DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE SEND YOUR CHILD TO THE ELAN SCHOOL

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FACT: Annual fees for a 12 month year of $54,960.60

Your children will do all the work, they will be the janitors, scrub toilets directly after other students in 'higher positions' use them, and as they move up in the 'program', they will be the prison guards. Your child will be put into a small, overcrowded house with many ACTUAL criminals and drug-addicts. Since The Elan School contains many crazies, the staff feel YOUR child should be watching them in isolation, instead of a staff member. The student to staff ratio at many times is about 1 : 40. The children could clearly take over at any time which is why a strong level of brainwashing will occur when your child steps foot in the door.

I used to give tours of The Elan School when I was a position called 'Re-entry' which is the highest level a student can reach. I was highly coached as to what I could not say, and what I had to say. Tours were only given during very 'convenient' times when the children were not screaming, being beat up in 'The Ring', or being emotionally abused by staff members. Since these things occur nearly all day, every day, every month of every year, these 'tours' had to be meticulously scheduled.

If you are wondering how the ME Department of Education could fund or promote such a place, here is an interesting fact from a linked article titled: New York seeks change at Elan School:

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/070325elan.html

'While New York conducted a surprise inspection, it is the policy of Maine's education department to let schools know when state officials are going to conduct a visit, said Edwin "Buzz" Kastuck, whose responsibilities within the department include school approval.'

Here is a claim made in the same article:

'Frank McDermott, the Elan School's director of education, said the New York officials who visited in 2005 conducted extensive interviews with students, parents and graduates.

here is a comment written after an article, titled:Good News: Bad Economy Killing Abusive Teen Programs:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maia-szalavitz/good-news-bad-economy-kil_b_162696.html

"I was a student at the Elan School for 3 years from 2005 to 2008. I am still traumatized by what I went through during my time there. Waking up each day the environment was constant screaming and swearing, by students, but more so by the "staff". I remember as a new student, I was crying when I was told to scrub a garbage can as a punishment for something so minor that I can't even remember the cause. I has stopped cleaning it, and that was when the staff determined that I had to be restrained and dragged to "the corner", isolation in a room to the point when one barely feels human. I tried to fight back, as any normal person would do when one is touched and forcefully grabbed without consent. Instead of just bringing me to the corner, the staff had other students hold me up, my hands and feet restrained, as other students were forced to scream and degrade me. I say forced, because regretfully I have also done the same to other students, and I know that if they refused to participate in this abominable event they too would have been punished. The only way to survive in this setting was to shut down emotionally. This memory haunts me to current day.

"This school needs to be shut down, and I am happy if that day is coming near. Even if Elan survives the recession, it should still be closed. However, this could prove to be exceedingly difficult, because the students in the school are pressured not even to think a bad thought about the program, let alone utter it, and will receive punishment if they fail to oblige that rule. I know that while I was at the school investigations were conducted, and students were pressured into lying. Furthermore, a survey was also done, which now appears on the school's website, some questions asking about if we felt comfortable at the school. It was said to be anonymous, but again we felt pressured into lying, staff was supervising, and each of our handwriting could be easily identified.
"I hope someone reacts to the atrocity that is the Elan School."

I do too...

Monday, November 2, 2009

Exclusive: NEW YORK STATE ACTS TO END ABUSES AT THE ELAN SCHOOL

The Elan School in Poland, Maine is notorious for allegedly forcibly extracting a murder confession from Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel. According to witnesses, it happened in the late 70's, during a "therapy session" in which he was forced to box fresh opponents while being verbally humiliated until he admitted the crime. But such abuse didn't stop in the 70's: incredibly, the school used "the ring" procedure until at least 2000 with impunity.

During its three-decades-plus history, Elan has repeatedly been accused of human rights violations and severe child abuse. All that time, state regulators somehow failed to corroborate dozens of horrifying accounts of maltreatment, which sometimes came in the form of sworn courtroom testimony.

But following an investigation spurred by my reporting for a recent New York Times op-ed, the New York State Department of Education (NYSED) has written to Elan, stating that it has "compliance issues" with the state's regulations. New York is involved because it uses taxpayer money to send emotionally disturbed and learning disabled children to the school, having approved it as an "emergency placement" for such teens.

According to a letter from New York to Elan released to me today by NYSED, the "compliance issues" include "students restraining other students," excessive use of isolation as punishment, "sleep deprivation" and "students 'counseling' other students and using coercive and confrontational language, which includes yelling and swearing." The letter also notes that Elan isn't providing the required number of hours of classroom instruction for NY students and that students are not qualified as counselors.

