When no one's watching
How abuse at religious boarding schools can stay hidden
Three years ago, as I reported on disturbing treatment of girls at a religious boarding school in California, one of the craziest things I learned was how little oversight the state has over private schools. Essentially, all they had to do was register with the state, but they didn’t even have to employ teachers. When I learned about how (CW: child abuse) the school withheld food from girls as discipline, barred girls from even looking at each other, and punished girls for attempting suicide, it was no wonder how long they got away with it. No one ever bothered to check on them.
So last fall, it wasn’t exactly a surprise when I found out about similar allegations at another troubled teen facility for girls in Missouri also escaped oversight. But Missouri didn’t even require religious boarding schools there to tell the state they exist.
After publishing that more recent story, I huddled with producers from “Dateline” and we discussed how to look at the bigger picture. If both deep blue California and red state Missouri exercised little oversight, there had to be more. We decided one thing to do was to ask every state’s child welfare officials and education departments what sort of oversight they kept on religious boarding schools.
What we found:
At least 17 states exempt religious boarding schools from licensing requirements by the education and child welfare agencies either because they’re private or privately-funded, or due to a religious affiliation.
And at least 23 states don’t even require religious boarding schools to tell their state education department that they exist.
Few states have bothered trying to fix these gaps, largely because they have no idea what’s going on until there’s a scandal.
Read the investigation at NBC News: Legal loopholes allow abuse to go undetected at religious boarding schools
The bigger context is that these religious boarding schools are part of what’s called the “troubled teen industry.” It’s a catchall term for these reform schools, bootcamps, wilderness camps, and other similar facilities where parents choose to place their kids because they think they’re out of control. Sometimes the kids do need mental health treatment, but in many cases it’s just the parents getting worried about teens trying pot or having sex. It’s almost always privately funded. And there’s no federal oversight, so that leaves everything to the states.
One way people are further isolating themselves from oversight is by claiming to be religious, which can get them an exemption, and if they call themselves a private school they escape regulation that would apply to mental health centers.
Missouri is now on track to reform state law to close this gap. That was featured in a “Dateline” episode titled “Broken Circle,” which was based on two of the stories I linked above. (Unfortunately they took it down to fix technical issues, and it might not be up ‘til later in the week, but check back at this link to watch it.)
California also changed the law to more accurately label that religious boarding school as a “therapeutic boarding school,” subjecting it to licensing. (The school I investigated fled to Texas after California officials raided it and ordered it to follow the law.)
News that should get more attention:
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My recommendation:
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