Town upset over possible killers in high school
LAKE PLACID, N Y. (AP) — Taiib Mustnfa Shakir was
the hoy next door — good grades at Lake Placid High,
popular, even doted a loc^sl girl — but with a difference.
"Next door." In this case, was the Camelot psychiatri(.
center, which treats troubled youths from around the
Northeast. Everybody knew Shakir and the other "Camelot
boya” came from troubled backgrounds, but most assumed
their problems wore limited to childhood traumas or pat
ty thievery.
Then, one day last month, Shakir flod Camelot and
returned to his old Washington. D C., neighborhood.
There, police said, he tried to rob a convenience store;
a 23-year-old clerk. Tae Shik Yoon, was mortally wound
ed.
Shakir, 17. was charged with murder — and not for the
first time, authorities revealed.
Ijike Placid —an idyllic, low-crime resort, twice host
of the Winter Olympics — was stunned. Resident Nancy
Heattiu recalled hearing the news on television with her
16-year-old daughter. Sarah.
"I said, My God, Sarah! You know a murderer.’ "
As it turned out. Shakir was not the only Camelot boy
with death on his record. The Washington Post report
ed that three other boys from that city who were sent to
Camelot were involved in homicides. And then a H year
old Camelot boy was charged with sodomy and sexual
abuse.
The reports sent a chill through I-ako Placid, a remote,
picture-postcard town nestled in the highest peaks of the
Adirondacks where talk this time of year usually revolves
around ski conditions
(iamelot and school officials rushed to call a public,
meeting to assuage fears. Hundreds of residents packed
the Dike Placid High School auditorium for what turned
out to lie a raucous, marathon debate on Camelot's poli
cies.
"How in God’s name did you take a murderer into
your facility?" Susan Holzer asked ns hundreds of peo
ple around her applauded. "It's not a psychiatric prob
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lem, it's not a behavior problem, it's a murder "
Tlie Rev. Carlos (iaguiat. executive director of Camelot,
this week said the six troubled teen-agers from Wash
ington. D C., have been returned to the city A review
of the facility's admissions policy is under review
But citing rules of confidentiality. (jiguint has refused
to reveal any criminal backgrounds of Camelot boys,
including passible records of the half-dozen youths attend
ing Lake Placid High School this semester.
"This incident, I think, is an aberration Wa have nev
er had anything like this before." he said
Camelot — the full name is the Camelot Campus of St
Francis Academy — sits on a wooded hillside just out
side of Lake Placid Established in 1965. the privately run
center affiliated with the Episcopal Church has 26 beds,
no fences and no guards.
Boys like Shakir who show progress are allowed to take
classes at l-ake Placid High School. By and large, they Fit
in. they play sports, appear in plays, take local girls to
the prom
Shakir did well he made the honor roll orx e. took
up skiing, and made acquaintances who stick up for him
to this day.
"The kid wasn't had. I guess he just did one thing
wrong," said 16-year-old Mike Blair, who visited Shakir
at the Essex County jail before he was sent back to Wash
ington. Blair said that Shakir was upset that he over
stepped foot in the convenience store
Shakir walked out of Camelot Oct. 16 The robbery and
shooting occurred 10 days later, Yoon died three days
after that
By that time, Shakir was on his way back to I-akc Placid
Once back, In* got into a Tight with another Camelot res
ident that proved to lie his undoing. Officers arriving at
the Maine were told by residents that Shakir had bragged
about his role in the killing
Under questioning. Shakir confessed, state police said
And officials told the Post that Shakir also had been
charged in a 1991 murder in Washington, although they
would not say how that case was resolved.
The charges have loft some scratching their heads. How
could a boy do so well in this bucolic town and then
act so differently on the gritty streets of the nation's cap
ital some 300 miles away?
"Mnyhe it's liko the saying You can take the boy out
of the country but you can't take the country out of the
boy.' " said school Superintendent Gerry Blair, who is
Mike's father. "Maybe it's the street. I don't know."
Regardless, some Lake Placid residents are fearful. "It's
scary. You know here in Lake Placid it's protected. Wo
don't have that.” Nancy Beattie said.
I know from growing up children who had more pun
ishment for fooling with their father's car than these kids
are having for murder." Mike Beglin said.
Camelot officials say they are required to allow resi
dents who are deemed psychologically fit for "main
streaming" to attend the high school. School officials say
they cannot legally refuse to accept violent criminals from
Camelot and cannot check into their criminal back
grounds.
