Rep. Rudy Veit’s church – run boarding school bill advances at the Capitol

(MissouriNet) — Bipartisan legislation aimed at regulating faith-based boarding schools like the now-defunct Circle of Hope Girls’ Ranch in southwest Missouri’s Humansville will be heard by a Missouri Senate committee.

The owners of the Circle of Hope ranch remain jailed without bond, after being charged with 102 felonies between them. Boyd and Stephanie Householder are from southern Missouri’s Nevada, which is near Humansville.

The Senate Seniors and Families Committee will hear the bill from Wardsville State Representative Rudy Veit and Lee’s Summit State Representative Keri Ingle today at noon. The Missouri House gave final approval to the Veit-Ingle bill in late March. That vote was 148-0. Ingle says the  issue with faith-based boarding schools goes well beyond the Circle of Hope, and that this appears to be a systemic issue. Current Missouri law doesn’t allow any regulation or oversight on residential care facilities for children, as long as the facilities declare themselves as religious.