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Show Residents Ask About Proposed Youth Ranch TROPIC - The Garfield County News continues with its question and answer portion of the public meeting held Aug. 12 on the proposed new Bryce Canyon Youth Ranch. Brian Tate, one of the company's compa-ny's three owners, said that a large portion of enrollees' time will be spent in school 12 months of the year. Certain groups, as they climb in levels and have proven themselves serious about the program, will be allowed to participate in camping trips and other quality experiences. Bonnie Miles asked Tate for a worst-case scenario for impact on the community. He reassured her that illegal drugs should not be a threat. He said there are hundreds of similar simi-lar facilities in southern Utah. "Utah is actually the troubled youth mecca of the United States," Tate said. "So a great number of professionals and quality people who live here give advice and we have resources and access to them." He said a challenge to directors direc-tors is training staff members "to take their job seriously." He said that some staff members want to be buddies and others want to be bad guys to enrollees and they were seeking the fine line in between the two. "When we guarantee the parents for instance that their kids are being watched 24 hours a days, that needs to be what happens," On the night shift, for example, exam-ple, a physical bed check on each youth is made every 15 minutes throughout the night. "It's not just a job where you can sit in a chair and take a nap," he said. "It's a guarantee to the parents and we have to deliver that." He stressed the importance of consistency in dealing with troubled trou-bled youth, enforcing of rules (See RANCH on page 4A) Bryce Canyon Youth Ranch From Front Page and policy evenly. "... there's nothing wrong with being a buddy, as long as you are enforcing the structure evenly throughout the whole program. "Kids will find ways to manipulate ... a lot of them, if they do want to get out of here ... they'll tell lies to their parents. par-ents. That's one of the most dangerous things. Actually, escapes are not very common. He said Tropic will seems isolated iso-lated to them and they will be confused about where they are and how to get out. Tate said that there is ongoing emergency plan training in which they take every possible safety incident that could happen hap-pen and we plan and train for it. He said they are required to conduct drills and to keep a record of them. He said they are rigidly licensed by the State with volumes of rules and regulations. regu-lations. He said they will be strictly and rigidly inspected on a regular basis. "It's just not possibJe any more to put up some haphazard thing and say you're going to do youth," he said. "It's a very tough business." Phoebe Wiseman, Tropic, who teaches at Turnabout Ranch in Escalante asked, "What's the present status of your accreditation accredita-tion from the state of Utah?" " We're accredited," Tate responded ... Through the Northwestern Association of Schools. "Under this name?" Wiseman asked. "It's actually through Brigham Young University," Tate replied. "So it's under independent studies?" asked Max Stewart, Tropic, a longtime employee at Turnabout. "Right," responded Tate. "But Northwest Association will accredit our school as well, but you have to have it running. " What will you be licensed under?" asked Stewart. "Bryce Canyon Youth Ranch," said Tate. "No. I mean, residential treatment treat-ment or residential support?" "Residential support." "So you'll have residential support or residential treatment?" treat-ment?" "As far as what the license says for the state of Utah. ..it says residential treatment." "So it's not residential support, sup-port, it's residential treatment?" asked Stewart. "I don't know what residential residen-tial support .;. I'm not really familiar with that term," said Tate. "There's three licenses you can get in the state," Stewart said. And I just wondered which one you had?" Stewart continued. "The residential treatment," responded Tate. County Commissioner Clare Ramsay, Tropic, asked the ages of those who would be enrolled and Tate said they will be 13 to 17. To Ramsay's question about (See RANCH on page 5A) BC Youth Ranch From Page 4A the structure of education, Tate replied that the kids will be kept in small group settings. "We're not going to have 50 kids in a classroom," he said. "The kids will all be in different classrooms class-rooms based on certain populations. popula-tions. Probably between 10 and 15. Those classrooms will rotate, just like they do in regular regu-lar school, so that the teacher.. .any time there is a teacher with students, there's also going to be two staff members. mem-bers. The two staff members are both aides and they're there to make sure that the behavior in the school and the program are very closely intertwined wfth their therapy goals. So they are very motivated to try to do well in school, to do well in their behavior in school and for the most part, I think you would be hard pressed to find that good of behavior in a regular school. They are very well behaved." "Let me make one other comment," com-ment," said Stewart. "You said that they are going to be well-, well-, supervised. The average in the state of Utah, with residential treatment, is one run away every 30 days. "I think you are talking about wilderness programs, said Tate. "No," said Stewart. "That's for residential treatment." "I haven't seen that statistic," said Tate. "You don't see that in St. George. I'm sure it happens." hap-pens." "Where do the teachers come from?" asked Bonnie Miles. "You talked about bringing professional pro-fessional teachers ... supervisors ... qualified teachers?" Tate said that teachers must be certified and that they had contacted school district Supt. Myron Cottam. He said the district dis-trict seemed to be workable, with a possibility of accreditation accredita-tion through the school district and a goal of using as many local teachers as they can. Phoebe Wiseman asked what the fee would be to the families to cover the cost of each out-of-county student "because the school district does charge you per head for any out-of-district child that you are educating on another site." "That's true," said Tate ... "there's a certain amount of money that's given per student, no matter where they are. But