Children at Durham County’s juvenile detention center are receiving poor-quality education and are subject to random strip searches and other violations of state policy, despite gains being made in the number of hours they spend in class, according to a report by Disability Rights North Carolina (DRNC).
The report, released on September 24, found that children have been in school for about six hours per day since the start of the school year in August. But the children reported they are often confined to their cells during the remaining hours of the day and that they don’t interact with teachers at the schools they attend outside of detention.
The report was compiled based on five visits DRNC staff made to the Youth Home, from September 2024 through September 2026, and interviews conducted with children detained there as well as staff. DRNC monitors facilities where people with disabilities are held as the state’s federally designated disability advocacy organization.
DRNC’s latest findings follow up on a February report in which the group found that during a lockdown at the facility from February to March 2025, students had received just 30 minutes of instruction a day. A state investigation later determined that students who had disabilities—who must receive instruction tailored to their needs under federal law—were denied legally required educational services by Durham Public Schools (DPS) during that time.
The Durham County Youth Home, which opened in 2024, houses children ages 18 and under who are in custody prior to going to court. While the Youth Home is operated by the county, DPS is responsible for providing educational services for all of the children detained there.
During DRNC’s September 17 visit, students reported to DRNC that, despite the improved instructional time, they had no interaction with their assigned teachers at DPS and received little to no feedback on their assignments.
“There is no direct instruction by teachers there, they are not responsible for grading their work there,” Elijah Moffe, an attorney at DRNC, said at a presentation of the new report on Monday. “The teachers that are there, they are essentially a placeholder for a teacher.”
As of DRNC’s September visit, the Youth Home had one math teacher and two special education teachers, who were filling in at the facility due to vacancies, according to the report. These staff members reported to DRNC that they were not specialized in the courses in which the students were enrolled, and that direct instruction and grading was the responsibility of the teachers at their base DPS school. The teaching staff’s role was to offer help when the students asked for it, the staff reported to DRNC.
At the September visit, one teacher told the DRNC team that their job was to “keep the kids busy” rather than provide instruction, and none of the three teachers had lesson plans. One student reported that the teaching staff had thrown away completed work, rather than sending it to their DPS school, and DRNC found that some students had still not received any materials from their base school several weeks into the school year.
DRNC attorney Glynnis Hagins said a lack of instruction makes it difficult for students to transition back to their base schools. She’s seen children spend up to nine months in these facilities across the state, contributing to a significant period of their education. Dudley said the average stay at Durham’s Youth Home in August was 19 days.
“It’s very clear to us that they are not getting any meaningful instruction towards their pathway to graduation,” Hagins said.
DRNC’s February report described children being locked in their cells for more than 22 hours per day—meeting international definitions of solitary confinement. Children previously reported to DRNC that they had been placed in “the Hole”—a cell without a bathroom, bedding, or clothing—in response to mental health crises or for disciplinary reasons.
The use of the Hole has since ceased, DRNC found on their September visit, and children are brought out of their cells for at least six hours on weekdays to complete their schoolwork.
In a statement to the INDY, Durham County spokesperson Dawn Dudley wrote that out-of-room time can vary based on individual safety concerns, staffing, and court requirements, but that classes generally operate from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays, with additional opportunities for recreation. She said Durham County will be conducting an independent operational assessment of the Youth Home to find ways to strengthen its services.
“As that work moves forward, the County remains guided by the principle that the safety and the well-being of the youth and staff at the facility is paramount,” Dudley said in the statement.
Despite the state’s findings in April, students with disabilities were still not receiving adequate special education services at the Youth Home at the time of DRNC’s September visit.
Nationally, between 65% and 70% of children in juvenile detention have a disability. Students with disabilities are required by federal law to receive Individualized Education Programs, and DRNC found that teaching staff did not implement these plans. There was also no system in place to identify and evaluate students with disabilities, which is another federal requirement.
“A lot of kids said they thought they had an IEP, they thought they might have a disability, but no one in the [Juvenile Detention Center] had ever talked to them about it,” Hagins said.
DPS spokesperson Crystal Roberts told the INDY in a statement that residents at the detention center are receiving 6.5 hours of educational services each school day and the district has piloted virtual instruction. The corrective actions ordered by the state at the conclusion of its investigation earlier this year are still under development, Roberts said.
In addition to noncompliance with federal education policy, DRNC found that the Youth Home was not following rules set by the state’s Division of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The children reported to DRNC that they were subject to random strip searches, which is prohibited by state policy, and that staff closely monitored their phone calls. The children also reported having a maximum of 30 minutes of recreation time per day, and state policy requires one hour.
The children also reported feeling unsafe in the showers, with staff watching them through the shower window.
The county did not answer specific questions about these findings in the report.
DRNC recommends that the Youth Home abide by state policy in regard to strip searches, phone call supervision, and recreation time, in addition to creating policies limiting the time children spend in their cells. The report, pulling from its February findings, also calls on the state legislature to ban solitary confinement in juvenile detention centers.
State Rep. Marcia Morey (D-Durham), who attended Monday’s presentation, said it’s up to the state legislature to pass laws regulating how children are treated in these facilities and raise state employee pay to support adequate staffing.
“We do have authority over standards and safety,” Morey told the INDY. “And the general assembly has been derelict toward juvenile justice.”
Laura Toptine worked as a mental health counselor at the detention center from 2023 to 2025, and she said she struggled to be part of a system that she felt was not doing enough to help the children. (She’s now an inpatient social worker.) Toptine said kids struggling with suicidal ideations and other mental health crises were often afraid to tell her, in fear of being sent to the Hole.
“These kids are so smart, they’re so insightful, and they’re very much deserving of so much more than what they’re having at the Youth Home,” Toptine said.
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