maintains standards of behavior through kindness, love, and genuine regard for the student. When disciplinary action becomes necessary, it is firmly carried out tempered by good judgment and understanding.

 

9. Students should be in overall good physical health at time of enrollment.

 

10. There are two items that will cause you to be asked to remove your child:

 

a.       KEEPING SECRETS.

 

b.       TELLING YOUR CHILD WHEN HE/SHE WILL BE HAVING A VISIT OR RETURNING HOME.

 

This will be considered a voluntary removal since you would have been aware of this policy and chose to disregard.

 

11. There are some significant dates that require special attention, specifically December 1 and March 1. See the current school calendar and significant dates sheet that will be provided during enrollment.

 

12. A Parent Handbook is issued at the end of the enrollment orientation interview. The handbook provides much information including additional details concerning all of the above items.

 

 

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Enrollment Orientation Agreement?

Survivors Comments

 

OK, now we see what our parents had to sign when they chose to put us in Mountain Park- even if they chose not to show up to even see the school.

 

Does the last statement in the top agreement not make you skeptical from the beginning???? They plainly tell parents that their child will not be in the immediate supervision of an adult at all times, so the parent can’t hold MP responsible for the welfare of their child. Now if you look at it, the child could be hurt, or just about anything could actually happen (like, say, a murder, for instance), and Mountain Park could simply say, “Well, there wasn’t an adult around to see it, so it’s not our fault.” Easy answer, especially since the parents aren’t allowed to drop in for unannounced visits to check on their child when they wish. And yet, every parent is required to sign this agreement during the orientation, even before being given the Parent Handbook.

 

Another point from the top agreement, “Mountain Park Baptist Boarding Academy is no more than the name implies.” So basically, they claim to be a safe harbor for troubled teens to desperate parents, however, if you pick up your child, even at the end of the recommended period of enrollment or at graduation, and the problems they came in with aren’t “fixed”, the school isn’t responsible, because after all, they’re ONLY a Boarding School. They’re only here to educate your child. Right? If they’re only a boarding school, what’s all the fuss about outside influences and parents supporting them 100%?

 

And then we come to the part that absolutely should shock anyone who reads this document: the enrollment orientation agreement for non-attending parents. How can any parent honestly say they checked a place out to ensure the safety and well being of their child without even seeing the facility they chose to place their child into for a year or more??? Any reasonable parent who is looking for a good treatment program for even the most troubled of teens would certainly want to walk the halls of the campus to see that their child will be well cared for in a safe and loving environment, wouldn’t they? And yet, this agreement wouldn’t be there unless they had a need for it at times. How can a parent do that to a child they love? My child recently started preschool, and I had an interview with the teacher and her assistant, even the school nurse, and toured his school before I would enroll him for class. And he’s only 3. If I care enough about the quality of education my son receives in preschool, I know I’m going to be even more careful about special needs if he has problems as a teenager. And yet here we see that the administration of this school would simply “encourage parents to take advantage of the depth of experience that over twenty-five years has given”. Yeah, we’ve already seen what the 25 years of experience includes.

 

The 12 points discussed during the enrollment Orientation

 

1.                   Yes, the staff of Mountain Park strongly desire to see each of their students profess faith in Christ before they leave, and will use any means necessary to ensure that your child is forced into their points of view outwardly if they cannot conform their inward spirit. Children are forced into church services whether they believe in the doctrine of MP or not, and whether their family raised them in that doctrine or not. MP claims they will accept a child of any doctrinal background, and this is true. But they certainly won’t help them to foster a spiritual understanding of their background. They simply teach over and over how the child is wrong and that they and their entire family are on their way to hell if they do not conform to Mountain Park’s fundamentalist ways.

