KANSAS CITY, Kan. (CN) - Parents claim in Federal Court that a Christian military school lets students known as "the Disciplinarians" systematically abuse younger students, including binding, gagging and beating them and urinating on them.
Parents of four students sued St. John's Military School, of Salina, Kan., and The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.
The plaintiffs claim St. John's has settled nine lawsuits alleging abuse since 2006.
The parents claim the residential boarding school for grades 6 through 12 allows senior students, known as the Disciplinarians, to discipline lower-ranking students.
"Through this model, St. John's hands over to adolescent students the school's obligation to act as parent to each child enrolled at the institution," the complaint states. "These Disciplinarians abuse that power and take their authority beyond any reasonable limits while putting the younger boys in constant fear of physical and mental harm.