#atlah

Rebecca Klein at HuffPost (12.02.2019): 

NEW YORK — Five years ago when Kaiya showed up for the first day of senior year at Atlah High School in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, she had barely made it in the building before an administrator told her to leave. She was told she had been expelled from the school.

But not because she had done anything wrong.

It turns out, she had merely offended the school’s leaders ― overseen by Superintendent James Manning, who is also the pastor of the church affiliated with the school ― by spending her summer break on a vacation with family, when school was out, instead of attending the graduation ceremony for the students a year above her.

And now, they were ready to ruin her life over it.  

A HuffPost investigation published in April revealed that Atlah World Missionary Church ― designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center ― runs a K-12 private school where kids have been psychologically abused and systematically taught to fear LGBTQ people. The story was based on interviews with 27 people connected to the church and school, many of them former students with similar stories to Kaiya who said the institution was run like “a cult.”

HuffPost has spoken with nine more former students, former congregants and relatives of current church members. They have corroborated details of HuffPost’s initial report and contributed their own similar stories. They describe a pastor who harshly punishes students and promotes estrangement within families, at the same time running a private school that falsely bills itself as a high-tech, cutting-edge success.

On Sunday, seven months after HuffPost first asked the New York City Department of Education about these allegations, the agency told HuffPost it is investigating it. The agency is responsible for making sure private schools within its geographic district provide instruction that is “substantially equivalent” to that offered in public schools.

“Every student deserves a safe, high-quality education. We are investigating these allegations and urge anyone who believes they may have been the victim of misconduct to contact us,” department spokesperson Danielle Filson said in an email to HuffPost.

The agency did not provide details on what the investigation entails.

The New York State Department of Education has also been working to schedule a visit to the school, to determine whether it should be allowed to register with the state. The school has had pending registration status since at least 2013, which allows it to hand out diplomas approved by New York state while it waits for a decision. Since HuffPost’s initial investigation, the agency has reached out to obtain the information required to make such a determination but has not received the requested information, a spokesperson told HuffPost in October.

Still, in recent months, former students have continued to come forward with their own stories of what they experienced, even as Manning has worked to discredit HuffPost’s initial investigation into Atlah. Manning called the investigation a hit job from “LGBTQ mafia” that had been written by a “lesbian witch.” He especially pushed back on an allegation that he sexually harassed and inappropriately touched a former student when she was 18. (The police previously investigated this case and wouldn’t comment on why it was closed.)  

Some former students like Kaiya, who is going by her first name to protect her privacy, had their schooling interrupted over a petty grudge. Others were punished in draconian, humiliating ways for minor indiscretions. Some former students had family members disown them at Manning’s urging, leading to devastating rifts.

As Kaiya learned, she was being punished for choosing a pre-booked family vacation over a mandatory school event, which took place over the summer. Her family had already spent money on the vacation, and she didn’t imagine she could be punished for choosing to go with them rather than attend the Atlah event. She had always earned good grades and gotten along well with her classmates in her over two years at the school.

Now, after recently graduating from St. John’s University with a degree in education, she can’t believe her former school still exists.

“I almost feel like I was robbed of my high school experience,” said Kaiya. “A cult is what I compare it to.”

Yet about two dozen students shuffled through Atlah’s doors when the academic year started in September, entering a school that bills itself as one that can save children “from the homosexual demons in the public school system.”

See Also: HuffPost: Atlah Church Is Classified As A Hate Group. It’s Able To Run A School Anyway.

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UedszQNWMMQ)