The joint investigative project, "Secrets in the Schoolhouse," by WEAR TV news reporter Mollye Barrows and Independent News Editor Duwayne Escobedo grabbed the attention of Santa Rosa County Sheriff's investigators and State Attorney officials.
Sources say the law enforcement agencies are looking at the stories that chronicle allegations of abuse claimed by former Victory Christian Academy students. One former student, Rebecca Ramirez, accused founder Michael Palmer of raping her and other girls described alleged abuses and mistreatment at the all-girls boarding school in the rural town of Jay.
Also, Air America "Ring of Fire" co-host Mike Papantonio aired a segment Wednesday, Dec. 8, on the national radio network about the Jay academy and similar charges at related schools across the country.
State lawmaker Ray Sansom, who's in line for the House speaker position in 2008, says he will ask the House's education committee to review Palmer's institution and the fact that about 30 other schools like it in Florida operate with no state oversight.
The Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., also says it plans to "definitely" check the girls' claims about the Florida school.
In 1982, SPL founder Morris Dees represented a 19-year-old who complained of abuse against Bob and Betty Wills, founders of the faith-based school Mountain Park in Hattiesburg, Miss., leading to the closure of their school.
Shelby Earnshaw, the director of International Survivors Action Committee, says Florida lawmakers should follow in Texas' footsteps, which established oversight in 2001 after investigating numerous abuse charges.
"It seems there's more emphasis placed on making it easier on the people running these schools than making it safer for the girls who are in them," she says. "If you cut hair or manicure fingernails, you have to be licensed. Any kind of operation that involves children should require some type of regulation."
Meanwhile, some Palmer supporters have rushed to his defense following the stories. Ruth Hart, who says she has a 16-year-old daughter there currently who was addicted to crack cocaine, says Palmer referred to her daughter as a "whore monger" but that's OK.
"I feel like the program did miracles in my life and my daughter's," she says. "The program works for a lot of girls."