R obert Land Academy, Canada’s only military-style private boarding school for boys, founded in 1978, is shutting down, eight months after an investigation by The Walrus revealed decades of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at the school. The school faces numerous multi-million-dollar lawsuits by former students.
RLA leadership informed school staff today that it would be closing at the end of the academic year this June. “The demand for a military-inspired schooling has declined over the past decade,” the school noted in an email to staff, titled “Important Announcement from the Chair of the Board,” circulated by headmaster Peter Stock. RLA’s board chair is Tim Hudak, former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario and former chief executive officer of the Ontario Real Estate Association.
In a statement subsequently posted on its website, RLA attributed the closing to “declining enrolment over the past decade, increased operating costs and the COVID-19 pandemic.” The statement did not mention the abuse allegations or the ongoing civil litigation.
“In these final months, our priority remains supporting our students, staff and families. This chapter may be closing but the legacy of Robert Land Academy continues to live on in the values instilled, the futures changed and the generations of students who have gone on to become leaders in our society,” the website statement read. When reached for comment about the closure, a spokesperson for the school replied: “As we’ve communicated previously, out of respect for the privacy of those involved and a fair and impartial legal process, we will not comment on the ongoing cases.”
Since 2023, there has been a surge of civil lawsuits filed by former students and parents, some suing the school for millions of dollars, as first reported by The Walrus. Allegations include sexual abuse among students; physical and psychological abuse against students by instructors, including teachers regularly using restraint manoeuvres; verbal abuse by instructors; and other forms of abuse, like withholding food and forcing students to endure intense physical labour.
In January, a former student who attended RLA in the 1990s, filed a statement of claim at the Ontario Superior Court, seeking $3.5 million in damages for alleged physical, sexual, and psychological abuses experienced at the school. The former student alleged that the school’s founder and former long-time headmaster, Scott Bowman, and other senior administrators covered up his reports of sexual abuse perpetrated by another student; he added that they didn’t believe him.
Bowman founded RLA after purchasing 168 acres of farmland on the Niagara Peninsula. He became headmaster of the school and marketed it as a type of reformatory institution to help boys who struggled in school, had been accused of crimes, or had learning disabilities. “Where others see a problem, we see a leader,” RLA’s promotional materials once stated. The school grew to around 125 students last year, and annual fees for tuition and boarding were at least $64,000.
In August, The Walrus published its first exclusive investigation in a series exposing allegations of physical, psychological, sexual, and verbal abuse by former students and the impacts their experience has had on them long after they left the school.
In response to the initial article, dozens more former students, their parents, and former RLA employees came forward with their own stories of experiencing and witnessing abuse—by RLA staff against students as well as among students—which they say was often downplayed or ignored by administrators.
According to Matthew Lefave, the lawyer handling the majority of the lawsuits against the school, the total number of clients he represents who are pursuing legal action against RLA—which last summer was around a dozen—spiked, following the publication of the investigation, to approximately eighty and is expected to reach at least 100 this year.
After the investigation was published on August 20, 2024, Stock sent an email to alumni and donors, saying they were taking the allegations seriously but that the claims didn’t represent the school presently. The article also caused a stir within the school. In September, the day before students returned for the fall semester, Stock called an all-staff meeting in the mess hall, where he announced that an article had been published and warned staff against talking to the media.
The meeting lasted about half an hour, according to a former RLA employee who was at the meeting and requested anonymity due to fears of facing repercussions for speaking out. The headmaster, echoing his email to alumni and donors, said that the article described historical allegations of abuse and incidents that did not reflect the present-day operations of the school. It was the first time this former employee had heard of the incidents outlined in the investigation and said they pulled out their phone during the meeting to read the article. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into here?’” the former employee recalls thinking.
Through the 2024/25 academic year, the former employee says, many parents pulled their children out of the school in response to the allegations, resulting in the student body declining from around ninety-five students this time last year to around sixty. “We have experienced a 44% decline in enrolment, along with a significant drop in international student numbers,” RLA’s statement about its closure notes.
Over the past few months, the former employee says, numerous insurance adjusters, believed to be involved with the ongoing civil lawsuits against the school, were regularly at RLA, taking inventory across the campus, from the barracks where the students sleep to the classrooms.
In the time since the initial investigation was published, the former employee says, the school has gone from a place where staff enforced strict rules to an environment that has become increasingly chaotic and toxic. If staff members did attempt to discipline students, according to this former employee, students would threaten to call the media or the lawyers involved in the lawsuits.
Earlier this year, RLA confirmed to The Walrus that Family and Children’s Services Niagara, the local child protection agency, was conducting an investigation into the school and that the school was “cooperating” with the agency. When reached for comment, a spokesperson for the agency would not confirm or deny such an investigation was happening.
Less than a week before the school announced it was closing, the Niagara Regional Police Service issued a press release stating that a man named Johnathan Jeffrey Ahlstedt had been arrested and charged with two counts of child luring to facilitate sexual interference through telecommunication and two counts of child luring to facilitate sexual assault through telecommunication. Though the press release of the release did not mention it, Ahlstedt had been working at RLA as a gym teacher.
In 2023, Ahlstedt received an Ontario Coaching Excellence Award, for which he was photographed with Ontario’s then minister of tourism, culture, and sport. “Here at Robert Land, it’s an all-boys school. I would say my No. 1 goal for coaching is turning boys into men, helping them understand who they are, and helping them get past their fear of success,” Ahlstedt told the St. Catharines Standard after receiving the award. Niagara police confirmed by email that Ahlstedt had been employed by the school.
The school’s closing will not affect the ongoing civil lawsuits against RLA, according to Lefave. “Robert Land has a several decades long legacy of abusing young men. The abuses suffered by former students at this school has resulted in lifelong trauma,” he says. “I am very pleased to hear that they are closing their doors so that no other students will be harmed.”
