JEFFERSON CITY (MO)
Kansas City Star [Kansas City MO]
April 1, 2024
By Laura Baker and Judy L. Thomas
A proposal gaining traction in the Missouri legislature could wipe out, critics say, a 2021 law meant to protect kids by placing regulations on Christian boarding schools.
And, those critics contend, the bill would create a shield protecting unlicensed schools — several of which have been closed in recent years amid abuse allegations — from state scrutiny.
Sponsored by a St. Charles County lawmaker, the measure would no longer require unlicensed schools to directly answer to the Department of Social Services. Instead, those facilities would be overseen by a new board, with more than half of its members representing Christian schools.
“This bill raises a lot of serious concerns,” said Rep. Rudy Veit, R-Wardsville, a co-sponsor of the 2021 legislation. “It basically looks like an attempt to undo a lot of what we did three years ago. They can’t take away the powers we have (in Missouri) and then try to self-regulate.
“That’s what they’re trying to do.”
The Children and Families Committee in the House is scheduled to consider the measure Tuesday. If passed out of committee, it will go to the full House for possible debate. Sen. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove, has introduced a similar bill in the Senate, but it has sat idle in the Health and Welfare Committee.
Under House Bill 2307, sponsored by Rep. Adam Schnelting, an organization seeking to provide care for children can register with a “qualified association” instead of obtaining a child care license. The qualified association, which must have been operating for at least 20 years, will develop standards for the member organizations.
“(The bill) allows child agencies and organizations that practice their Christian faith to continue practicing by self-regulation,” Schnelting, a St. Charles Republican, told fellow lawmakers in a February hearing, “by doing what they’ve always done, which is operate under their own set of standards.”
In response to questions from The Star, Schnelting said his bill does not negate the 2021 bill.
“On the contrary, the legislation adds an additional layer of protection for children and flexibility for placement,” he said in an email.
It also creates a “Child Protection Board” within DSS that it says will provide oversight of the organizations. The non-partisan board is to be made up of 10 members appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate.
“Members shall be appointed based upon recommendations from faith-based child care agencies, foster care and mental health boards, and similar entities,” the bill says.
Two of those members must be foster parents; one must be a member in a leadership position of the Missouri Association of Christian Child Care Agencies, Inc.; five must be members of faith-based child care agencies with priority given to the Missouri Association of Christian Child Care Agencies; one a nutrition expert; and one a certified educator.
The Missouri Association of Christian Child Care Agencies, “serves as a state fellowship of Christian childcare programs that voluntarily choose to be accredited by their Christian peers,” its website says.
The three who founded that association in 1998 ran two unlicensed boarding schools in Missouri that have since been closed amid abuse allegations. One of the men, the late James Clemensen, opened Agape Boarding School in 1996. The Star has spoken to dozens of former Agape students who say they suffered years of abuse but no one would listen to their pleas for help. Five Agape staffers were charged with physically abusing students in 2021.
Chad Puckett, the current president of the Missouri Association of Christian Child Care Agencies, is a key proponent of the bill. He has been on that association’s board since 2003, and sat on it with Clemensen, his son, Bryan, and other Agape Boarding School leaders over the years. He also is the director of Show-Me Christian Youth Home in La Monte, which is a member of the Missouri Association of Christian Child Care Agencies.
The new proposal says if the bill passes, the “Child Protection Board” will review any Children’s Division decision in which an alleged perpetrator of child abuse or neglect is “aggrieved” by that decision “and shall make recommendations to the Department.” The board also “may deny, suspend, or revoke a facility or organization’s registration if it fails to comply with the standards established by the qualified association.”
Rep. Keri Ingle, a Lee’s Summit Democrat who co-sponsored the 2021 law with Veit, said she’s “really confused why they think (HB 2307) is necessary.”
“And why they would think that we need to create a governing body that’s outside of government oversight, that would make them essentially exempt from government oversight,” she said.
Neither private institutions in the state nor contracted agencies conduct investigations into child abuse and neglect, Ingle said.
“That’s all done through the state of Missouri,” she said. “And so they’re trying to create their own investigative body to investigate allegations of child abuse and neglect. And I have grave concerns with that.”
OPERATING IN DARKNESS
Child advocates and some lawmakers say they don’t understand how Schnelting’s bill got new life. After a hearing Feb. 13, many thought the proposal wouldn’t go anywhere. And that it shouldn’t, they said.
Then last week, the bill resurfaced in the Children and Families Committee, despite child advocates speaking out against it in February.
