SUN: Years of failing teens preceded closure of Maryland’s Freestate Academy

On her first night at the Freestate Challenge Academy, a state-run program for at-risk teens, retired National Guard Staff Sergeant Tory Griffin said a staff member ordered teens off a bus and into a mile-long walk through the pitch-black woods.

The teens — cadets, as the program called its 16- to 18-year-old participants — had just arrived at Aberdeen Proving Ground. “It’s straight darkness, no light,” Griffin said.

When they reached the barracks, some having run through the dark, Griffin said the teens were upset — and the staffer “started taking his stuff off to fight.”

Griffin said she intervened and reported the episode, but the staffer remained on the job.

Records and interviews show such incidents were part of a pattern of failures at the Freestate Challenge Academy. Federal officials shut down the program this month, citing budget and academic concerns. But The Baltimore Sun’s investigation reveals years of documented safety concerns, chronic understaffing and declining results.

‘Kids were hungry’

Created in 1993, Freestate, one of the oldest Challenge academies, promised high school dropouts a strict structure, along with free housing and food for 22 weeks. It was once a strong program. But over the last 15 years, it deteriorated. A 2025 federal report The Sun received via records request said facilities were old, unsafe and inadequate. Cadet achievement was below nationwide student averages, program reviews going back a decade showed. The program was understaffed, and employees were often unqualified, according to National Guard Bureau reports cataloged.

The Sun interviewed four people who worked for or with Freestate, and reviewed more than 1,500 pages of documents, including state contracts, and a decade’s worth of program reviews. Two spoke on the record and are named in this article; two verified claims of the others.

Read the full story on The Baltimore Sun’s website.