SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Guiding Hands School, the school under investigation over actions surrounding the death of a 13-year-old student, has announced it will shut down permanently. The announcement was made earlier this week through a statement released by the school’s attorney, Cynthia Lawrence.

The decision would allow another non-public school to take over the El Dorado Hills facility and property, according to the school’s statement. The new school would be able to hire former staffers. The move would also allow Guiding Hands’ students to return.

The school came into the spotlight and was under investigation following the Nov. 28 death of Max Benson, who died after being placed in a face-down restraint by school staff in November. The incident sparked an investigation by the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office as well as the California Department of Education.

“Though GHS categorically denies the allegations asserted by the CDE in its premature Notice of Revocation, the decision to surrender our certification is in the best interest of and for the benefit of our students, their parents and our staff,” read the school statement.

The school, which contracts with multiple local school districts to provide educational services for kids with autism and other developmental issues, was suspended Dec. 5. The CDE found the school violated multiple rules by using the restraints on Max. It found the staff’s actions were “harmful to the health, welfare or safety” of the boy, and used an emergency intervention — the prone restraint — for “predictable behavior,” according to the state’s letter to the school.

Max was restrained for 1 hour and 45 minutes, according to court documents obtained by The Sacramento Bee.

While the CDE does not have the authority to close a school, the December suspension prevented Guiding Hands from accepting new students. On Jan. 9, the state decertified the school. More than a dozen districts began removing their students, placing them in other non-public schools.

But two days later, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Richard K. Sueyoshi ruled to give state regulators two weeks to return with a completed investigation of Guiding Hands School. A court hearing was scheduled for Friday, but according to the school’s letter, Guiding Hands notified the CDE it would “retire its Nonpublic Schools Certification” on Jan. 17.

CDE lawyers said the El Dorado County district attorney had provided the agency with additional information and evidence that gave the CDE “great concern for the welfare of the public school students with disabilities who are currently placed at Guiding Hands School,” according to court documents obtained by The Sacramento Bee.

Some of the 119 students stayed. But many had already moved on to new schools, as district officials didn’t want students to lose spots in a their new schools due to the temporary extension.

The short stay was not long enough to save the school, according to its statement.

“Understandably, many parents and districts need a level of security which the two-week stay could not provide,” read the statement. “In the end, our loyalty is our students, parents and devoted staff to offer them the opportunity to obtain security and stability.”

This school has been open for 25 years and is run by administrators Starranne Meyers and Cindy Keller.

Melanie Stark, who pulled her 9-year-old son out of Guiding Hands School when news of Max’s death broke, said she is concerned about what this closure means.

“Changing the top administrators and the name is not going to change the culture of restraints that’s already established there,” Stark said. “This doesn’t feel like a resolution to me at all.”

Guiding Hands School is the subject of three ongoing investigations by the state Department of Education, according to documents filed by the agency in Sacramento Superior Court on Jan. 11.

© 2019 The Sacramento Bee
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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