Kris could barely contain his excitement when he told his mother he had found the perfect school to attend: a boarding school for boys near Niagara, Ontario, named Robert Land Academy. It was 1996, and Kris, whose last name is being withheld to protect his privacy, was fourteen years old, struggling in middle school in British Columbia. He had dreams of joining the Canadian military, and he became convinced that RLA-its structure mirrored that of the military, with students wearing uniforms and everyone being given military-style ranks-would help him prepare to eventually enlist.
Unbeknownst to them, many students at RLA weren't there by choice but were sent there by their parents and caregivers as a last resort. Its founder billed the school as a place that could reform young boys into "good citizens," a place that would help troubled teens who weren't wanted anywhere else.
Kris's mother enrolled him to attend that fall. "I realize now," she recently told me in an email, "this was the gravest mistake as a parent that I ever made."
The article, based on the stories of ten former students and a parent of a former student, exclusively revealed a series of civil court cases that have been launched against the school, alleging brutal physical punishment by RLA staff, including physical restraint manoeuvres, and other forms of abuse among students that went overlooked by staff.
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