Agape Boarding School

A new federal lawsuit filed against Circle of Hope Girls Ranch, a now-shuttered Christian boarding school in Missouri, says a 13-year-old girl faced “abuse, harassment, forced servitude, assault, fraud” and other mistreatment by the camp owners.

Three women who say they experienced abuse at religious boarding schools in Missouri staged a demonstration this week in Springfield. Survivors have called on the state attorney general to investigate the private facilities.

A group is demanding Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey begin investigating facilities accused of abuse, like Agape School in Stockton, Circle of Hope Ranch in Humansville and Kanakuk Kamps in Branson. The group is also advocating to extend the statute of limitations.

Part of the Investigation Discovery series, which examines abusive practices in the Independent Fundamental Baptist Church, highlights two cases at religious schools in southwest Missouri. The docuseries is now streaming on Max.

Agape Boarding School, a Stockton-based Christian residential facility that's been under scrutiny for decades, is shutting down Friday. Dozens of former students have gone public with their allegations of physical, mental, and sexual abuse at the boarding school.

Dozens of former students have gone public with their allegations of physical, mental, and sexual abuse at the Stockton-based Christian residential facility, which opened in 1996. For the last few years, Agape has been at the forefront of the state’s reckoning over abuse allegations at unlicensed faith-based boarding schools.

The Stockton-based boarding school faces mounting allegations of staff physically and sexually abusing students, but its doors have remained open even as the Missouri Attorney General and local prosecutors pursue criminal charges.

House Speaker Rob Vescovo is calling for the U.S. attorney’s office to get involved because he believes local officials ‘either turned a blind eye to, or helped to cover up’ abuse at Agape Boarding School.

Judge David Munton initially ordered Agape be shut down last week at the request of the state Attorney General and Department of Social Services. The state’s petition claimed that an Agape staff member had been placed on Missouri’s child abuse and neglect central registry for physically abusing a student.

The injunction came in response to a request from the Missouri Attorney General’s Office and the Department of Social Services for the Christian boarding school to be closed, but the order remains on pause until a hearing Monday.

The Christian reform school in Stockton faces mounting accusations of abuse, lawsuits and calls for its closure by former students, who described being physically restrained, sexually abused, starved as a form of punishment and taken off prescribed medications while reassured that “God would fix them.”