In other words, just as former students have claimed for decades, Elan uses abusive, degrading and violent tactics that have long been discredited as therapy even for the hardcore heroin addicts to which they were originally applied and which have no place in the education of the learning disabled or mentally ill or anyone else for that matter.

If Elan doesn't begin using qualified counselors to run therapy groups, bar students from disciplining each other, stop making them stay up all night to guard each other, stop using lengthy periods of isolation as punishment and stop making students restrain each other-- as well as adjust its entire education program to meet state requirements--- within a week, New York will no longer allow students to attend. A copy of the letter has also been sent to Maine education officials.

Let's hope this is the beginning of the end for this senseless relic. I also want to thank the brave students who were willing to talk with me and with state officials in order to help put an end to the abuse of their peers. We now know what works to help kids with addictions, with learning disabilities, with psychiatric problems and behavior issues. It's not abuse, but empathy and respect.

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9 comments:

  1. ThereseMay 21, 2010 at 3:12 PM

    Dear God in heaven, why is this not on the front of every single Maine newspaper? Why is this house of torture still in operation? What is wrong with that state????

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  2. AnonymousFebruary 9, 2011 at 7:33 AM

    I went to this school from 1986-1989 and I turned out pretty good, if I don't say so myself. The lashing out at students isn't quite as dramatic as some of these people have made it sound. Did it have an impact on me? Well, I just tried to keep my nose clean so people wouldn't do it. We each had our own stragety to make it through the program. I think it really paid off for some of the kids - they needed to be yelled at and know how they were viewed by their peers. Sometimes its our peers that we see ourselves in rather than adults at that age. The reason we wore signs was because it let everyone on campus know what our issues were and people had to ask us about our signs and make us talk about it. You'd be suprised at some of the feed back the kids would get from other kids and the changes we'd see in them after. Elan wasn't a bad place and I was very thankful for my time there. Oh and I got my high school deploma fromt there too.

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  3. RBSJune 16, 2013 at 6:09 PM

    How come the positive posts are "annonymous" only? Arnt you proud of your "success"? Wow, your comment is more useless then a can without an opener. I believe more in unicorns farting rainbows then your pretty little paragraph of deceit. These élan defenses spring up all over, oddly annonymous..and discredit every true story here. Not everyone who went there belonged there. THERE I NO SCREANING POLICY. If your parents caugh up the dough you stay til 18 or 3 years of failure. 3 or 4 people out of 60 actually graduate the program every year. I made my mistakes but I was an honest and pretty decent person before going there. There were plenty of kids there with rich parents who were confused and overworked. I was trying to help a mentally handicapped student who honestly had the mind of probably an 8 year old, and I get shit down for "playing games" . Nothing flirty about it . I had a hard time holding someone who can't live up to the standards of a algebra text book.. That was one of the worst, cruelest things I saw there. The kid had been here 3.5 years. How do you justify biling his parents $40,000+ a year for a program you know he will never ever move up in! Why was no one informing his parents, another facility could have helped him wonders. Instead he spent 9 out of 12 months pretty much in the corner. That's really sick.

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    Replies
    1. Keith RocheSeptember 21, 2013 at 7:46 AM

      Keith Roche of Westport ct. Grew up in Brooklyn look me up on Facebook I have the sun glasses on "Annonymous" enough for you. 1986-89. If your there Racky you were probably pretty fucked up. Seems like you might have been a bit scared in that environment. Not really for you. Well it saved my ass from Jail or Death and I got a H.S. Diploma from it all and some great memories. It was tough but that was the point of it all and all these whinny kids with " oh they yelled, I had to clean , I have structure in my life probably would have been getting Raped in Jail or living in some shitty situation. Face Racky you went to Élan opposed to Taft or some other top of the line boarding school because you had issues. Sorry you weren't tough enough to stand up to what Élan put you through, It takes a strong person to survie what life throws at you

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    2. AnonymousAugust 31, 2016 at 5:47 PM

      Thank you Keith for this. For standing up to all of this non sense. Elan was no cake walk for sure but never was anyone abused. 99% of what I read about Elan is twisted facts and massive manipulations of reality. My hearts hurts for these self made victims- I cannot imagine spending my life obsessed with this school. I've seen many people blame Elan for their miserable lives, neglecting to face the reasons they were sent there to begin with! These people are not victims of Elan, they simply never changed their lives for the better and are victims of their own choices.

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    3. AnonymousAugust 31, 2016 at 5:50 PM

      By no means has my life been perfect since I graduated Elan. But one thing is for sure- my mistakes are my own, not the fault of GIing a floor or getting a GM.

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  4. michell hudsonMarch 19, 2014 at 8:11 AM

    My name is Michelle Evans I attended Elan in 92 to 95,,,,and I'm currently trying to sue this school for the hell I had to embark

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