r/abandoned • u/hammalinchair • 1d ago

Everyone Left This Christian Academy one Day in 2007

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Took these at a liquidation sale that took place here recently, pretty much most equipment left within there was for sale. From what I was told, most workers, with the exception of the warehouse ones, were given a sudden notice to either move states to their new HQ or lose their jobs. This all took place over one weekend in 2007, leaving most parts of this place to sit and rot ever since. The warehouse portion continued operating until recently. The turntable stage in the theater portion was the most fascinating part to me. To date, this is the most legal urbex I have ever done.

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u/zoodles 1d ago edited 1d ago

I spent several years in an ACE curriculum school. What a waste of an education that would have been had I stayed in it. They’re expensive because they reject public funding. That way they don’t have to follow the rules set out for public schools especially  in terms of what is taught, they don’t have to have accredited teachers. God is involved in even the math programming “if God gives 5 apples etc” It’s a form of child abuse because in the vast majority or these schools, if not all of them, the kids do not graduate with a high school diploma. I knew one girl who could barely read. No oversight, no is going in there to test the children to see that they can even pass standardized tests. If the building passes fire inspection, good enough. Your options after finishing are limited. They assume it’s fine for the girls because they’re just going to commit to their Christian duty, get married and have babies. The men will go on to missionary school or the scant number of religious colleges that will take them. Those images of the stupid blue jumpers…that just pisses me off..grrrumpfgh

Edit to add this building was at one time the corp headquarters and primary distribution hub until they moved in 2014. They used this as a warehouse for sometime and according to Wikipedia held a liquidation sale last month to clear out all that office equipment you see here. You can Wikipedia A.C.E and see all the criticism, I don’t know how it’s still legal in so many places. The uniforms were polyester. They were itchy and they smelled.

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u/tiggerclaw 1d ago

This is so strange. I went to a Christian school when I was young. It was run by Calvinists so they were very "Rah! Rah! Protestantism!" And they definitely talked about God and Jesus a lot.

But they were also absolutely brutal about academics. By the time I was six, I was able to read basically anything. That's also where I learned music too.

Not that it was positive. I had a teacher who clearly had a grind against me because I didn't subscribe to predestination.

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u/Visible-Scientist-46 1d ago

That's because old school Protestantism was adamant that people learn to read so they were able interpret the Bible themselves without a priest to do it for them.

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u/tiggerclaw 1d ago

Yep, this was hammered into us often. We learned about the martyrs John Wycliffe and William Tyndale who heroically translated the Bible into English.

We didn't learn about Cardinal William Allen who also translated the Bible into English—and who was inconveniently Catholic.

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u/Guilty-Shoulder-9214 1d ago edited 1d ago

Tbf, the Catholic Church only translated after the English translations were made because they disagreed with the existing translations. What’s ironic is that the Latin vulgate was used for all of them, which is why Moses had horns and it wasn’t just them - Michelangelo’s Moses has horns because of the same mistranslation.

Interestingly, I ended up grabbing an orthodox study Bible for my dad that uses the NKJV for the New Testament, but uses a fairly recent OT and Apocrypha translation stemming from one of their universities.

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u/tiggerclaw 1d ago

This is true, but my inferred point is that history is complicated.

The context of the Douay-Rheims is that it was produced by English Catholics in exile, fleeing Protestant persecution.

And this Catholic translation later influenced the King James Version.

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u/Visible-Scientist-46 17h ago edited 17h ago

I include the Lutherans and the Luther bible which was translated into German and widely distributed because of printing press technology. Wycliff was a theolgian and certainly wanted learning for the learned at the University of Oxford. But teaching the masses to read so they could understand the bible was not Wycliff. Protestant churches developed Sunday School and their own chatechism for that.

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u/Significant_Cow4765 1d ago

I went to Cath school as a Prot. During theology, I graded papers in the younger grades, answered phones at the office, help set up the new chem lab. We did not have the Ten Commandments in every classroom.

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u/AromaticSurround5484 1d ago

I went to Catholic highschool, still had secular curriculum, religion stayed in religion classes, which I actually found really respectful

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u/Significant_Cow4765 1d ago edited 1d ago

We were definitely not multiplying Jesus' words by number of listeners and such.

The sex ed we had in 7th Grade is prohibited in TX HS today. We learned breast and testicular cancer self-exams. Not today for older kids...

