Members of the State Board of Education sharply questioned Secretary of Education Dan French on Wednesday about his agency’s handling of a recent investigation into Kurn Hattin Homes for Children.
They expressed concern about what the state’s treatment of the troubled Westminster boarding school might suggest about Vermont’s overall regulatory construct for overseeing private schools.
Kurn Hattin has been under intense public scrutiny due to decades of abuse allegations detailed in the press, including VTDigger. In the fall, it also relinquished its residential treatment license with the Department for Children and Families.
The school and DCF are at odds about whether Kurn Hattin willingly gave up its license or was forced to do so by state officials. But its decision, whether voluntary or not, followed a licensing report from DCF that faulted the school for failing to report peer-on-peer abuse to state authorities and for inadequately supervising children whose needs the school was ill-equipped to handle.
Kurn Hattin continues to operate a residential educational program as an “approved” independent school, a status conferred by the state board. In January, the Agency of Education initiated an investigation to see whether it should recommend the board suspend or revoke this approval.
In an 11-page report, the agency recommended the school keep its approval, although it said it would follow up in the fall and spring. Its investigation did not include an in-person visit to the school or interviews with its students, and an on-site follow-up is not planned until spring 2022.
“Is there a reason that [the site visit] is not taking place in the fall?” one board member, Lyle Jepson, asked French.
French, whose agency on Tuesday told schools they could no longer require masking, replied that this was “largely due to the Covid dynamics.” He added that the focus of the state’s review was “on those administrative procedures which are germane to our regulation,” and that a remote check-in should be “sufficient to ensure compliance.”
Jennifer Samuelson, another board member, repeatedly asked French if a site visit would eventually include interviews with staff and students.
“We are limited to the scope of our authority based on what the regulations point to,” French replied. “The review process itself, as I mentioned in my conclusion, matches the regulatory authority that we have.”
Another board member, Oliver Olsen, pressed the point. Given that the concerns around Kurn Hattin in large part centered on its adherence to mandatory reporting laws, he asked whether the “the only true way to test that” would be to speak to students and staff directly.
“To what extent it’s necessary to interview students to do that or not, you know, we’d certainly reserve that option. But I’m not convinced that it’s absolutely necessary,” French said in response.
The school’s continued status as an “approved” independent school preserves its eligibility to receive state-funded vouchers through Vermont’s town tuitioning program, although nearly all of its students are not publicly funded. Private schools in Vermont must renew their approval status every five years with the state board. Kurn Hattin previously received approval in 2017, which means it will be up for regular review again in 2022.
Olsen, who has overseen a subcommittee tasked with recommending changes to the state’s independent school oversight rules, noted that new regulations might be in place by then that require private schools with residential programs to receive third-party accreditation. Kurn Hattin had sought accreditation from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, but its application was tabled by the organization after the school relinquished its treatment license with DCF.
Two types of private schools operate in Vermont: those that are “approved” and those that are “recognized.” The former can receive public vouchers, while the latter cannot. John Carroll, the outgoing chair of the board, wondered out loud “what level of state oversight” the school would be subject to in the future if it also lost its state board approval.
With its treatment license relinquished, DCF will be even less involved, he said. The school doesn’t rely on state funding, he added, and “recognized” schools get virtually zero scrutiny from the Agency of Education.
“My question simply is — to any of you — how’s that gonna work out for us?” Carroll said.
“I really don’t feel comfortable responding to the multiple hypotheticals in your question,” French replied, adding that the topic had “significant legal ramifications.”
But Olsen, who was elected chair of the board later in the meeting, picked up the question. “Broadly speaking,” he asked, wasn’t it the case that the state board had “no oversight” and “no jurisdiction” over recognized schools?
“And I don’t believe that the agency has any authority to withhold that sort of recognized status under statute. Is that correct?” he asked.
French responded that any regulation of private schools would be complicated by the volley of litigation that the state has been subject to recently around religious schools. But he said the agency appeared to have little power over these institutions.
“In my experience, we’ve had limited interaction with recognized schools, if you will,” he said.
Kim Dougherty, an attorney who represents more than 30 former students at Kurn Hattin, watched the board’s meeting Wednesday and in a later interview slammed the agency as “utterly irresponsible.”
“They based their decision upon literally words on paper: policy changes and a change in a software system,” she said. “That, to me, without — as the chair requested, as multiple people on the board requested — site visits, interviews of the staff, interviews of the children, it’s completely irresponsible.”
As to the wider concerns about whether the board or the agency had adequate regulatory authority to keep tabs on private schools, Dougherty said state lawmakers needed to step in.
“If the laws are that ambiguous, they are going to have to enact new laws to ensure children in these types of schools are safe. They can’t have agencies playing a game of jurisdictional ‘not it,’” she said.
