A 13-year-old boy died at a Shandong boarding school that claims to reform unruly children on Monday after a heated argument with staff escalated to physical violence, Beijing Youth Daily reported Thursday.

According to local police, the student — who had expressed dissatisfaction with the school’s strict rules — suffocated during staff members’ efforts to subdue him. On Tuesday, authorities detained two school employees on suspicion of causing “intentional injury resulting in death.”

Alumni of Shandong Yabo Education Training School in Jinan, the capital of the eastern province, told Beijing Youth Daily that the institution has a long history of mistreating students. A student surnamed Wang who was forced to enroll at Yabo Education in January 2016 said that instructors had beaten him in front of the entire student body on his very first day. Wang added that he left the school after six months, but only because his parents could no longer afford the tuition fees.

“I don’t want to think about what happened to me there,” Wang told the newspaper. “I just hope this so-called school will be closed as soon as possible.”

Prior to the 13-year-old’s death, the government of Jinan’s Tianqiao District discovered that the school had violated regulations by professing to treat internet addiction, and ordered it to shut down — which it was supposedly in the process of doing. When Sixth Tone called Yabo Education on Thursday, an employee who did not give her name said the school was no longer accepting new students “due to some problems.”

On Wednesday afternoon, parents arrived at the school to take their children home. “We were informed after the incident,” one parent told Jiemian.com, a financial news outlet. “Almost all the children are leaving today.”

Yabo Education registered as a privately owned training center in 2002, offering courses in Chinese studies, psychology, music, and art. On the school’s official website, it claims to be the only institution in Shandong capable of turning rebellious children into obedient children.

The school enrolls students anywhere from 10 to 28 years old, according to its website, and aims to “correct wrong behaviors” such as puppy love, violent tendencies, depression, learning disabilities, internet addiction, and academic apathy. Monthly tuition ranges from 5,600 yuan to 7,000 yuan ($900 to $1,100), depending on the age of the student and the number of classes they take. The typical enrollment period is six months — though this can be extended to one year for “special students.”

This is not the first time a student has died at a Chinese reform school. In August 2017, an 18-year-old student died under suspicious circumstances two days after arriving at an illegally run school for treating internet addition in eastern China’s Anhui province.

Three months later, a number of teenagers who had attended an internet addiction rehab facility in the eastern province of Jiangxi spoke out on social media, accusing the school of corporal punishment and other draconian methods.

Editor: David Paulk.

(Header image: A boy looks through the barred window of his dorm room at a school for treating internet addiction in Huizhou, Guangdong province, July 29, 2014. VCG)