Diamond Ranch Academy resurfaces amid WA teen death

Troubled Diamond Ranch Academy appears to rebrand to enroll new students

State officials shut the school down in the summer of 2023 after a medical panel determined the Snohomish County teen died because school staff failed to provide her proper care after she contracted peritonitis, a treatable stomach infection in December of 2022.

State license documents, staffing lists and website comparisons indicate the controversial Diamond Ranch Academy (DRA) facility in Southern Utah is attempting to rebrand and enroll students under a new name, raising safety concerns for the family of 17-year-old Taylor Goodridge.

Goodridge's family took legal action against DRA, ultimately leading to its permanent closure.

However, the family says they’re reliving the pain and frustration of Taylor's final days, as several DRA administrators have been listed on an application to license a new boarding school for troubled teens, called RAFA Academy.

The Utah Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) says the process of determining whether to grant RAFA’s license request is estimated to take around six months, but Dean Goodridge, Taylor’s dad, is concerned the review will ignore the mismanagement that led to his daughter’s death.

"They're just going to do the exact same thing this time, just to boys instead of co-ed," Goodridge said. "Just because you change the name, it's still that facility."

DRA staff members, including the Human Resources Director and Taylor's therapist at the time of her death, are listed on the new RAFA application. Adam Cheney, a former psychotherapist at Diamond Ranch who oversaw Taylor's care, is slated to be the new Executive Director of RAFA Academy.

Goodridge believes Cheney could have saved his daughter if he had spoken up, referencing an email sent by Cheney six days before Taylor's death, where he mentioned her illness but never elaborated further on her condition.

Goodridge expressed his dismay at the returning staff members: "Honestly, I don't know how some of these people sleep at night."

Documents show ownership of the property has changed hands and the address listed for RAFA online is different than DRA. But even a casual look at Google Maps shows it’s the same campus – only the name of the private street leading to the school has changed.

Academic and therapeutic claims from the old DRA website show up word for word on the new RAFA page, such as "America’s Leading Teen Therapeutic Boarding School" and "Immersive therapy for troubled teens, helping to get their lives back on track."

The DRA website promised families "a first-class, structured campus for boys and girls." So does the RAFA website, except RAFA doesn’t enroll girls. The websites even share several of the same promotional images, something Goodridge can’t understand.

Utah boarding school loses license following death of Snohomish County teen

The death of a Snohomish County girl at a Utah-based therapeutic boarding school has led to the loss of its license, and a separate decision found that staff "breached the standard of care."

"If this new facility has nothing to do with DRA, why would you use pictures from DRA?" he asked.

FOX 13 shared these comparisons with the Utah DHHS, which assured us in an email that, "DHHS will investigate any allegations that may indicate a possible non-compliance with the rules. Connections between RAFA Academy and Diamond Ranch Academy will be taken into consideration as part of our licensing application review."

We also asked Cheney to explain how his new school, RAFA, came to borrow so much from his old employer, DRA.

We’ve yet to receive a reply, but 24 hours after our email to Executive Director Cheney, the RAFA website was taken down.