Seven school districts in California and Washington state said they do not plan to send more students to a 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 in danger of losing its license over allegations of delayed medical care, draws students from across the country. This includes some children whose public school districts pay the $12,000 monthly tuition because there are no local programs that meet their needs.
Eighteen school districts spent a combined $2.6 million in 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. 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 immediately after Taylor’s death. In February, the department concluded in an inspection that the facility had failed “to provide and seek necessary medical care for an ill client who died several weeks after initial onset of symptoms.” Former staff members previously told NBC News that Taylor had been sick in the weeks before her death, but Diamond Ranch Academy did not take her off-campus for medical treatment until she collapsed on Dec. 20; she died later that day.
The Department of Health and Human Services labeled the citation “extreme” and said it is conducting additional inspections of the facility. In the meantime, Diamond Ranch Academy remains open but is not allowed to accept new students, according to the department.
Bill Frazier, an attorney for the academy, said it has appealed that violation in an administrative procedure, but declined to comment further. The facility previously declined to comment on allegations by…
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