SALEM, W.Va. (AP) - A now-closed Harrison County boarding school is being sued after two former students say a “culture of silence and secrecy” at the school led to widespread abuse.
The students, identified only as L.B. and T.B., filed the lawsuit against Miracle Meadows School in Salem last month, the Charleston Gazette-Mail ( https://bit.ly/2keerj5 ) reported.
Miracle Meadows had its state-recognized education status revoked in August 2014 and shut down.
The school was described as a Christian boarding school for boys and girls. It billed itself as being specifically for youngsters “experiencing defiance, dishonesty, school failure, trouble with the law …. and other behavior harmful to them and to others,” according to the text of the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit say they were subjected to neglect and extreme physical, emotional and sexual abuse that they still suffer from.
“Numerous children at Miracle Meadows would be ’quarantined’ - where children would be locked inside a 10x4 room alone for extended periods of time with nothing more than a bucket to urinate and defecate in,” the complaint states.
Susan Gayle Clark, the former director of Miracle Meadows and a defendant in the lawsuit, was sentenced in April to spend six months in jail and five years on probation after pleading guilty to child neglect charges.
It was not immediately clear if the school had an attorney who could comment on the suit.
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Information from: The Charleston Gazette-Mail, https://wvgazettemail.com.
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