Troy J.
2012
Logan River Academy




On January 12th 2012 at 3:15 I was taken from my home by 3 escorts
 without any warning. It was very traumatizing for me as I was only 16
 at the time. I had many troubles at home with emotional, family and
 substance abuse problems. I was sent to a wilderness program in the
 Adirondacks of New York called Adirondack Leadership Expeditions “ALE”
 (which now closed in September of 2013). It was a very hard change for
 me coming from a very rural area of Northern Virginia. I learned so
 much from this program and it was one of the best experiences of my
 life, they would really help the kids with their problems and teach
 you how to deal with all of it. I left “ALE” on March 22nd after
 completing the wilderness rand was enrolled into Logan River Academy
 after a professional educational consultant and my therapist from
 wilderness thought it would be a good fit.

?When I stepped into the program I had to say goodbye to my parents the
 minute I got there. They took my luggage to search through and they
 took all my cloths and stripped searched me to my underwear. I was
 told to put on sweats which are not cleaned regulary and have been
 woren by 100’s of kids. I sat in a room for 5 hours, a place called
 development also known as DEVO. I had to read and take notes on the
 rule book called “The Intake Book”. It gave you the rules and
 regulations of the school to follow. But if there is a rule that you
 don’t break and the feel like its wrong they can give you points up in
 devo.

?DEVO points is what you get in the situation of breaking this schools
 insane rules. 3 devo points means one structure period which is 25
 minutes and a 5 minute break. In that break you can stop reading and
 doing work. You may not talk to your peers or look around, you may
 raise you hand and ask to use the restroom, if you used the bathroom
 in the last 2 structure periods you may not use the bathroom and you
 can get more points for asking a stupid question.

?There are many different type of infractions in Logan River Academy.
 There are class I, II, III, IV, V. They all mean many different
 things. A class one is considered and minor infraction 4 Class one
 infractions means you sit in solitary confindment also knows as DEVO
 for a day and a half. This is about the same with class II, they just
 say it as a more serious offence. Class III’s if you get one you have
 to go DEVO for a minimum of a day and a half (50 Points in DEVO) and
 up to 400 points in DEVO. A class IV is a serious offence to them you
 can earn hundreds of points for these some in the thousands. This
 could be bumping into a wall and causing a dent, to been found with
 tobacco  products. A class V is hard to come around, you can only
 receive a class V for running away. When you do this you have to sleep
 in DEVO for as long as the please but the minimum is 15 days. You get
 1000 Points, you cannot go to school, you stay in sweats the whole
 time and cannot see any other students unless they are also in
 devolpment.

?In Logan River Academy they have staff that are paid minimum wage. The
 have to be physically fit and they like to have people that have
 played a contact sport before (many of the staff are Utah State
 Athletes). They want the qualification because of PI’s (Physical
 Interventions) these are used if the student gets out of control or is
 a threat to someone or themselves. I have been PI’ed before. Neither
 of these were the case. I refused to go to development because I felt
 it was unjust. They had 3 staff jump on me and put my arms and legs
 behind me and carried me up to development. I did struggle when this
 happened and the preceded to use strong force with pressure points and
 other unnecessary actions. All I wanted was to talk about why I had to
 go to development but they would do no such things. These staff are
 angry kids who are only a couple years older than me. There are good
 people there who generally hate PI’ing people because they are good
 people. But there are many that are not. The majority of the good
 staff are on Jack the managers shift, I do not know his last name. The
 staff that are recklace and angry are on Mikes the managers shift. The
 main staff who was the head of development named Darby Goldie was the
 most negligent and ruthless staff there. I have seen him choke slam
 kids when they speak there minds. I have seen permanent scars on other
 friends that are from Darby Golden. He recently left right after me 3
 months ago. But he was the worst of all.

?I went on a home visit in July of 2012. That was the only way I could
 tell my parents the whole truth about the school. They were very
 surprised about what was going on. Logan river told me if I were to do
 such actions I would lead to a class IV infraction. It finally stuck
 with my parents and they took me out 1 month after my home visit so I
 could finish my school work. The school 100% disapproved and told my
 family how they felt and said that was not ready to transfer back
 home. They said that I would end up right back in LRA in two weeks
 making jokes to me. Im a strong mentally kid, but at LRA there are not
 many of kids there with the mental strength like me. Having staff mock
 you and precede to tell you that you will can be traumatizing to a
 kid. It made me laugh because I knew I would never go back to that God
 forsaken place.