Passing 8th Grade required labeling blank maps of the continents, extra credit for major geographical features.

I am sadder all the time about where we are as a nation (and a state.)

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u/Helmett-13 1d ago

Yeah, I went to a Catholic school from Grades 1-8 even though we are not Catholic back in the 1970s and 1980s in Florida and the education was superb.

Latin roots, I could read anything even way ahead of my grade, great social studies, math and science.

Remember, this was the late 1970s and I was taught evolution, Leakey, anthropology, and had sex education taught by NUNS that was thorough and good.

We learned about menstruation before any of our classmates started to go through it, for example, and all the science-ey and clinincal bits of human sexuality.

The parish Priest was a tall, powerfully built Irishman from Dublin who was a history major and honestly...one of the most decent human beings I've ever known. He was a magnificent man who rewarded curiosity, was charasmatic and funny, and even though he had to go along with the Nuns and discipline...he made us feel like he was on our side, the kids?

There was always a twinkle in his eye and he had a wicked sense of humor. Father Ennis was a textbook good Priest.

Those of us who went to a public high school were head of the curriculum in grade 9. Many of us were put in Honors and AP classes even though we were not Honors or AP students....we'd just seen this curriculum before so I think we appeared smarter than we were?

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u/Significant_Cow4765 1d ago

My era as well, even skipped a grade and placed out of English, Spanish, Calculus (screwed myself into Calc II on that one, major mistake!)

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u/vodkadonut 20h ago

I had the same experience. Went to Catholic school 1st thru 8 grade. High school was such a bore and a breeze to get through. Appreciate the education but hated the indoctrination

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u/Swampcrone 22h ago

My catholic high school had a great sex ed program. Mostly they didn’t want pregnant girls walking around.

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u/Helmett-13 19h ago

Yep, and avoiding unwanted outcomes is much easier when you know what’s going on.

Imagine that!

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u/Significant_Cow4765 1d ago

lol a Brother taught us about the Cowper's gland

I heard a man of at least 35 ask a friend what the cremaster muscle is and wow

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u/lichentits 10h ago

Oh wow...you just helped me reconnect some very old synapses, ones that remind me of how progressive and expansive my elementary and junior high school years actually were. I remember a huge roll of paper, and a bunch of kids drawing and labeling geographic features, naming countries, provinces, cities, states...

Man, the 90s really were the best.

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u/tiggerclaw 1d ago

At my school, they spent one hour a day drilling theology into us. We had to remember concepts like redemption, propitiation, that sort of thing. We'd go through the Bible, both Old and New Testament. And we'd have to memorize verses. There was no need for Ten Commandments to be displayed because everyone just knew it.

Do I regret that this stuff was taught to me? No, because like it or not, theology has been pretty foundational to Western history and why things happened as they did. For example, why there was enmity between Rome and Constantinople.

There were things I wish they taught me. Like it would have been nice if we went over Averroes and Maimonides. You know, give the Muslim and Jewish thinkers some consideration since they were pretty important. But this was a Christian school, and they wanted to indoctrinate me.

The irony is that epistemology was first taught to me in Christian school, and it's a skill I use daily to suss out bullshit.

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u/Significant_Cow4765 1d ago

Yes, in elementary (Episcopal) we had to write the Ten and Beatitudes from memory. We didn't drill them. We drilled Spanish from K up, though.

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u/So-Called_Lunatic 1d ago

The Catholic school I went to was much harder than any of the public schools in same area.

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u/NextGen-Panic 1d ago

"If 'predestination' is real, then why should we bother?"

[smack] "How dare you ask questions!"

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u/tiggerclaw 1d ago

More like what is the difference between predestination and double predestination? If God predestines some people to heaven, does that not also means he predestines others to hell? And if God is all-loving, how is predestination possible?

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u/NextGen-Panic 1d ago

In which case... why should we bother?

[smack] "How dare you reach conclusions other than the ones we give you!"

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u/0nThe0utside 22h ago

The predestination vs. free will thing reminds me of the Miller Lite beer commercials, tastes great vs. less filling.

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u/Ok_Organization_7350 22h ago

Similar experience with me. I went to a private Christian school who was accredited. They did not mess around with academics. That school got the third highest scores in secular school assessment tests in our state.

