March 26, 2005
 

[According to a story in the Kootenai Valley Press, dated March 29, 2005, CEDU settled a lawsuit in 2002 which had been filed by the parents of two Rocky Mountain Academy students who alleged their children had been abused and that staff was not properly qualified, paying $300,000.]

"The students' safety and making this transition as easy as possible for them is our priority," said Pete Talbott, chief executive officer of CEDU. "I deeply regret that we have come to the end of CEDU's nearly 40-year history."

According to employees, they did not know CEDU was shutting the schools until Friday afternoon, although they had not received their paychecks for the week and knew there was a problem.

"None of us had been aware that it had gotten to this point, and it's incredibly disheartening, and the impact and ramifications to the students, the families, the community -- it's just hard to fathom," said communications director Julia Andrick. She was informed of the closure at 3 p.m. on Friday.

"This was news to everybody -- senior management and employees -- this afternoon," Andrick said. She called the decision "heartbreaking."

CEDU had operated Ascent, Northwest Academy, Boulder Creek Academy and Milestones in Idaho. Milestones is in Coeur d'Alene, and the other schools are located in Boundary County. CEDU has a small office in Sandpoint and closed Rocky Mountain Academy in mid-February, saying it could no longer attract quality staff and therefore could not attract students.

CEDU employed 500 people in all of its facilities, which were located in Idaho, California and Vermont.

The employees appeared distraught.

Boulder Creek Academy English teacher Valerie Davis was in tears when she talked about the closure after she inquired about a job at the Bonners Ferry Herald Friday evening. She and her fiance, Boulder Creek Academy counselor Silas Thompson, just bought a new house in Bonners Ferry and hadn't made their first house payment.

Davis worked for CEDU for nine years.

"I'm just sad because I love my school," said Davis, who isn't upset about finding a new job, but about losing the one she loved. She had just updated her resume because she was teaching resume writing in one of her life-skills classes.

"I know that we'll be able to pull it together. I'm sad that I won't be working with the people that I work with. I'm sad to watch something that I helped build, something that I helped create. I'm sad to see it go away, because I'm proud of it," she said.

"I had the best boss that I ever had ... all the people that I worked with were just incredible."

Talking about the students was upsetting for her as well.

"It would be sad to see them all go, because some of them are really getting something really valuable," Davis said.

"Working at BCA is like having a dream job. You go to work, you teach students that you can see grow quickly. They just come so far as they grow emotionally. Most of the time going to work was like playing," she said.

Some of the students Davis helped stay in contact with her, sending her pictures of their children.

"Just watching them, tracking them as they become adults, has been great," she said.

CEDU employees aren't the only ones upset by the loss.

Students will abruptly stop in the middle of the growth programs.

"We've gotten a lot of really good things from these programs," said Harvey Baumoel of Ukiah, Calif. He and his wife, Theresa, heard about the closure at a 5 p.m. Friday ceremony for some of the parents and students.

Harvey Baumoel said their son, 16-year-old Bryan Staber-Baumoel, has made tremendous progress at Boulder Creek Academy. The two were angered by the suddenness of the announcement.

"It's an outrageous thing to happen without any planning," Harvey Baumoel said.

Baumoel believed the suddenness of the closure and lack of "disengagement" plans belied CEDU's claim that helping students make the transition is a priority.

"The way they did it showed very little concern for the students and their parents," Baumoel said.

"I think that not only is it a major shock to me and to my wife and all of the parents that are involved in here. For whatever reasons, we don't know, nobody told us why this is happening, but the way this is happening is very unprofessional and inconsiderate and outrageous," he said.

He was also upset over the loss of a program that has helped his son immeasurably.

"The staff has been incredible and wonderful in saving kids' lives literally in keeping them from going back in the direction that they were in," he said.

"For them to close this down has been a major loss for those who need that and for parents."

"I looked at my son and said what are you going to do now," Baumoel said.

Staber-Baumoel said he was shocked, and that the school "meant a lot to a lot of kids," and helped them achieve what they wanted from life. Boulder Creek Academy helped him.

"I've gotten over a lot of problems that I had, like honesty, like having integrity ... it kind of gets you back on track. It puts you in a place where you have to look at a lot of things," he said.

"It helped a lot of kids regain control over their lives," he said.

The schools have also helped the community maintain economic footing. CEDU is one of the largest private employers in Boundary County, said Kathryn Tacke, regional labor economist with the Idaho Department of Commerce and Labor.

Idaho Commerce and Labor will assist with finding new jobs, retraining and relocation when necessary, she said, but the community faces difficulties.

The kinds of jobs lost -- numerous counseling and teaching jobs -- are not usually the kind concentrated in one place.

Tacke also found the news of closure unexpected.

"There didn't seem to be any forewarnings that there were any problems at all until Rocky Mountain Academy closed down," she said.

The loss didn't look like it would affect anything but RMA, Tacke added.

"My greatest hope of course is that somebody would buy the schools and maybe restore the jobs," she said.

Local officials were also surprised, and they were enormously concerned about those who lost their jobs, their families, the students and the ripple effect of so many jobs lost in an area that only two years ago lost 150 jobs when the Louisiana-Pacific Mill in downtown Bonners Ferry closed.

"I don't know how they're going to recover from that. There's just not enough jobs to go around," said Boundary County Commission Chairman Ron Smith. He worked for CEDU for a few months after serving as Boundary County sheriff in the 1980s helping relocate students if they left the schools.

"There's going to be a lot of praying, a lot of prayers. Everyone should be praying for these guys," Smith said.

"The community's really going to have to stick together now."

County officials had no warning that CEDU was in such dire financial condition, he said.

"I wish they could have got with the county to see if there's anything that we could have done. That's devastating to the community," said Smith.

"We're going to lose 250 jobs. That's worse than when we lost the mill," he said.

Bonners Ferry Mayor Darrell Kerby was also worried for employees and their families.

"It's been an institution around here for a long time, providing many years of employment," he said. "It'll be a sad spring for many families that have relied on that institution to provide them with employment."
 

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