“Basically, this is nullifying the (2021 law) that we worked so hard on,” testified Emily van Schenkhof, executive director of the Children’s Trust Fund, Missouri’s foundation for child abuse prevention. “That bill…was a bipartisan effort to make our state safer to guard against some of the very scary things that had happened at Christian boarding schools in the state of Missouri and the complete lack of oversight that was occurring in them.
“The reality unfortunately is that when we decrease accountability, risk of sexual abuse and the abuse of children goes up.”
Late last week, she told The Star that “it’s really very frustrating and confusing that we’re having a discussion about this right now.” Advocates and lawmakers worked on a “historic compromise” in 2021, said Jessica Seitz, executive director of the Missouri Network Against Child Abuse, formerly known as Missouri KidsFirst.
“I’m just so shocked that it’s come up again,” Seitz said. “We thought we solved it.”
Schnelting said that after the February hearing he “took several weeks to address any concerns by tweaking the language of the initial bill.”
“No one indicated it would not be brought up again,” he said, “but rather that my office would make any necessary tweaks to ensure the best possible outcome for kids.”
Rep. Veit said lawmakers just received a substitute version of the bill last week that was to have addressed some of their concerns.
“And while there were some attempts to maybe clarify the original language, there are still many issues with it,” he said. “I think it’s taking away from the fundamental obligation of the state to protect our children. There may be some good intentions in the bill, but it’s way too complicated to pass as is.”
Before the new law three years ago, there wasn’t any centralized way to collect in-house information about these facilities, Seitz said.
“They were allowed to operate in darkness,” Seitz said. “So it was our position that we should be able to know where these places in Missouri are that have full care, custody and control of kids.”
The proposed law, she said, would add an unnecessary layer between the schools and state when it comes to “finding out things about these schools.”
“It would empower them to provide that oversight of the safety (of children) and that accountability rather than the state having that information themselves,” Seitz said. “The state would have to take their registration confirmation as is.”
“What we know, from decades before 557 (the 2021 law) and since the religious exemptions passed in the 80s, is when institutions are allowed to operate in complete darkness, kids get hurt.”
ALTERNATIVE TO STATE LICENSING?
The controversy over the new bill comes at a time when a boarding school in southeast Missouri closed last month after allegations of abuse. Larry and Carmen Musgrave, 57 and 64, were charged with kidnapping and a third staffer, Caleb Sandoval, 23, has been charged with abuse of a child.
Lighthouse Christian Academy, operated by ABM Ministries, officially closed March 6. Parents from across the country picked up their sons.
That school drew scrutiny earlier this year after five boys ran away from the facility in less than a month. The Wayne County Sheriff continues an investigation and said he expects more charges to be filed.
The Star began investigating Missouri’s Christian boarding schools, including Agape and Circle of Hope Girls Ranch in Cedar County, in September 2020, finding that the state had become a safe harbor for unlicensed facilities that often settle in rural and secluded areas where they could fly under the radar.
Lawmakers initially proposed the 2021 law to address the issue and give the state some oversight over those schools. Several former students traveled to Jefferson City to testify about the abuse they said they suffered for years at the facilities. For more than two decades, they said, the state did nothing to stop it.
Their testimony moved some lawmakers to tears.
The legislation passed overwhelmingly and required Missouri’s unlicensed boarding schools to register with the state, submit to health and safety inspections and conduct background checks on all employees.
But the schools still don’t have to be licensed by the state because of a 1982 law that allows religious organizations to claim an exemption from Missouri’s licensing requirement. Attempts to remove that exemption over the years have been met with strong opposition from critics who say it would interfere with religious freedom.
Puckett explained to lawmakers in February the reason he and others are pushing for HB 2307.
“The threat to remove our religious exemption refuses to go away,” Puckett said. “This legislation would offer an alternative to state licensing that we could live with, should that exemption go away.”
Another reason proponents are pushing the bill, Schnelting told The Star in his email response, is to provide relief to the state when it comes to housing children. The substitute bill, which is scheduled for a vote Tuesday, would in some instances allow DSS to place children in these boarding schools.
Currently, the state does not place children in unlicensed schools, the bill’s supporters say.
“Missouri is facing a foster care crisis on such a large scale that children are sleeping in hospital rooms and in offices due to our inability to place them,” Schnelting said. “The purpose of my legislation is to help alleviate the foster care crisis and ensure that DSS can place children in some of these reputable homes while also ensuring a higher standard of oversight of them through the Child Protection Board.”