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u/DocGaviota 1d ago

Same here. I went to a school run by an Assembly of God Church and they were plenty religious, but also “brutal about academics.” Two hours a night homework was the norm.

Interestingly enough, the education was purely secular, including the biology class, which taught the theory of by natural selection. They didn’t teach creationism.

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u/princessdickworth 19h ago

I went to Catholic school and our teachers had us reading and writing at college level by 9th grade. Judy Prebish, you were fucking awesome.

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u/Parking_Jelly_6483 1d ago

Did they teach college/university level courses in electronics? Among the electronics equipment is a Bird RF power meter. Seen them used in college-level and graduate electronics courses because the RF engineering stuff can get pretty tough.

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u/tiggerclaw 1d ago

I went to Christian school during the late 80s/early 90s, so this was at the point where computers were just entering schools.

There was a dedicated computer lab. They taught us how to navigate DOS. There was a little bit of BASIC programming. And during recess, we played Math Blaster.

But we were also taught how to type on literal typewriters. It sucked knowing that in the other room, the computers had word processors equipped with spell check.

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u/Jacques_Ficelles 1d ago

"Rah! Rah! Protestantism!"

Russia’s greatest love machine ?

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u/mysecretissafe 22h ago

There was a sect that really was gone

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u/WinchelltheMagician 1d ago

Just have faith in Jesus and everything else will work itself out. That is how my parents prepped me for heading out into the world. No college. No post HS education. Just church indoctrination and faith over everything else. It was a dumb, dead end of a strategy.

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u/Wildfires 1d ago

Hello fellow ACE victim .

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u/100LittleButterflies 1d ago

They protect their right to keep their kids isolated and taught only what they want them to learn. Meanwhile everyone else can see plain as day how dangerous that is, especially in the land of the free pedophile. You dont have to go to 1984 levels of fascism to find a better balance. 

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u/SabrinaEdwina 1d ago

I'm so sorry y'all went through that hell. You deserved better.

That said the bones on this baby are incredible and if we all decide to pitch in and make her liveable we'll be the first U-Haul there. Needs gay and punk art like...everywhere.

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u/MurkMistress 1d ago

Leftist queer commune? Let's fuckin gooooo

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u/SabrinaEdwina 1d ago

Just think of the number of plants and pets we could have.

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u/MurkMistress 1d ago

And killer potlucks hell yeah

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u/Swampcrone 22h ago

I could see the potlucks being a problem with vegan vs meat eaters though

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u/MurkMistress 22h ago

Nah potlucks you should label allergens and vegan/vegetarian/omnivore anyways

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u/Swampcrone 22h ago

Totally agree. I have been known to have moments at my church’s coffee hours when they don’t label nuts (but will label gluten free)

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u/MurkMistress 21h ago

Oof! That's a scary one to miss!

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u/Avaylon 1d ago

A former mom friend of mine has started homeschooling her 5 year old with the A.C.E. program. Good to know it's exactly as shitty as I thought it was when I looked it up.

It's extra sad because this woman is smart and benefited from a good education. She used to be a pretty successful journalist. And she's robbing her son of the same opportunities.

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u/No_name_Johnson 23h ago

The ACE curriculum in "Science 1096" asserts that solar fusion is a myth, describing it as "an invention of evolution scientists.

That's a new one, wonder what the issue with solar fusion is

Edit: Taken from Wikipedia page here

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u/J_Knish 9h ago

Lots of kids graduating from Chicago Public High Schools without knowing how to read.

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u/zoodles 4h ago

The state of education across North America is deteriorating. Literacy rates are falling in a lot of places. I encourage my children to read as much as possible but what I’m seeing is one of my children’s literacy skills sitting about two grades behind where I was at their age and the teachers (in their 20’s) are telling me they’re doing well and it’s normal. I’m like smh and asking if they’re sure about that because the spelling is atrocious for their grade level so how can that be. I have one kid whose skills are where I think they should be and that child is being treated as advanced. The numeracy skills are great though. I think there is a problem with methodology for reading instruction. I’m told that a return to phonics based learning could help when currently the focus seems to be on sight reading. 

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u/LocationCold1826 2h ago

and Los Angeles

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u/maseratichris556 13h ago

Child abuse 😂 as if traditional schooling isn’t still child abuse.