Dear Woodbury Reports and all other professionals who may read this,
We are writing to inform you that a former employee, Geary Oakes, has been charged with sexually abusing two students enrolled at Cedar Ridge Academy. He has been charged with two counts of forcible sodomy, and two counts of forcible sexual abuse. There are also allegations he provided medications to students illegally.
Upon initial report of these allegations we were very surprised and concerned for everyone involved. We immediately reported to our licensing agent and to the authorities the allegations which had been made and did everything to cooperate with the investigation. We separated Geary from the students and began the investigative process with the Child Protective Services and detective assigned to the case. Once we found out formal charges were going to be made, we terminated Geary's employment. We are continuing to support the ongoing investigation and believe that the truth will prevail.
Our goal throughout this incident is to reassure our current families and alumni, and to be as open as possible with everyone regarding the incident. We informed our students and processed the incident with each student individually to see if there had been any abuse to them. We informed our families of all information from the allegations and investigation, including additional policy we created to help prevent future incidents. We informed all of our referring professionals who had students enrolled at Cedar Ridge Academy of all information from the allegations and investigation. We began contacting alumni to inform them of the allegations and process if there had been any abuse to them. We are continuing to inform all the professionals who we have relationships with. We appreciate your posting of this letter to help in these actions.
Though we operated within our licensing regulations prior to the incident, we have created additional policy to further ensure that no staff or students are left alone without a third party. We will continue to perform yearly background checks on all our employees and will continue to use screening steps in the interview process to try to prevent future incidents. We have worked with our licensing agent to ensure that past, current and now these future policies are within the state regulations and are in the best interest of our families.
In the process of dealing with these allegations we have had tremendous support from all of our families. All of our families have given a vote of confidence and support by choosing to continue enrollment at Cedar Ridge Academy. We have support from all the professionals we work with. Many have done a thorough investigation of how we are handling this situation and are continuing to refer to Cedar Ridge Academy. We have received incredible support from our Alumni. We have received many messages and phone calls with expressions of sympathy to the victims and a sincere hope that Cedar Ridge Academy will continue to be able to provide a haven to the families we work with now, and in the future. We are so grateful for this support from so many people. It has really helped to keep the focus on helping the families we work with.
We extend a sincere welcome to contact us to anyone who has questions or comments about these allegations. Sean Haggerty, Admissions Director, can be reached by email at sean@cedaridge.net, or by phone at 435-353-4498, ext 117. Rob Nielson, Program Director, can be reached by email at robn@ubtanet.com, or by phone at 435-353-4498, ext. 111.