I am a former student of the DeSisto School. I was at school for a little under 5 years, from June of 1996 thru March of 2001. Most of the time that I was at school I felt very trapped there. Of course there were times of happiness as well but I felt a lot of the time that I was stuck there. There were only 3 ways to get out of this school. First, you could graduate, which was made almost impossible with everything running on consensus (everyone had to agree that you were ready or you just didn't graduate). Second, your parents could voluntarily withdraw (take you out) of the school. This second option was also close to impossible because a lot of the parents that had their kids there were literally brainwashed into believing that this was the only place that there kids could get help no matter what. Third, you could runaway from the school. I chose the third option because I sat in a meeting with the steward (senior) group of students, our dorm parents, and Michael DeSisto in which I was told that I could not graduate from the school without being friends with everyone in the dorm. Being that I didn't like half the people in the dorm I wasn't going to act like I did just to graduate. This was one of many contradictions that the school had made in it's philosophy. If everything was so based on honesty and openess, why should I have to lie and force myself to be friends with someone that I didn't necessarily dislike, but someone who I felt was not a good person to be friends with. After I ranaway from the school in March of 2001, it took my parents literally 6 months to allow me to come back home. I was living with friends in several different places around the east coast and they knew that I was basically homeless, with everyhting that I owned on my back, and they would only tell me over and over again to go back to school.
There were a lot of questionable practices that went on at school like cornering. This was when you had turn-ins (things that you did against the rules of the school or things that you felt guilty for) and you were forced to sit in a chair facing the wall and having no contact with other members of your dorm or on campus. Another one was hand-holding. At school we were all made to walk within arm's distance of each other (everyone in your dorm that is). If you went a few steps in the wrong direction you were spacing group and the punishment was for everyone to hold hands until you could come up with a reason why you had spaced group. Ususally this would be a quick process with the person who spaced apologizing and saying that they were just unaware. On one specific occasion, I remember being hand-held for at least 2 days. This included walking, doing our daily activities, and even going to the bathroom. That was the worst part about it. When you live in an all-girls dorm and you are handheld to someone changing a tampon, it is pretty disgusting. If you tried to tell your parents about any of this kind of thing that was going on at the school, it was considered to be manipulating them to take you out of school. Your parents met with other parents in there area once a month and they were all told that if a student is saying anything negative about the school or that abusive things were going on, it was only to manipulate you and you should ignore it or end your visit or phone call with your child. Most of the time the child would then get sent to the corner or to the farm (a restricted dorm that had lots of manual labor and no contact with anyone else on campus).
I'm not saying by any means that this school was horrible or that Michael was the anti-christ as some of the former students would have you believe. I still learned a lot there and my experiences at school have made me who I am today. I wouldn't change any of it. I believe that, if you are having trouble with your children you should always talk to them and try to work it out before making the decision to send them away. I know it's hard sometimes, especially when they are using drugs and drinking but there are so many other options you have nowadays besides boarding school. Please try to explore all your options first before making a decision.
