http://www.sltrib.com/2003/May/05282003/utah/60835.aspLast Dundee Teens Head Home
By Brooke Adamsand Rhina Guidos
The Salt Lake Tribune, The Salt Lake Tribune
The last three teens at Academy at Dundee Ranch will fly home to the United States today, a week after a tumultuous chain of events left the once thriving behavior modification program in shambles.
World Wide Association of Speciality Programs and Schools of St. George, which provided support services to the ranch, is working with U.S. and Costa Rican officials to determine what to do with one teen whose parents have refused to pick him up and don't want him returned to the United States.
Ranch owner Narvin Lichfield, who had been jailed since last Thursday, was freed Tuesday but ordered to remain in Costa Rica while officials continue investigating his now defunct program, said Ken Kay, president of World Wide. Lichfield's wife and partner in the ranch, Flory Alvarado, who is Costa Rican, was not arrested.
Kay said that perhaps as many as 60 of the 200 students who were enrolled at the ranch have been transferred to other programs that belong to the World Wide association. Those eight programs include schools in Jamaica, Mexico, Montana, New York, South Carolina and Utah.
"I am hearing another 50 kids will be readmitted to one of our programs within a month or so," he said.
As for Dundee Ranch, "there really is no program there operating," although most of the staff remains on site.
"If it will ever open again, I don't know -- or what our involvement will be," Kay said. "We really don't know."
Kay said he had heard from many parents offering support for the program, as well as from parents upset with the Costa Rican government.
At the same time, he distanced World Wide from Dundee Ranch, saying some parents have called "upset with us that somehow we held their kids. We're like a trade organization. We don't work directly with kid care. We can't understand why they would be looking to us for that."
The chain of events that led to the ranch's demise began a week ago after a local prosecutor paid a visit to the school, which opened about 18 months ago in a former resort building outside the town of Orotina. The ranch housed teens with behavior and attitude problems, working changes in them through a rigid reward/consequence system and self-paced academic program.
The ranch had been under scrutiny for some months after a former director, a few parents and their children raised allegations of abuse, mistreatment, use of unqualified staff and other problems.
On May 20, prosecutor Fernando Vargas from the nearby town of Atenas, who was filling in for colleague Maria de los Angeles Alfaro Rodriguez while she was on vacation, told the teens that under Costa Rican law they could not be held against their will.
That sparked a revolt, with about a quarter of the school's 200 students fleeing the ranch with little more than backpacks and pillow cases stuffed with a few belongings.
Most teens trickled back to the ranch by nightfall.
But the damage was done. Many teens demanded to be returned to their parents. Further confusion ensued over whether Costa Rica's child welfare agency or the ranch was in charge of the program at that point. By week's end, government officials had moved to close the ranch, though school staff had already begun relocating some teens.
Rodriguez said Tuesday in a telephone interview with The Salt Lake Tribune the investigation continues into whether ranch officials violated Costa Rican law.
Specifically, she is looking at whether the school violated a national statute that protects children and adolescents. Under the law, established in 1998, children cannot be held against their will and cannot be physically abused.
In a separate investigation, Patronato Nacional de la Infancia (or PANI, the country's child welfare agency), has given Dundee Ranch a 15-item list of issues that need to be addressed in order for it to continue operating. The issues range from overcrowded conditions to expired work permits for staff and out-of-date tourist visas for students.
But whether the ranch will reopen as a behavior modification school is an open question.
Kay has heard second-hand through a state department official that damage to the ranch by some teens, who trashed rooms and belongings as they fled the school, is not as bad as has been portrayed and is "very repairable."
Kay said he "senses" Lichfield would like to continue working with troubled teens. "One of the reasons Narvin went to Costa Rica is it is supposed to be the most user-friendly of any country in Central America."
Whether Lichfield's current or future program remains a member of World Wide, founded by his brother Robert Lichfield, depends on what comes out of the Costa Rican investigation, said Kay, adding he would "hate" to penalize Lichfield for allegations that came from what may be a rogue investigation.
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