The Elan Report

The conclusion by the Department of Education that “there was no indication of any student being at risk” at the Elan School in Poland should be read carefully. The state’s investigation was a snapshot of current practices and did nothing to negate earlier charges by students and, in fact, may have substantiated some state concerns.

It should be clear, first, that the state has been impressed by the academic standards at Elan, which gained notoriety during the prosecution of Michael Skakel for the murder of Martha Moxley. Mr. Skakel had been a student at Elan, and he and several former classmates had said the school was abusive. But there has not been a question that the teachers and academic support staff did a fine job in the classroom. The question has been about dorm life, specifically the improper use of restraints and a disciplinary technique called “The Ring,” in which students were punched by one opponent after another.

The state had been under the impression that Elan had not used The Ring for 10 or 12 years and, in reviewing academics at the school in 1996 and ’98, education officials did not see it, although they didn’t look for it, either. Nevertheless, students from the 1990s said it was still being used.

For the DOE investigation, Elan reports that it has not used The Ring since October 2000. So when newspaper headlines announcing the findings of the DOE say, “Report concludes Elan students not mistreated” and “Probe sparked by Skakel trial finds no abuse,” it should be noted that the conclusions apply only to now; it provides little explanation about what happened as recently as last year. That means it does not dismiss the complaint by Canadian officials this spring who protested the disciplinary treatment of two teen-age Canadian girls there.

Yellow Breen of the Department of Education said part of the problem with the limitations of the report is that the department has little ability to regulate dorms. Schools, he said, “aren’t even required to tell us they have one.” Rules passed by the department last summer clearly ban measures like the ring, but Mr. Breen observes the department is likely not to know that such clear instruments of abuse exist if they exist outside the classroom building.

The department should not be done with this investigation. It should be interested in what sort or disciplinary measures have been used at Elan during, say, the last five years, and whether restraints were used properly. It should develop a reporting system to know when these extreme measures are being used and what the circumstances are. And it should clarify with the Legislature what its duties are beyond the classroom.

The department’s report said current conditions at Elan meant no students were at risk. There is no evidence suggesting the contrary. But that was not the only, or even the primary, question that led to the investigation.