Élan School

ÉLAN SCHOOL
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Address
PO Box 578 Poland, Maine, 04274 United States
Coordinates	44.0075°N 70.386°W / 44.0075; -70.386
Information
Type	Private therapeutic boarding school
Opened	1970
Grades	8-12
Age range	14-18
Affiliations	NATSAP

Élan School is a private, coeducational, residential behavior modification program and therapeutic boarding school (beginning with 8th grade and extending beyond high school completion) in Poland, Androscoggin County, Maine.

As of 2010, the school reported enrollment of 150 students. The school is located on a 33-acre (13 ha) campus that was formerly a hunting lodge.

The school acquired some notoriety during the 1990s and early 2000s when former classmates of Michael Skakel, who had attended Élan in the 1970s, testified against him in his trial for an unsolved murder that had occurred about two years before he enrolled at Élan.

History

Élan School was founded in 1970 by psychiatrist Gerald Davidson and Joseph Ricci. Ricci was head of the school for most of its history. Since his death in 2001, his widow Sharon Terry has headed the school.

Program

The school specializes in helping teenagers with behavioral problems. Students attend year-round. In 2002, a New Jersey educational consultant who had referred students to Elan for 22 years told the New York Times that he would refer only "the most serious cases" to the school, which he said would "take kids who haven't responded to other programs and who are really out of control."

The school's treatment methods are based on the "TC" or therapeutic community modality popularized in the 1960s at facilities such as Synanon, and later at Daytop Village. In 2002, a New Jersey educational consultant told the New York Times that the school was "certainly not for the faint-hearted." He said "There's lots of confrontation," but added "and yet there are lots of hugs."

Controversy

Throughout its history the school has been faced with numerous allegations of student mistreatment.

In 1975, Illinois state officials pulled 11 children out of the Élan program, charging that they had been mistreated.

In 2002 during the trial of Michael Skakel witnesses testified that beatings and public humiliation were parts of life at Élan during the late 1970s. In trial testimony, former students also described the practice of placing a student in a "boxing ring" surrounded by classmates who confronted the student.

The New York State Education Department, which has paid tuition for special education students to attend Élan School, gave the school a favorable review in 2005. In 2007, however, New York education officials raised questions about the school's practices, alleging in a letter to the school and Maine education officials that Élan students were physically restraining their peers and being deprived of sleep. The allegations prompted the state of New York to threaten to withdraw tuition money for taxpayer-funded students. The school's lawyer said that virtually all of the New York allegations were false.

Notable alumni

• Michael Skakel
• Ben Weasel

See also

• Attack therapy
• Large Group Awareness Training
• Human Potential Movement
• Psychobabble

External links

• Elan School
• Elan School Alumni
• Elan School Visit Report, by Tom Croke, Struggling Teens, June 1992
• Elan School Visit Report, by Louise Kreiner and Amy D'Uva, May 17, 2007; Struggling Teens website, Jun 26, 2007
• Kevin Gray, Bad Company: The Elan School, Details magazine, November 2001, pages 88–97
• David Gurliacci, Ex-students at Skakel trial describe Elan as 'horrific', Portland Press Herald, May 31, 2002

Further reading

• Eva Pappas (2006), The Other Son - One Family's Personal War on Drugs, Lagrimas & Clean Slate Publishers Group. ISBN 0977718719, ISBN 978-0977718719. This book describes Elan's program under a fictitious name.