SKAKEL’S ALMA MATER

The excessively covered trial of Kennedy relative Michael Skakel, found guilty Friday of the murder of Martha Moxley, brought renewed attention to a controversial Maine school, with charges about practices and conditions there serious enough to require the state to review the school’s licensing. The Elan School in Poland, Maine, which Mr. Skakel attended in the late 1970s, may be guilty of nothing more than having some alumni with skewed memories, but their comments at the Skakel trial and in related newspaper articles presented a shocking view of the school, making it sound like a dangerous place to send a child.

No question Elan is a unique school in Maine, with a unique, highly structured and confrontational method of addressing unruly teen-agers. And no doubt, according to alumni web sites, many students have been helped by this approach. But some have not and have complained that the controversial style has gone beyond confrontation to what could be characterized as abusive. Without deciding beforehand whether what these former students say is true, the state has an obligation to ensure that students in Maine are safe and not subject to harm.

For instance, testimony at the trial referred to students being forced to engage in boxing matches, these occurred either many years ago by some accounts or more recently by others. One student there from 1996-98 told the New York Times recently that she saw a student placed in a corner in plastic restraints for so long that the student suffered malnutrition serious enough to require a trip to the hospital. The author of that story, Warren St. John, wrote, “At Elan, smiling without permission can lead to a session of cleaning urinals with a toothbrush that can last for hours.”

Elan is licensed by the Maine Department of Education, and was last inspected by the state in 1998. But department official Yellow Breen emphasizes that the department issues a license for academics only, not for “dorm life” and not for punitive treatment outside the classroom. The school was licensed by the Department of Human services until the early 1980s, but dropped its re-application then when it appeared that its therapy component was unacceptable to the state, according to DHS. Because Elan is a school and not a provider of child care or substance-abuse counseling, no state agency seems to be required to ensure the nonacademic portion of the school is properly run. This does not necessarily create a problem, but it creates the opportunity for one, requiring the state to pay special attention.

The Skakel trial, predictably, brought the Elan School attention it would not have sought. The state, having been presented with a pattern of unflattering anecdotal information, now needs to bring the school a little more by checking out the stories and separating the real and the imagined.