2.                   An enrollment of 2 years to graduation is to be expected- and yet we see the tuition payments rising as the years pass. $14,400 a year for 2 years= $28,800 + expenses= half a house in some states. Of course they recommend that you not remove your child before 2 years, that’s guaranteed tuition payments to their pockets. *Taken from the MP Enrollment Application: “The parent or guardian agrees that in the event the student leaves school because of voluntary withdrawal (voluntary withdrawal includes situations where a parent is asked to remove a student because of the parent’s unwillingness to support all MPBBA policies) on parent’s or guardian’s part during the written term or any subsequent academic session, no part of the fee for the school year shall be refunded or remitted and ANY UNPAID BALANCE ON ACCOUNT OF SUCH FEES FOR THE SCHOOL YEAR SHALL BECOME IMMEDIATELY DUE AND PAYABLE TO THE SCHOOL AS LIQUIDATED DAMAGE. SCHOOL RECORDS WILL BE WITHHELD UNTIL THIS CONTRACT IS SATISFIED. THERE ARE NO ALLOWANCES FOR PARTIAL MONTH ENROLLMENT.” (bold and all caps as in original document)

3.                   “All mail is to be read by MPBBA staff. The students’ mail is not censored in anyway. All mail goes out.” Ok, this is an outright lie. (See Censorship for details.) The students are required to write a one-page letter to their parents each week, however, if they say things that the MP staff do not want known to the parents, however true the statements may be, the letter will be returned to the student and the student will be punished until the letter is re-written to their approval. If the parents send in a letter that the staff deem to be too soft on a student that they have been using as an example for ridicule, the letter will be returned to the parent- often times with very nasty comments in the margins from the administration.

4.                   See the telephone script in the Parent Handbook or Censorship for further on this topic.

5.                   So basically, you drop off your child, whom you love with all your heart, and you wait 4 months to have a visit with them. If MP staff decide that they don’t want your child to have a visit, they will simply tell you no, postpone or cancel it, and they aren’t even required to give you an explanation- you must simply trust their judgment, or the $14,400 worth of tuition will be held over your head as coming due if you disagree with them and are forced to remove your child. Sound fishy to you? It did to me too.

6.                   Here again we see the 100% cooperation required by the parent. A parent is reminded not to be negative at anytime toward the policies of Mountain Park. And then we see the veiled threat again “If at anytime a parent becomes unwilling to give full support to all MPBBA policies, the parent should voluntarily remove the child from the academy”. A church that uses scare tactics? Once they have your signature on the enrollment paperwork, they could care less if you pick up your child early, you’ll owe the tuition balance in full.

7.                   The accreditation as a Model School by School of Tomorrow is completely bogus. School of Tomorrow is an umbrella school for Christian Home-schools. The school is NOT accredited by the state of Missouri, and it is printed plainly in the Parent Handbook that the diploma may not be worth the paper it is printed on should your child graduate from their academy. A GED may be required for your child to continue their education.

8.                   Discipline- In other topics in this website we have discussed the disciplinary style of MPBBA. None of the disciplinary tactics used by MPBBA are consistent, fair, or tempered with love. The staff often demeans students and uses public ridicule as a punishment for even minor infractions to their unwritten rules. The rules cannot be written down for the students’ knowledge because they constantly change. How can that be consistent or fair?

9.                   Good physical health is a necessity, because they will not receive health care while they attend the school. Requests for doctor appointments are viewed as attempted manipulation by the student in an effort to get off campus. Although your visits are at four-month intervals and usually for only 3 days- recommended on weekends to keep your child from missing school days- you are required to make these visits yourself.

10.               This item is sort of an oxymoron- a. Don’t keep secrets from us about your child. b. Keep secrets with us from your child about when they will be seeing you next or when they will be going home, because these are the two things the students most look forward to while they are here and we’d like to be able to hold them over their heads to use as leverage for forced conformity.  Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? I didn’t think so either.

11.               No real arguments here, achievement tests. However, parents should be allowed to be on site at anytime to check on their child. The testing does not require more than the school day, so why could the parent not arrive after the test is finished?

12.               See the Parent Handbook in the “Straight From the Horse’s Mouth” section.