State officials reacted with surprise and anger Thursday to revelations that a Central Oregon boarding school remained open for years despite a series of serious problems – including mistreatment of teen residents, sexual impropriety, lax oversight and poor record keeping.

In addition, they wondered how a Seattle woman was able to open and operate the facility for six years, despite an agreement with California officials in 1991 that she would never again run a facility for troubled kids.

”They should have been barred,” Gov. Ted Kulongoski said in an interview with The Bulletin. ”There is no doubt in my mind that if you do something that results in one state saying you’re not going to ever do something again, that’s prima facie evidence that you cannot do it here in Oregon.”

A joint investigation by The Bulletin and KATU-TV in Portland reported myriad troubles at the private facility and in the history of school president Bobbi Christensen.

In 1990, she was in change of a youth camp that was shut down after the drowning deaths of three teenagers and four would-be rescuers in an icy Sierra Nevada lake in California.

Christensen opened Crater Lake School in 1997 on a ranch in the rural Klamath County community of Sprague River with her then-husband, who is now deceased.

In a Tuesday interview, Christensen said her settlement only prevented her from being licensed again in California.

She could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Crater Lake School is temporarily shuttered after state officials told administrators in August to send the children home.

In addition, the state in October rejected the boarding school’s application for a higher-level license, which would have allowed the facility to house severely impaired youths.

That denial was based on inadequate records plus a history of problems including the assault of a resident by a staff member, medication mismanagement and lack of supervision.

The school was home to teenagers with behavioral and psychological problems from across the county. The cost of tuition and lodging was upwards of $48,000 a year.

Despite the October application denial, the facility had already been admitting severely disturbed and suicidal teens, according to records and interviews.

”It was like running a hospital without a license,” said Bend psychologist Michael Conner, who supervises a consumer protection organization that encourages parents to carefully scrutinize youth treatment programs.

Other problems included inefficient sanitation, harsh discipline, a sex-related conviction of a male staffer who skinny-dipped with residents, restriction of contact with parents and lack of adequate finances.

State Sen. Ben Westlund, R-Tumalo, who spearheaded the creation of new rules for outdoor youth programs in 2001, said Thursday he’s angry Crater Lake School was able to operate for so long under the noses of state officials.

”It doesn’t appear to me the state has acted in as aggressive a fashion as it appears it should have,” he said. ”There should have been not only yellow flags but red flags all over the place.”

Westlund said every business has ”bad actors,” but also noted that Crater Lake School isn’t the only problem recently in the niche industry that cares for troubled youths.

The death of a teenager on a wilderness trip run by Bend-based Obsidian Trails in 2000 helped trigger state licensing. The business involved an outdoor program that took troubled youngsters into the Oregon outback.

In 2001, the proprietor of a Sisters alternative school was convicted on 22 counts, including sexual abuse of female students.

Donna Keddy, manager of the residential treatment and licensing unit in the Department of Human Services, said state rules worked well and that no children are currently in peril.

Crater Lake School did not meet the high standards required as a treatment center and that’s why the application was denied in October, she said.

The requirements are not as high to receive boarding school accreditation, she said.

Rep. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, said she was alarmed at the history of the program and expects legislators will reexamine the standards for boarding schools.

”These parents are desperate,” she said. ”We’re talking about a unique population that is at wits end to make hard decisions about their most precious asset, their children.”

Christensen said she plans to reopen soon as an academic-only boarding school, which is allowed under the current license. That license is up for renewal in January.

”If we were going to give up and walk away we would have filed bankruptcy” she said Tuesday.

”We are committed to working with kids and their families.”

Despite reports of the problems at the school, many parents say it made a difference for their families.

”It was very positive for my son and it was very positive for me,” said Laurie Cook, who lives outside St. Louis, Mo., and sent her son to the Oregon program in 2001 after several runaway incidents.

Kulongoski said his concern about programs for troubled kids extends beyond state lines – and that suggests a need for federal oversight in addition to closer scrutiny here.

”A number of Oregonians send their kids out of state to these camps,” the governor said, ”and I worry as much about a camp here in Oregon as I do about a camp in Arizona that two Oregonians have sent their children to.”

James Sinks can be reached at 503-566-2839 or at jamess@cyberis.net.