Kurn Hattin Homes for Children will retain state approval to operate a school for the time being, amid uncertainty about the nonprofit’s finances and legal proceedings, education officials decided Wednesday.
A State Board of Education subcommittee opted to postpone until next year a final decision about whether to renew the school’s approval, pending more information about the school’s financial and legal outlook.
That outcome allows the Westminster program to continue operating its school until at least January 2024.
“My sense is there’s no rush on that (decision),” Lyle Jepson, a member of the board’s independent school approval committee, said at a committee meeting Wednesday. “And that they are an approved school. They can continue to operate. And we’ll have further details at that point.”
Kurn Hattin Homes, a roughly 130-year-old nonprofit, serves children who are experiencing hardship, such as economic struggles, tragedy or familial disruptions. The institution operates a year-round residential program and a K-8 school on a 280-acre campus. As of last fall, the school served 32 children, according to a state report.
The question of Kurn Hattin’s renewal comes roughly two and a half years after VTDigger published an investigation outlining decades of allegations of physical, psychological and sexual abuse at the school.
In statements on its website, the school has said that it is “devastated and heartbroken” about the allegations. Administrators noted that, since much of the alleged abuse occurred many years ago, “it is difficult to ascertain what happened, especially since most of the Homes’ leaders from that time are no longer alive.”
In 2020, the school gave up a Department for Children and Families license to operate a residential treatment center amid conflicting reports of the circumstances.
State officials said the school was pressured to give up its license. School administrators, however, said the school made a voluntary decision to relinquish the license, “because it is a residential educational program and not a residential treatment program.”
“The closure of (the DCF) license does not, in any way, impact the Homes’ operations or mission,” the school said.
But Kurn Hattin has continued to operate a K-8 school, which requires separate approval from the State Board of Education. That approval allows a school to receive public tuition dollars but brings an increased level of oversight.
The approval is currently up for renewal — something that Vermont’s Agency of Education supports.
In a report dated October 2022 and updated last month, agency officials wrote that “the school’s academic program, staff, facilities, and financial standing all meet State Board of Education rule requirements.”
Per state rules, to receive state approval, a school operating a residential program must be approved by either the Department for Children and Families or a “state or regional agency recognized by the State Board for accrediting purposes,” such as the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, known as NEASC.
NEASC awarded Kurn Hattin initial accreditation in February but plans to conduct a “focused visit” to the school in January 2024.
The association “understands that the recent litigation has strained the financial resources” of Kurn Hattin Homes, a NEASC official wrote to the school in February. “The purpose of the (January) visit is to discuss updates to the legal situation and their financial impact on KHH.”
Multiple attorneys have represented survivors of the alleged abuse, who have in the past sought financial damages from the school. VTDigger could not immediately reach those attorneys Thursday morning, and it’s not clear whether NEASC was referring to those cases in its letter.
The state of those legal proceedings, and Kurn Hattin’s finances, is unclear. In its report, the Agency of Education determined that financial information submitted by the school “confirms that Kurn Hattin School has the financial means to meet its stated program objectives throughout the period of approval.”
But Vermont state board members are waiting for the results of NEASC’s visit.
“We’re going to delay action on this application for renewal until we receive the results of the focused visit report,” said Tom Lovett, a board of education committee member.
Kurn Hattin administrators did not reply to emailed questions Wednesday or phone calls Thursday morning. But Will Gardner, Kurn Hattin’s principal, told subcommittee members that the school was experiencing an unspecified “financial situation.”
“We’re going through this financial situation as a result of some of the residential programs historically, and we are coming up to finalizing those outcomes pretty much as we speak,” Gardner said.
At the January 2024 visit, the school plans to show accreditors “that we are financially stable, and that we will and can function, and recover from whatever those financial obligations may be as a result of those circumstances,” he said.
Subcommittee members did not ask about those circumstances, and Gardner did not explain further.
