Brown CEDU School Closes?

Private school closes

Cedu says it's broke, sends students home

By Joe Nelson, Staff Writer, San Bernardino Sun

RUNNING SPRINGS - The large wooden sign hanging outside Cedu School greets all who enter the pristine 75-acre property with the optimistic words "To Dream the Impossible Dream.'
Whatever dreams those affiliated with the school may have had, however, were put on hold when they got news last week that the school was shutting down after 38 years due to bankruptcy.

"It was a surprise to all of us that we are closing the school down and sending the children home,' Cedu spokeswoman Julia Andrick said Saturday in a telephone interview.

She said the company filed for federal Chapter 7 bankruptcy on Friday, then notified its staff and students at its seven campuses across the country of the campus closures at 3 p.m.

"Everything's up for sale right now,' Andrick said.

Company Chief Executive Officer Pete Talbott said in a statement the 301 students from the school's seven campuses should be home with their parents in the next 10 days. About 500 employees will be left unemployed.

A flier posted in the Running Springs school's front office window Saturday stated that other schools were trying to find work for Cedu employees, and that a relief fund had been established by parents for employees.

"I deeply regret that we have come to the end of Cedu's nearly 40-year history,' Talbott said.

The company has become so void of funds that it wasn't even able to give employees their final paychecks on Friday. It was unclear if they would receive future compensation.

A stack of memos sat atop the front desk in Cedu's front office Saturday in Running Springs while employees gathered up their belongings and said their goodbyes.

The memos notified employees they would be receiving a claim form in the mail so they could file for compensation of three weeks pay and any accrued overtime, provided the funds are available.

Cedu Middle School counselors Munir Jones, 54, and Skip Borg, 53, loaded personal items into the bed of a pickup outside the campus.

"It's very sad and a disbelief,' said Jones, of Lake Arrowhead.

He said that for him, seeing the sadness on the students' faces when they were told they were going home was the worst.

"This is probably the only place they were safe and had relationships, with adults and with children,' Borg said.

School founder Mel Wasserman opened the middle and high school campuses in Running Springs in 1967. Since then, five other campuses opened up nationwide four in Idaho and one in Vermont.

Despite the many parents who have praised the expensive boarding school for bringing out the best in troubled teens, the Running Springs campus has had its share of problems.

The father of a 14-year-old girl sued the school in September, accusing it of blocking communication between him and his daughter while she was a student at the school between August 2003 and January 2004.

In June, sheriff's detectives searched the school after a girl reported that two 18-year-old students raped her repeatedly on campus in September 2001, just weeks after she enrolled. She was 15 at the time.

The sheriff's Twin Peaks station received an average of 30 calls monthly from the school reporting runaway students. Most of them returned, except for one.

On Feb. 8, 2004, Daniel Yuen, 16, of Edison, N.J., ran away from the school after his second week of attendance. He remained missing Saturday.