State revokes license of Provo Canyon School's Provo campus amid lawsuit, abuse allegations

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Utah revoked Provo Canyon School's Provo campus license after repeated noncompliance citations.
• The state cited 15 noncompliance issues from March to July, including failing to protect clients from harm.
• Paris Hilton in June filed a lawsuit against the school, alleging mistreatment and abuse during her time there.

PROVO — Provo Canyon School's Provo campus license was revoked Friday by the state of Utah following continued allegations of abuse and numerous compliance citations.

The move comes just over a week after the state Department of Health and Human Services revoked the school's Springville campus license. The facility is now ordered to halt services, effective Aug. 16.

The department in June placed strict restrictions on the school following a May inspection in which the school was cited with multiple noncompliance counts.

In a letter notifying Provo Canyon School of its latest license revocation, the department listed 15 noncompliance citations issued from March 2026 to July 2026.

Reasons for the citations, according to the letter, include:

• Failing to protect a client from potential harm or acts of violence.
• Not following behavior management policies and safe practices.
• Not protecting a client from any action that may compromise the health and safety of the client through acts of omission.
• Not ensuring clients have the right to be free from abuse and mistreatment.
• Using cruel and unnecessary practice on a child that included inducing pain compliance.
• Using a cruel, unusual and unnecessary practice on a child by using discipline or punishment that was intended to frighten or humiliate.
• Depriving clients of water, rest and the opportunity for toileting.
• Not ensuring that each client has the right to be free from retaliation for reporting any violation of their rights.

"No child should be hurt in a program that is meant to protect them; particularly programs that require the authorization of the state to operate," Shannon Thoman-Black, state Division of Licensing and Background Checks director, said in a statement. "It is our job to make sure that programs comply with administrative rules and regulations designed to provide a healthy and safe environment for those in care. These rules and regulations are fundamental safeguards to protect vulnerable people being served in facilities or programs."

Provo Canyon School has come under increased scrutiny as of late, especially following celebrity advocate Paris Hilton's visit to the state in June, where she announced a lawsuit against the school, alleging negligence involving their children who were under the care of the youth psychiatric residential treatment facility.

Hilton was sent to the facility when she was 17 and has previously disclosed that she had experienced multiple forms of mistreatment and abuse while there.

"I was forced into solitary confinement, physically restrained and sexually abused — all in the name of treatment," Hilton said in June, reading her prepared remarks to reporters. "It breaks my heart to know that children are still inside that same facility, feeling that same fear that I know too well."

From Friday to Aug. 16, the state's licensing office will have personnel at the Provo campus at least once a week for monitoring.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

Related topics

Utah K-12 educationUtahEducationUtah County

Logan Stefanich

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Logan Stefanich is a reporter with KSL, covering northern Utah communities, education, business and tech news.