Talk:Élan School

Bias

This article is clearly biased toward those who support Elan's treatment methods. Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral, not a platform. I'll attempt to make it more professional. It is also poorly written with numerous spelling errors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Petrovmoorichka (talk • contribs)

The original entry was significantly negative and extremely biased against Elan School and other material was added to balance the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Seigar101 (talk • contribs) 04:07, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

The misspelled ending paragraphs are hard to take seriously. No references makes me think it isn't true. 97.104.129.213 (talk) 07:51, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Skakel part

The Skakel part was the ONLY element of national significance at Elan -- how can it not be included? It's OK if opinions are included, as long as they're balanced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.79.149.226 (talk • contribs) 20:52, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

CSD

As described by the edit summery I placed with the hangon tag, I kind of messed up. All I saw was a very small article, hardly any content. My mistake. I'm also kind of tired, so that may account for it. Either way, I'm sorry.— Dædαlus^{→quick link} / Improve 09:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

If you don't like the article content, discuss your concerns here

There's been a campaign by anonymous contributors to remove most of the content and references from the article. Rather than letting an unproductive revert war continue in the article, I have semi-protected the article (only established users can edit it right now).

If you have concerns about the article content, please explain and discuss them here. In so doing, be advised that Wikipedia is governed by policies on verifiability, neutrality of point of view, and civility (among others), as well as a guideline on conflict of interest. --Orlady (talk) 22:14, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

The first reference cannot be justified. It states that as of 2010 the student population is 150. This is incorrect. The website states no year and the bottom website copyright year is 2006. As of 2010, there are only about 30 residents still enrolled in this "school". Unless you can show a legitimate source, you cannot state that the population is 150. This is false advertising in favor of the "school". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.219.158.188 (talk • contribs) 21:22, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Seconded. And the charge that (re)addition of sourced material is "vandalism" is unfounded.

However, I have to say that I'm unhappy with the article.

It says The school achieved some notoriety during the 1990s when former classmates of Michael Skakel, who had attended Elan in the 1970s, testified against him in his trial for an unsolved murder that had occurred about two years before he enrolled at Elan. Well, maybe. The source that's linked hardly says this. It does, however, talk about a culture of bullying (and worse) at the time. Its descriptions of heroin addicts among ex-students and so so on in the context of a description of Elan make Elan look bad, but this is little more than guilt by association.

Further: Throughout its history the school has been faced with numerous allegations of student mistreatment. This isn't sourced. There's a complaint in 1975. There's another to-do in 2002 -- uh, no, it's actually about the period 1978-80. And there's a serious complaint in 2007. The link for the latter is dead and the page isn't at web.archive.org. Let's suppose that the article really existed, and was summarized accurately. It's unlikely that it contains clear allegations of wrongdoing before three years or so previous. If indeed it doesn't, then there's no real dirt on Elan between 1980 and 2004, a period of more than half of its lifetime so far. Plus we don't have that 2007 source.

It's clear that there's something about Elan to the Skakel story. But Skakel-related dirt appears in the introduction and in the controversies section. And as if that weren't enough, Skakel (pretty much a nobody outside the murder case) is listed as one of two notable alumni. NB Whoever was the murderer, the murder took place before Skakel joined Elan, so even the most ardent proponent of environmental conditioning can't say that Elan was a contributing factor to Skakel's notability. The article overdoes the Skakel matter.

Comments?

(Incidentally, I have no interest in schools or minor shoots of the Kennedy family tree, and not much in murders either. No axe to grind. I'm here merely because I noticed relevant messages on a separate page.) -- Hoary (talk) 08:24, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Maintaining balance with an article like this one is a continuing challenge. Schools like Elan are inherently controversial, and many of the people most familiar with them (including former students and parents who have sent children to the school) don't want to be publicly identified. The school has an impressive record of success with some of the most difficult adolescents, but has achieved that record by using methods that are pretty much guaranteed to attract criticism.

In the edit history of this article, there have been numerous attacks on it from contributors (mostly anonymous) who thought it was not sufficiently critical of the school. The recent efforts to remove negative information were an almost-welcome contrast... It's unfortunate that this person seems to have rejected the option of discussing the article, preferring instead to continue to vandalize it. It would be helpful to have someone who is familiar with the school's positive attributes provide input regarding the information they would like to see the article include -- ideally, supported at least in part by 3rd-party sources. I looked today at the school website, and found that it has far more information than I remember seeing there -- it is likely to be helpful in expanding the article. (For example, the school website tells about the school's interscholastic athletics program, and since I've found some very current online news coverage that mentions Elan sports teams, I am confident that the school is telling a true story about its athletics.)

It's unfortunate that several of the sources cited in the article are no longer online. However, the various newspaper articles that are not currently available on the newspaper publishers' websites have all been examined and verified by multiple sets of eyes (at least I know I verified them), most notably during the AfD for this article. These are actually only a small fraction of the news media coverage I've seen at various times. The Skakel case and trial were extensively covered in U.S. national news media and even internationally, and if you read news coverage of the Skakel trial (such as this article in a Maine newspaper, this article in the UK Telegraph, and the Atlantic magazine article in which his cousin, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said that Elan was "a snake pit where Michael was regularly beaten during the two years he was a resident"), I think you will conclude that the statements in this Wikipedia article are very restrained by comparison. The lead sentence in a 2007 article in the Huffington Post[1] says "The Elan School in Poland, Maine is notorious for allegedly forcibly extracting a murder confession from Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel," and this unrelated article in the New York Daily News uses similar wording. The Huffington Post writer also had an op-ed piece in the New York Times in January 2007[2] (not currently cited in the Wikipedia article, but still online and thus available to help verify the sources that are cited) that told about the State of NY's then-ongoing investigation of Elan and other schools. Copies of many news media articles about Elan are archived at this page on the memorial site for the girl who was murdered -- not a certified reliable source, but still useful. I believe that a review of various sources will support the conclusion that there have been numerous allegations (and investigations of allegations) of abuse over the years -- but the school remains open, indicating that neutral investigators are satisfied that its methods are OK.

