by Chris Garifo
Watertown Daily Times
August 19, 2005
ALBANY - The much-troubled Academy at Ivy Ridge must pay as much as $1.65 million in refunds and fines under an agreement with state Attorney General Eliot L. Spitzer.
As part of the agreement, the behavior modification facility for troubled teens will no longer issue high school diplomas and will provide tuition refunds of 15 percent to the families of many of the students who attended the school. The refunds will be paid to the attorney general's office, which will forward them to the students' families.
Ivy Ridge also must stop falsely advertising that it can legally issue diplomas to students who complete its program and that it is an accredited educational institution.
"Frankly, this is one of the largest educational fraud cases in New York state history," said John T. Sullivan Jr., assistant attorney general in charge of the Watertown regional office. "The amount of restitution is significant; I don't know of any case where the amounts are even close."
Since opening in 2001, Ivy Ridge has awarded high school diplomas to 113 of its students, though it is not authorized to grant such diplomas because it is not registered with the state Education Department.
Under terms of the agreement, those 113 students, or their parents, will receive refunds of 15 percent of the total tuition paid to Ivy Ridge. Tuition averages $50,000 per year with the typical student spending 18 months at the school.
The amount of the refunds could reach as much as $1.4 million, Mr. Sullivan said. Ivy Ridge must also pay fines to the state of $250,000 plus $2,000 in costs.
"No matter how you shine the apple, if there's a worm inside it, it's not fit for consumption," Mr. Sullivan said of the school.
"That's his opinion," said Jason G. Finlinson, Ivy Ridge director. "For one thing, he's never been to the school to look at what we do at the school, but he has his opinion."
Coming up with the money that needs to be paid will not be easy, Mr. Finlinson said.
"Not everybody has a lot of money sitting around, but we'll make it happen," he said.
Entering into the agreement was in the best interests of Ivy Ridge, Mr. Finlinson said.
Ivy Ridge this year has faced a lawsuit filed in California accusing it of the physical and emotional abuse of a student, has dealt with a riot that led to the expulsion of 40 students and this week was accused of abuse by a student who tried tripping a fire alarm so he could be expelled.
The attorney general's office began investigating Ivy Ridge last year as a result of complaints on a variety of issues from parents of children who attended the school. During the course of that investigation, which has not necessarily concluded, state attorneys determined that the school was lying about its academic credentials on its Web site and in promotional materials.
"This doesn't close the book," Mr. Sullivan said. "There are still matters involving the accreditation that we're still reviewing."
The school, one of several affiliated with the Utah-based World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, had claimed that it was accredited with the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools, a regional accrediting organization based in Boise, Idaho. However, Ivy Ridge had not actually been accredited but was simply going through the process.
Northwest ordered the school to stop claiming it was accredited and suspended the accreditation process as a result of the attorney general's investigation. The school had not informed Northwest that it was not licensed with the state Education Department.
In fact, according to the Assurance of Discontinuance that serves as the agreement between Ivy Ridge and the state, the school has been operating in violation of New York education and business law.
The school was formed as part of a partnership between the Jason G. Finlinson Corp. and the Joseph and Alyn Mitchell Corp. However, under state law, a corporation cannot operate an educational institution without the consent of the Board of Regents. Also, two corporations cannot form a partnership to operate an educational institution without the Regents' approval.
Ivy Ridge has since reorganized and is now operated by a single limited liability company, the Academy at Ivy Ridge LLC, with Mr. Finlinson as its chief executive officer, he said.
The school will continue to operate, and its executives expect to get the Regents approval they need, Mr. Finlinson said.
"If you look at the guidelines and follow the law, we should be treated the same as any school in New York," he said. "There are a lot of private schools in the state. Why wouldn't we be treated as fair as anybody else?"
A spokesman for the state Education Department said he could not speculate on whether Ivy Ridge would be allowed to operate as an educational institution because the agency had not yet seen an application for that.
"We would review any request on their part to operate as a charter school," said Thomas Dunn, the Education Department spokesman.
Initially, the corporations that formed Ivy Ridge filed a petition to incorporate with the state Department of State. However, because they wanted to operate an educational facility, the Department of State sent the application to the Education Department, as required.
"What Ivy Ridge did, they started the process, it went to state Education, but then Ivy Ridge pulled their application and state Ed never issued a certificate," Mr. Sullivan said.
As a result, the Education Department has never considered Ivy Ridge anything other than a behavioral modification facility, Mr. Dunn said.
"The question is, Were they an educational institution?" he said. "They never appeared to function as an educational institution."
The attorney general's office has been somewhat limited in its investigation into Ivy Ridge because there is no clear-cut statute or regulation specifically covering such operations, Mr. Sullivan said.
"People assume there is government oversight," he said. "Frankly, in New York state, we have more oversight over dog kennels than we do these schools, and that's not right."
Utah, which has several such facilities, recently enacted legislation that gives that state's child protective services agency oversight over the schools.
"An effort is going to be made to put together a proposed bill similar to the one enacted in Utah to put these schools under the Department of Education or Children and Family Services," Mr. Sullivan said.
The attorney general's office also has been pushing for the state Office of Children and Family Services to continue looking at allegations that Ivy Ridge students have been physically and emotionally abused, Mr. Sullivan said. In fact, a debate has been ongoing among various state agencies over which one has jurisdiction over what is happening at Ivy Ridge.
Children and Family Services, which in February paid an unannounced visit to Ivy Ridge, has since said it has no jurisdiction because no students are there under specific criteria required by the agency, even though at least some of the students have been sent there by court orders.
As a result, the agency refers any complaints of abuse it receives to the state police.
However, the criteria the state police use in dealing with such allegations are not necessarily the same that Children and Family Services would use because the police are looking for criminal activity while Children and Family Services is supposed to be looking out for a child's welfare.
"Cops look for broken arms, but you can have broken spirit," Mr. Sullivan said. "As a result, the types of allegations of abuse that are made often fall between the cracks, which is a shame."
Similar allegations lodged against WWASPS-affiliated schools in Mexico, Costa Rica and the Czech Republic led to them being closed by the host governments, Mr. Sullivan noted.
At least 11 Ivy Ridge students have been admitted to the St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center in Ogdensburg, Mr. Sullivan said.
"One particular kid should never have been placed in that school environment. He was not a candidate for it," he said. "The thing we have tried to do is focus in on what we could focus on, the education fraud part of it, and this was a serious case of educational fraud."
Ivy Ridge must provide the attorney general's office with the names and last known addresses of the 113 students who were awarded bogus high school diplomas and how much they paid for tuition. The office will then send the 15 percent refunds to them.
The school also must provide similar information on those Ivy Ridge students who withdrew between April 15 and 60 days after the agreement was signed and who had at least 18 credits toward graduation. The attorney general's office will contact those students or their families and ask for their reasons for withdrawal.
Any who say they left because of Ivy Ridge's lack of accreditation or its lack of authority to award diplomas will also get tuition refunds.
