Glen Mills violated laws, state auditor general finds

The Glen Mills Schools failed to keep proper records of background check clearances and training, and did not properly communicate abuse reporting requirements to students, according to an audit report released by Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale Wednesday.

“My team found that Glen Mills Schools failed to comply with the Child Protective Services Law and also lacked policies and training related to reporting abuse, all of which put the safety and wellbeing of students at risk,” De

Pasquale said. “If abuse is even suspected to have occurred, the law requires staff to report it immediately.”

The Glen Mills School, the oldest school of its kind in the nation, came under serious scrutiny following a Philadelphia Inquirer report in February 2019 that alleged students there suffered decades of abuse at the hands of employees.

The 193-year-old institution has since seen the departure of former director Randy Ireson along with nearly all staff and all of its students, which were removed under an emergency order from the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services.

All 14 of the school’s licenses have been revoked and it is the subject, with other defendants, of several individual and class-action lawsuits. Attorneys representing hundreds of former students at the Glen Mills Schools announced five new lawsuits in January alleging rape, physical abuse and cover-ups at the institution in order to continue receiving

millions of dollars’ worth of state funding.

The report covered the period from July 1, 2017 through March 11, 2020, and includes three findings: That in some instances, Glen Mills failed to obtain proper clearances for staff, contractors and volunteers; that the school did not ensure that some individuals who had contact with children received required training related to preventing and reporting child abuse; and that avenues for students to report abuse were available, but were not always properly communicated.

The report also makes 35 recommendations for reform, which the audit indicates school management have agreed to and are in the process of implementing.

Auditors looked at 67 employees at the facility between July 1, 2017 and May 13, 2019, including 15 new hires and 45 previous hires randomly selected, as well as seven identified in July 2018 allegations of abuse sustained by a student. Information for another 10 contractors and 60 volunteers was also examined.

Auditors found Glen Mills maintained proper background checks for 63 of 67

employees, but could not account for a FBI check for one employee, FBI and Pennsylvania State Police checks for another, and two were terminated before the school received FBI clearances.

The report also found two employees were permitted to work with students despite not receiving FBI checks within a required time period and the school did not have required justification forms for five employees whose background checks listed offenses. The school additionally did not accurately record background clearance dates for 14 employees and did not run an “Adam Walsh” check on one employee living outof-state at the time their application for employment was completed, according to the report.

Auditors found that Glen Mills had accepted two contractors’ child abuse clearances that were only certified for volunteer purposes and did not have all required background checks on hand for eight of the 60 volunteers examined. There was also no centralized list of all volunteers in the system and no supervisory review for clearances that listed offenses for contractors or volunteers, according to the audit.