Missouri boarding school accused of abusing students announces it is shutting down

Agape Boarding School, the embattled unlicensed Christian facility in southwest Missouri that has been dogged by abuse allegations for years, is closing its doors.

The action comes as the Missouri Attorney General’s Office said it planned to continue its petition for a court injunction to close the school, which opened near Stockton in 1996.

“For the past 30 years Agape Boarding School has provided over 6,000 boys with an opportunity to get their life back on track and toward a bright future,” the school’s former director, Bryan Clemensen, said in a news release issued shortly after noon Wednesday.

“Agape has made the decision to stop providing services to the boys in its care effective January 20, 2023. Agape’s focus is on getting the boys who remain in the program safely transitioned to their parents or to foster care, other group homes or residential programs.”

He said the decision to close is “voluntary” and “due to the lack of financial resources to continue caring for the boys.”

Since late 2020, the school has been scrutinized by Missouri law enforcement, child welfare officials, lawmakers and former students. Several of those students testified in Jefferson City, urging lawmakers to do something about the years of abuse and protect the children still at the school. Legislators passed a law as a result that for the first time implements some regulations on such schools.

“Today, the many victims who have come forth can rest assured that no more children will be hurt at Agape Boarding School,” said Robert Bucklin, 28, who attended the Cedar County school from 2007 to 2012 and is among those who filed a lawsuit against the school. “The healing process can start for so many. After years of fighting for justice, justice has finally prevailed.”

Rep. Keri Ingle, D-Lee’s Summit, pushed for the hearings on boarding schools and co-sponsored the new law with Rep. Rudy Veit, R-Wardsville. She said she was happy about the closure, but more needs to be done.

“Survivors deserve justice for the harm they endured for entirely too long,” Ingle told The Star. “To be clear, they cannot escape accountability simply by closing their doors. I look forward to working with the Attorney General’s Office and the Department of Social Services to ensure that they are able to close facilities immediately when children’s safety cannot be ensured.”

In September, the Missouri attorney general and the Department of Social Services filed for an injunction saying the students’ safety was in jeopardy and the school should close. That case is still playing out in court.

A DSS spokeswoman said Wednesday that the agency “is aware of Agape Boarding School’s announced closure.”

“And we are in consultation with Attorney General Bailey’s office regarding steps forward with pending litigation,” said Heather Dolce of DSS. “Our top priority is to ensure the safety and well-being of Missouri children, and our Children’s Division team is dedicated to completing thorough investigations into every report of suspected child abuse and neglect we have received.”

Dolce said the Children’s Division would continue to “have 24-hour access to the Agape facility to observe the children there.”

Missouri’s new attorney general, Andrew Bailey, briefly addressed the Agape case after his inauguration in Jefferson City last week. When asked, he told reporters he planned to continue the state’s case against the school.

The school also faces about two dozen lawsuits from former students and some have recently been settled. The amounts of those settlements are not public.

The Star has investigated Agape and other boarding schools in southern Missouri since late summer 2020. Many men who attended Agape in their youth said they were subjected to physical restraints, extreme workouts, long days of manual labor, and food and water withheld as punishment. And, they said, former students endured constant berating and mind games and some were physically and sexually abused by staff and other youth.

Agape is the fourth and final unlicensed Christian boarding school in Cedar County to close since September 2020.

In 2021, five Agape staffers, including one who still works there, were charged with low-level felonies of physically assaulting students. At a Dec. 8 preliminary hearing for three of those staff members, Scott Dumar, the school’s medical coordinator, and Everett Graves pleaded guilty to lesser misdemeanors and received two years’ probation. The case against Christopher McElroy was dismissed when his alleged victim did not show up to testify.

Seth Duncan pleaded guilty on Dec. 14 to one misdemeanor and also received two years’ probation. The case against former staffer Trent Hartman is ongoing.

And David Smock, a Stockton doctor who for many years treated students at Agape, was charged in late 2021 and early last year with more than a dozen child sex crimes in two counties. He remains in custody, and those cases are still in court.

In the past few months, two former Agape staff members have been charged with crimes in other states.

Kelly Vanderkooi, who later opened his own Christian school in Kentucky, was indicted by a grand jury in Kentucky in December on 21 counts of first-degree criminal abuse of a child 12 or under and 10 counts of fourth-degree assault (child abuse).

Vanderkooi, 52, who former Agape students say ran the boot camp on the Cedar County campus until the early 2000s, has operated Pilgrim’s Rest Ministry of Reconciliation School in Dundee, Kentucky, since 2005. The charges came after a lengthy investigation by Kentucky State Police late last year. Vanderkooi’s son and daughter-in-law also were charged.

And in mid-November, Steve Wukmer, 66, was charged in Alabama with 215 counts of possession of child pornography. Agape confirmed that Wukmer worked at the school near Stockton from April 2005 to February 2006 and said he left to become an assistant director of a small boarding school in Ohio. He also served as a children’s minister in that state, according to Alabama authorities.

The first of the Cedar County boarding schools to close was Circle of Hope Girls Ranch near Humansville. The owners, Boyd and Stephanie Householder, shut it down in September 2020 after authorities removed the more than 20 students amid an investigation into abuse allegations against them. The Householders were charged in 2021 with nearly 100 felony counts of abuse, including statutory sodomy, rape, physical abuse and neglect. Their case is still going through the courts.

Wings of Faith Academy near Stockton, a Christian boarding school for girls, closed on June 1 after 18 years in Cedar County. It was considered a sister school to Agape.

And Legacy Academy Adventures, led by a former long-time Agape staffer, closed last summer. The school, which opened in May 2020, served boys ages 9 to 15. Owner Brent Jackson left Agape in 2018 after working there for 18 years, including time as the school’s dean of students.