the difference is what you pay in property tax. There's a school portion that goes to the schools, so they make up that difference, or we do to the school district." "That's a fee that hasn't been negotiated yet," said Joe Tatua, a third owner. "We're aware of that ... that you have to pay the school district dis-trict extra," said Tate. Gail Miles, Tropic, whose property is adjacent to the proposed pro-posed facility, asked about fencing. fenc-ing. Tropic Mayor Jean Seiler said that when the town council was approached about a business busi-ness license (renewable annually) annual-ly) "we asked them to bring in all of the state requirements that would be involved in this whole deal." He said the state'could not proceed until the town had issued a business license. "We're kind of just like everybody every-body else waiting to see what the state says." "When all is said and done," asked Miles, "do we have a little old barb wire fence?" "Let me tell you what attorney attor-ney John Hummel, one of the company's three owners said to me," said Gaia Greenhalgh, town council member. "He said if everyone would feel better with a fence, they would put one in." " It's not going to look like a San Quentin fence though," said Tate. "It would be a nice looking look-ing fence that would say, you know, you can't see through theirs and they can't see into, your yard." He said that even within the compound itself there would be different fences to separate units which do different dif-ferent things. We've already talked about, even within the compound, there's going to be fences. There's different units that do things. One of the things you are never allowed to do is get all the kids in one massive unit. When the kids are bro (See RANCH on page 6A) Bryce Canyon Youth Ranch From Page 5A ken up into small groups, they control better, they feel better. The whole thing works better ... they go through their whole treatment here in a very small group, including education ... the reason why there will be so many different areas .... those areas will be separated . Wiseman asked if Bryce Canyon Youth Ranch will do drug testing during the screening screen-ing process "and, if they are positive, do they need to go to rehabilitation first before coming com-ing here?" "Yes. Absolutely," said Tate " ... You'd be amazed if I showed you the licensing requirements. "No. I've read it, she responded. "All of the staff that work with these youth, which we'll be accepting applications for, do have to have a background check. He said requirements include no background of criminal crimi-nal activity. He said most problems prob-lems come from staffkid relationships. rela-tionships. "We wouldn't be doing it here if we didn't feel real confident confi-dent about the staff we are going to be able to pick up here. In fact, one of the reasons that we are here is that we feel like we're going to end up getting a better quality staff, than they're getting in St. George." He said the staff there tends to be a younger group, recently graduated gradu-ated from college, often leaving after only a couple of years, necessitating training of new staff. "We feel like we're going to be able to offer people a good enough job that they are going to hopefully want to stick around for a little while. At least in the key positions," he said. LaMar LeFevre, Tropic, said, "The last statistics that I looked at in our own Garfield County School District when it comes to certification I think we had 53 certified staff and 37 aides. Now you know, who does the teaching any more? That's a point. Somebody can do a very good job under the right tutelage and I think we find that pretty well practiced throughout the public education system any more. I just make that comment, that everybody who works up at Bryce Valley High School is not certified. Not by a long shot." Tate said that at their youth ranch the role of the teacher is to be in charge of instruction while aides provide one-on-one help. He said they are also in charge of mediation between the teacher and the therapist and caseworker managers. That lets them know, hey, you know what, this kid in the classroom is doing his therapy goals. He is achieving what he or she said they were going to do." LeFevre, who asked Tate for " short term goals, said, "I understand under-stand that you are working with Travis LeFevre or the LeFevre family to establish a school on this premises. If you had the green light right now, what would be your enrollment projection?" Tate reviewed for LeFevre some earlier remarks, "I'd love to get 100 kids qvernight, but that doesn't happen. Usually, like I said, I'd feel real happy if we had 10 in two months. I'd feel even happier if that turned into 30 in four months. And if in six months, we had 50 kids, I think that's kind of responsible demographics. "Kids are divided into small groups. There's not going to be 50 kids in here going to school. The kids are going to go to school in small groups. He said that two well trained staff members mem-bers will be with one teacher. "I think that ... this business is going to go real slow. And I'd be really hard pressed ... surprised sur-prised if you see any big noticeable notice-able things happen. Other than the fact that you'll see the grounds improve, you'll see them out working. Making the (See RANCH on page 7A) Ranch From Page 6A improvements that we're going to want to make to the facility. Not that they don't already look nice. The people that we've brought here, they've been so impressed. They're ready to send their kids right away. "Compared to a lot of places, Bryce Canyon is a beautiful place. Parents are torn, they're absolutely torn 'with the fact, a lot of them, that they're having to send their kid away. And there's just some measure of release to them, that they think it's a beautiful place or there is some good that's going to come out of it. They wouldn't be sending their kids to us if they thought they could do the same thing." LeFevre asked about the time of gradual development, "and during that time the community will get acquainted with your goals, the people, the staff, the students?" "There will be a Community Impact Board," said Tate LeFevre asked if the Tropic Town Council had approved the various specific uses of the facilities. facil-ities. Mayor Seiler replied, "You know, actually, all these things he is describing have to come back to the town board." |