Originally published in the Columbia Missourian on Jul. 18, 2022.
The Agapé Boarding School in southwest Missouri’s Stockton is no longer accredited by the Association for Christian Teachers in School and the National Council for Private School Accreditation after advocates, citing evidence that students at Agapé have been abused, lobbied the groups to rebuke the school.
“The decision comes from the board of other school heads, and they made the decision to allow their accreditation to expire on June 30, 2022,” Steve Lindquist, director of accreditation at the Association for Christian Teachers in School, said. “So that’s where we are at this point.”
Agapé, a Christian boarding school, has been the focus on an abuse investigation, with 19 lawsuits currently filed against the institution.
Robert Bucklin, a survivor of Agapé abuse who has filed a lawsuit against the school, reached out to Missouri Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Spencer Toder on Twitter in March to seek his help. Toder agreed to get involved.
“We’ve been working hand in hand with Robert on this, my campaign in particular, and I have been working to ensure that this is no longer acceptable behavior for an organization to accredit and provide validity to a school that is raping and sexually assaulting and abusing young men,” Toder said.
Toder published an interview with Bucklin on Twitter and has repeatedly reached out to accrediting organizations on Agapé’s website with updates on abuse allegations and articles published about the school.
“One of the actions we took was working with Robert and being a surrogate to his efforts to ensure that we do everything we can to shut this school down,” Toder said. “Cause it’s not fair for people to continue to be abused when we know that it’s happening. It’s disgusting.”
Bucklin said he has been calling Gov. Mike Parson’s office multiple times a week for the past year and has emailed Attorney General Eric Schmitt about the school. Both have refused to comment.
“It’s always the same thing: ‘The governor has read this story,’ or ‘The governor’s seen your post on Twitter about this,’ or ‘The governor’s watched the video review, and the governor has no comment,’” Bucklin said.
“We don’t need them. We will go around them,” Toder said. “We will do everything we’ve been doing from day one.”
Bucklin said it’s important that Christians understand what’s happening at Agapé.
“Real Christians don’t abuse children,” Bucklin said. “God says it’s better for you to be cast into the sea with a stone around your neck than hurt those little children.”
Parson, Schmitt and the Agapé Boarding School have no comment at this time.
