With the widespread of COVID-19, many Governors have ordered the closure of private and public schools under health and safety measures. Several facilities are continuing to operate without the appropriate medical staff on-site or protections in place for students.

These facilities identify as youth residential treatment facilities, behavioral modification programs, therapeutic boarding schools, wilderness therapy treatment, boot camps for troubled teens, reform schools and religious-based boarding schools. These facilities claim to be essential medical services, although they lack any oversight dissimilar to licensed medical facilities capable of handling a COVID-19 exposure.

Many facilities have continued to accept students for enrollment transporting students across the US without following quarantine guidelines. This action risks exposure to all students and staff on-site, many of these facilities are located in rural locations without nearby hospital capacity to deal with mass exposure. Furthermore, without proper oversight, the government cannot attest to the safety of these facilities for the youth or staff that resides within them. Many of these youth were placed in these facilities against their will, creating a civil rights violation with the active COVID-19 threat.