Camelot's many defenders point to the treatment facil
ity's succ ess rate, which hovers around 70 percent. James
Rogers, a lifetime resident of Lake Placid and Camelot
board member, said the facility is often the last chance
for kids to set a straight course for life.
Camelot psychiatrist John M.W. Nicholson stressed
that delinquent boys who come to Camelot have already
served their criminal sentence and that Camelot is a place
to heal boys with troubled pasts.
"All of us believe absolutely that beneath the defen
sive emotional scar tissue, there is good in each boy." he
said.
That's also a widely held view at Lake Placid High
School, where students almost universally support their
troubled classmates.
"The sweetest guys 1 know are from Camelot," student
Kate Fish said.
Camps, parks oppose year-round schools
ATLANTA (AP) — The idea of canning
summer vacation and keeping kids in school
year-round pleases many educators and par
ents. but it's got amusement parks and camp
grounds sweating
The American Camping Assot iation, a
national organization of summer camps, has
been on the record for two years with a res
olution opposing 12-month schooling, fret
ting it would reduce organized tamping, "a
vital component in the development and edu
cation of the whole child."
Anti while the International Assot iation of
Amusement Parks and Attractions has yet to
take a formal position, it's concerned enough
that it recently hired a North Carolina public
relations company to gather research and offer
results to other groups that oppose year-round
schools
John (.raff, executive director of the Alexan
dria. Va.-based lobbying organization for 3,70(1
amusement parks worldwide, said his orga
nization has found that a year-round si hed
ule did not help students and could affect |ol>s
and profits at fun parks.
"It is more expensive and doesn't improve
education." Graff said
Hut Gary Field, principal of College Purk
Klementnry in suburban Atlanta, the only
Georgia school on a year-round schedule, said
the Inmefits outweigh any business lost from
a shorter summer vacation.
"If you're going to run your life around
summer camp or amusement parks, then
there's something wrong.” he said
About 1.5 million students nationwide,
from 3.5 percent to 3 7 [am ent of all students,
are in year-round programs, said Charles
Ballinger, executive director of the National
Council on Year-Round Education, based in
ulf you're going to run your
life around summer camp
or amusement parks, then
there’s something wrong,”
Gary Field
Principal College Park Elementary
San Iliego
Field und other educators said squeezing
summer vacation helps students better retain
what they learned in the preceding months
Alphonse Buccino, dean of the Universi
ty of Georgia's College of Education. isn't so
sun- I le said the research is too sketchy And
anyway, he said, the key factor is not whether
vacation time is fragmented but how much
time students spend in die classroom.
"The key variable is the number of days in
the school year." Huci ino said. "The Japan
ese school year is 240 da\s," compared with
1H0 days in the United States.
Most year-round si hoots have the same
number of school days and vacation days as
traditional schools and simply reconfigure
vacation time Instead of one 12-week break
in the summer, with assorted days off for hol
idays during the year, as at traditional schools,
the year-round programs adopt calendars with
variations on a six-week summer break and
three three-week breaks through the rest of
the year.
Graff asserted that some si boo! systems had
dropped year-round si hedules because they
were too expensive and causer! too many
problems. He cited Los Angeles, where the
school board in May si rapped a year-round
schedule for 540 schools, ending a two-year
experiment that cost $8.4 million.
Ballinger said the Los Angeles schools
didn't drop year-round schedules for edu
cational reasons.
"If those schools were air-conditioned, we
believe they would have stayed on the year
round schedule," he said.
Los Angeles parents were on record com
plaining that the schedule forced their chil
dren to endure hot classrooms during the
summer and created child-care problems on
winter breaks.
Florida state Rep. Alzo Roddick, D-Orlan
do. supports the idea of year-round schools,
despite the presence of Disneyworld in his
home district. He said such big theme parks
favor the idea because shorter school breaks
would even out the traditional crowded peri
ods.
Reddick said the agricultural calendar that
governs the United States' traditional sum
mer-long vacation is an anachronism and
makes the nation less competitive. He recent
ly visited Japan and Korea, where he noted
children going to school early Saturday morn
ings
"If we don't do a 1 letter job of educating our
people, we will become a third-rate nation,"
lie said.
Keith Green’s two children attend College
Park Klementary, which has a six-week sum
mer vacation and another two-week break in
September. 1 ie said his family's trips had not
been spoiled by the year-round schedule.
"In fact, my daughter and son attended a
summer camp for four weeks," Green said.
"The main thing is our children's education.
We can always work around it to get to amuse
ment parks."
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