Seven school districts in California and Washington state said they do not plan to send more students to the Utah facility for troubled teens where a girl recently died.
Taylor Goodridge, 17, who was from Washington, died in December while attending Diamond Ranch Academy in Hurricane, Utah. The boarding school, which Utah officials say is now at risk of losing its license over allegations of delay in medical care, attracts students from across the country. This includes some children whose public school districts pay $12,000 a month in tuition because there is no local program to meet their needs.
Eighteen school districts spent a combined $2.6 million over the past three years to send children with emotional and behavioral issues to Diamond Ranch Academy, according to data from GovSpend, which tracks local government spending through open records requests. Is. Nearly all of the districts were in California and Washington.
The Utah Department of Health and Human Services placed Diamond Ranch Academy’s license on probation shortly after Taylor’s death. In February, the department concluded in an inspection that the facility had “failed to provide and receive necessary medical care for an ill client who died several weeks after the onset of symptoms.” Former staff members previously told NBC News that Taylor had been ill in the weeks before her death, but Diamond Ranch Academy did not take her off-campus for medical treatment until the fall of December 20; He died later that day.
The Department of Health and Human Services labeled the citation “extreme” and said it was conducting additional inspections of the facility. Meanwhile, Diamond Ranch Academy remains open but is not allowed to accept new students, according to the department.
Bill Frazier, a lawyer for the academy, said it has appealed the violations in an administrative process, but declined to comment further. The facility had previously declined to comment on allegations by former staff members and students, citing privacy laws.
“Diamond Ranch has fully and transparently cooperated with all agency requests while engaging in those administrative and judicial processes,” Frazier said. “We will continue to do so.”
Diamond Ranch Academy, a for-profit program, is one of several out-of-state facilities certified by the California and Washington Departments of Education to place children with special needs.
Following Taylor’s death, Washington’s Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction suspended new hirings at Diamond Ranch Academy, pending further investigation by Utah authorities. California’s Department of Education declined to comment on the academy but said it conducts onsite visits to the facilities on its list at least two out of every three years.
In Alameda County, California, the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District spent $352,117 to send two students for services at Diamond Ranch Academy in 2019, after researching the facility online.
“An evaluation of the students’ experiences during attendance, and upon their return, did not result in concerns or additional follow-up action,” Michelle Dawson, a spokeswoman for Livermore Valley Joint Unified, said in a statement. News article about Diamond Ranch Academy. “The death of a student is tragic and your article describes some serious historical allegations of negligence. In light of this new information, we would certainly hesitate to enroll a student at this school in the future.”
NBC News previously reported that Diamond Ranch Academy has been accused in multiple lawsuits over the past decade of abusing children and restricting their ability to communicate with their families. The facility has denied wrongdoing, disputed some of these allegations, and reached out-of-court settlements on several counts, while two others remain under trial.
Besides Livermore Valley, other districts that spend thousands of dollars to keep students at Diamond Ranch Academy also expressed reservations. The Dublin Unified School District, also in Alameda County, said it would consider allegations of child abuse at the academy if it is proposed for future placement. The Laguna Beach Unified, Irvine Unified, and Newport-Mesa Unified School Districts in Orange County, California, and the Camas and Bellevue School Districts in Washington said they do not plan to house a student at the Utah facility.
Several California districts that spent more than $100,000 to keep children at Diamond Ranch Academy from 2020 to 2022—including the Calaveras County Office of Education and the William S. Hart Union High School District – declined to say how they evaluated the facility or whether they would send students there in the future.
Alan Fleck, director of special services for the school district in Camas, a small town outside Portland, Oregon, said he’s had no problem keeping children at Diamond Ranch Academy while working for another district. He said that sometimes it is necessary to send children with special needs to facilities hundreds of miles away because there is no local option.
Records collected by GovSpend show that many students sent to Diamond Ranch Academy had individualized education plans. That means they had already tried a variety of classroom placements in their home district but needed more specialized treatment, said Jill Rowland, an attorney with the nonprofit Alliance for Children’s Rights, based in Los Angeles. Provides free legal services.
“Going somewhere intensive like this means learning skills to be able to function more positively in lower-level care in a community setting,” Rowland said.
“However, its out-of-state nature is scary because it is not being monitored,” he added.
California and Washington both took steps in 2020 to prevent youths from being sent to out-of-state facilities from the foster and juvenile justice systems but did not make changes for children with disabilities who were sent out-of-state by school districts.
“In our ideal world, we would have funding from the state and federal government to provide services to the students in our district,” said Shannon McMinimey, general counsel for the Bellevue School District in Washington. “Unfortunately, we are in a situation where there is very little mental health and behavioral support for children.”
Washington’s Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction said it supports a bill passed by the state Senate this week that would expand its surveillance powers over facilities like Diamond Ranch Academy that accept Washington students with individualized education plans.
The office said there are currently no Washington state students receiving special education services at Diamond Ranch Academy, and it will determine the next steps after the Utah Department of Health and Human Services completes its review.