POLAND - For years, the state of New York has paid tens of thousands of dollars to send teenagers with behavioral problems to the Elan School, a private boarding school on 33 acres in this rural community.
But after a surprise visit to the school late last year, New York education officials have raised questions about the students' treatment, alleging in a letter to the school and Maine education officials that Elan students are physically restraining their peers and being deprived of sleep, among other allegations.
The school's lawyer says that virtually all of the New York allegations are false. And officials from Maine's Department of Education said after meeting with an Elan official last Monday that they don't believe students are at risk. But the allegations have prompted the state of New York to threaten to withdraw tuition money for taxpayer-funded students unless Elan addresses the concerns.
"In order for the remaining New York students to continue in your program, the Elan School must resolve the health and safety issues within seven business days of receipt of this letter," Daniel H. Johnson, upstate regional coordinator for the New York State Education Department's Office of Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities, wrote in a Jan. 16 letter to the school.
"I think this is a complete sham," Edward MacColl, a lawyer for the school, said in an interview with the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram.
It's not the first time the Elan School has attracted attention. The co-educational school educates teenagers with emotional, behavioral and substance-abuse problems. It was founded in 1971 by the late Scarborough Downs owner Joseph Ricci, whose widow, Sharon Terry, is listed as the school's executive director.
In 1975, Illinois state officials pulled 11 children out of the Elan program, charging that they had been mistreated. Subsequent investigations by several states cleared Elan of wrongdoing.
At the 2002 murder trial of Michael Skakel, a cousin of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who attended Elan from 1978-1980, witnesses testified that beatings and public humiliation were parts of life at Elan during those years. A report in 2002 by the state of Maine found no indication that any students were at risk.
It's unclear what prompted New York officials to show up unannounced at Elan on Dec. 12. During the visit, the officials interviewed students whose tuition is being paid by local New York school systems. Those interviews led to the allegations made by the state of New York in Johnson's Jan. 16 letter to the school.
The letter described "students being put on 'removal' for days and weeks" and alleged that "students who reach a 'higher level' make decisions as to consequences for other students' behavior management."
The letter included allegations of "students restraining other students," "sleep deprivation for students assigned to guard the students on 'removal'," and "students 'counseling' other students and using coercive and confrontational language, which includes yelling and swearing."
The letter and a follow-up letter sent to Elan on Feb. 14 contained few additional details about the allegations, and New York officials did not respond to an interview request.
CORRECTIVE PLAN DEMANDED
However, the two letters stated that New York will stop paying the tuition of taxpayer-funded students unless the boarding school implements a corrective action plan.
The proposed plan calls for the Elan School to revise its policies and procedures to ban the use of inappropriate language during counseling sessions and to comply with New York regulations regarding the suspension and removal of students for disciplinary reasons, among other changes.
Jonathan Burman of the New York State Education Department's Office of Communications said in an e-mail to the newspaper that eight New York-funded students have met the requirements for high school graduation, and the state is no longer paying their tuition. The state will cut off funding for two other students if Elan does not implement the corrective action plan, he said.
In his written response to New York's letter, Elan lawyer MacColl said he believes the New York State Education Department has "wrongfully defamed" the school and its staff members.
"None of the cited regulations even remotely purports to prohibit the alleged conduct," MacColl wrote. "And virtually none of the allegations is factually accurate."
Still, the allegations prompted officials from the Maine Department of Education to meet with the Elan School last Monday in Augusta. The department has since finished its inquiry, said department spokesman David Connerty-Marin, and the state has no plans to investigate the treatment of students at the Elan School.
The last time Maine conducted such an investigation was 2002, when a witness at Skakel's murder trial testified that the school disciplined students through boxing fights. The state inspected the school in two announced visits and concluded in its final report that the boxing practice was no longer happening and that there was "no indication of any student being at risk."
Connerty-Marin said the recent inquiry into New York's allegations showed that the Elan School complies with Maine regulations. "And we do not believe that students are at risk for safety or for health," he said.
He added that the Maine Department of Education has not received complaints from Elan parents or students, but said the department would investigate if it did receive such complaints.
TWO VISITS, TWO VIEWS
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.
In an interview, MacColl said he believes New York may be trying to save money by ending tuition payments to the Elan School, which costs around $49,000 a year to attend, according to the school's Web site.
The Jan. 16 letter from New York education officials stands in contrast with an earlier New York report, which followed a visit to the Elan School on Aug. 8-9, 2005.
"The program at Elan is highly structured and places an emphasis on positive peer support, which are key to student success," reads the 2005 report, which was provided to the newspaper by the Elan School.
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. By contrast, the New York officials who conducted the surprise visit in December stayed for only three hours and never talked to the school's administrators, he said.
McDermott said that the school enrolls students between the ages of 13 and 20, a majority of whom have battled drug or alcohol abuse. The school has about 95 students, mostly from outside Maine. Public school systems pay for about 40 percent of the students enrolled at Elan. Parents pay the tuition for the remainder, McDermott said.
The Elan program involves students working for other students, rising through a series of job levels in the house where they reside, McDermott said.
He acknowledged that Elan students may temporarily restrain other students who have become violent, prior to the arrival of staff members.
Staff members may put plastic zip ties around a violent student's wrists and ankles, which is allowed under Maine regulations, he said.
McDermott also said that students are sometimes required to work as "Night Owl," a job in which they stay awake to make sure other students don't leave. "They aren't deprived of sleep because the next day they go to bed," he said.
Regarding the allegation that Elan students make decisions about their peers' behavior management, McDermott said, "They may make suggestions, they will tell staff what they think about a situation. But all decisions about whatever happens are done by staff."
When McDermott was asked whether students yell at each other in group counseling, he described what he called "confrontational groups," where students have the opportunity to tell peers how they angered them.
"And part of that may be, I may yell at you," McDermott said. "Once the yelling is over in that situation, if it does occur, there's a process in which they sit down and they discuss that. And the two students would have a discussion, along with other students, about what was happening, and what should happen, and how they should handle those things. So it really is a technique to stop kids from getting into altercations."
McDermott defended the Elan School's methods as helpful for many children.
"These kids literally have changed their lives," he said. "When they arrive, they don't know how to turn a mistake around."
Staff researchers Beth Murphy and Susan Butler contributed to this report.
Staff Writer Kevin Wack can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:
