By Sarah Vogelsong
CP Reporter
Abundant Life Academy finally ran out of second chances Tuesday night when the Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to revoke the troubled boarding school’s special exception permit.
“I feel that we have given them every opportunity in order to live up to what they said to us as a Board,” Madison Supervisor Wayne Acors said. “It’s time to pull the plug.”
The Feb. 10 public hearing was a continuation of the public hearing from the Board’s Jan. 27 meeting. Two citizens spoke out against ALA at the earlier meeting, but a decision was deferred until last night because of an error in notifying the owner of the school about the hearing.
Virginia state code requires that an owner be notified of a public hearing to revoke a special exception at least five days before the hearing takes place.
County Director of Planning Mike Finchum assured the Board last night, however, that the error had been corrected and that all notifications had been sent out in line with state requirements.
No representatives from ALA were present at the Feb. 10 meeting, although Finchum stated that “they were aware of the pending county action.”
A call to Abundant Life Academy to reach owner Paul Branning was not returned as of press time.
The special exception permit that allowed Veritas Adolescent Services to operate a boarding school on the 134-acre tract off Passing Road was formally revoked on the grounds that ALA had violated one of the conditions of the permit that required the school to report “any criminal violations that occur on the property” to the Sheriff’s Office.
A number of criminal acts and investigations have dogged ALA over the past year. At least four incidents of runaways involving nine students have occurred. This August, Nathaniel Daniel, a former director of the school, was convicted of sexual battery of a student. In October, three teachers and director Liam Galligan were convicted of assault and battery of a student.
Thirteen charges of felony abuse and neglect of children with a reckless disregard for life are also pending against Galligan, and the Caroline Sheriff’s Office continues to investigate further incidents of child endangerment and physical assault at the school.
In December, Branning came before the Board to announce that all 34 of ALA’s students had been sent home or transferred elsewhere until, he said, “I can guarantee this Board and the families that I can keep their children safe.”
Citing video footage of the assault and battery of an ALA student that was taken last February and aired on a Richmond station this winter, Mattaponi Supervisor Floyd Thomas said, “That is not the kind of facility we need in the county.”
“They failed to live up to their expectations,” he said. “They failed to do what they said they were going to do. And they failed to even pay the county taxes.”
Reedy Church Supervisor Reggie Underwood concurred, saying, “It went against some of our better judgment to give them an opportunity, and they have failed to live up to the standards. That should be the end of the conversation.”
“They pulled their own plug,” he concluded. “We didn’t do it.”
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