I did find one minor error in the article regarding the Skakel connection -- the widespread public attention to Elan in connection with Skakel apparently began in the 1990s, as stated in the article, but the article does not state that it continued into the 2000s. Lest Wikipedians continue to wonder about Skakel, he was convicted of the murder (as discussed in the article about him). --Orlady (talk) 18:18, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the thoughtful reply and hard work, Orlady. Unfortunately, RL demands that I must pause here for now. -- Hoary (talk) 00:54, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

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

I may be 12 years late, but there are a few recent links and articles detailing it, ranging from this blogpost: theelanschool.blogpost.com which was ran and maintained by a former student, who also has a very active and illustrated story of his time at Elan and how it impacted his life (hasn't finished yet).

I feel that this could be sufficient? Genabab (talk) 11:16, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Oh and a few youtube links to documentaries and such of people who were there in Elan accounting what exactly happened and the abuse they had went through Genabab (talk) 11:18, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Can I get a clarification?

One of the allegations is by the state of NY and the article refers to that state threatening to stop paying tuition... the school is in Maine, are NY taxes really paying for some of our students to be shipped off to Maine and educated there? I am just curious how that works and maybe the article could elaborate on it.Camelbinky (talk) 10:19, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, New York and other states send students to both in-state and out-of-state private schools when that placement is determined to be necessary to educate a child with special educational needs. This is related to the requirements of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which guarantees each child a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). --Orlady (talk) 18:30, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Allegations of Abuse

I have checked the google news archives and there is a paucity of information on Elan in the 70's. There is so much word of mouth about this school mostly highly negative. Is there any way to nail down any of this? So much that is known about this school (i.e. ditch digging, and boxing rings) is highly anecdotal. I also see too much emphasis on Skaklel, true he is arguably Elan's most famous alumnus, but does this justify the high percentage of the article's total verbiage dedicated to him? Wlmg (talk) 23:24, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

The articles about the Skakel case are a major source of anecdotal information about the school in the 1970s. The articles themselves are reliable sources, but they need to be used with care. That is, statements by former students should be identified as statements by former students (not as factual information), BLP policy should not be violated, etc., etc. --Orlady (talk) 00:16, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

This article is still highly problematic. I.e. the history section is two sentences long. That's not much for a school with a 40-year(?) history. Also the school's connection with Synanon. Many TBCs (i.e. CEDU) connect themselves somehow with Synanon. Imho the connection, even if it does exist is weak. I'll look into this, but it's not a feast of info like The DeSisto School because DeSisto was a publicity whore resulting in extensive paper trails. Elan was more low key. Also in the department of original research Elan students feared being sent to DeSisto and vice versa. Wlmg (talk) 18:42, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

All of the Allegations of Abuse are false i was an ex-student of Elan and it saved my life — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.244.81.163 (talk • contribs)

Don't edit other people's talk page posts, please. See the guidelines for more information. Feezo (send a signal | watch the sky) 23:27, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

perhaps not the best place to mention it, but could you elaborate on how exactly the "allegations" are false? Genabab (talk) 11:20, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

See also; psychobabble

nothing in the article mentions problems with the actual psychological or psychiatric orientation. Why should we 'see also' psychobabble? --142.163.195.18 (talk) 22:16, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

I initially came to the talk page to see if anyone had asked that. Since you had and no one answered, I deleted it. 184.15.187.111 (talk) 09:44, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

YouTube Videos

Could we please refrain from posting YouTube/YouTuber videos of shock-value quality as proof and reliable source of information?

The information uploaded on Wikipedia needs to be from realiable, trusted and most importantnly unbiased sources with the upmost credibility.

It's not about taking sides, an advertising stunt for a YouTuber or for shock-value material. Content which is exploitive of this situation for quick entertainment and making everyone involved on that, real people, in a "schlock" horror movie is of the most bad taste possible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2804:14c:117:267d:8197:716:f2ae:b24a (talk • contribs) 14:49, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Notable alumni section

I removed Phil Williams Jr. because his death is already covered elsewhere in the article. I don't think that Tiffany Sedaris should be there, as I think that all alumni are required to have their own page or section about them on Wikipedia. I'm fine with being proven otherwise. wizzito | say hello! 02:14, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Aquillion you reverted my edit, but did not discuss on the talk page after I posted this comment. Can we please discuss? wizzito | say hello! 00:26, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't think there's any policy saying that all alumni are required to have their own page or section on Wikipedia; after all, the degree of coverage necessary for discussing someone in an article is different from the degree of coverage needed for devoting an article for someone - WP:NOTABILITY specifically says it does not apply to article content. I'd also be reluctant to remove them because I think it could lead to a misleading list of alumni; much of the coverage of Elan School alumni has focused more on Williams or Sedaris, not eg. Weasel (who is only connected to it by a passing mention.) Why remove eg. Williams and yet keep Skakel, who is also mentioned elsewhere in the article? And if you removed all three, you'd be left with a list that is nothing but Ben Weasel, backed by a source that only mentions Elan in passing - clearly a list that doesn't represent the overall coverage in reliable sources. --Aquillion (talk) 03:13, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

It's still operating, it has been rebranded to "Ironwood"

It's not exactly the same but Ironwood seems to be connected in some way. I sell eggs (talk) 18:14, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

@I sell eggsAre there any sources on this? Genabab (talk) 19:17, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm gonna be honest I don't know anymore it's been to long since I wrote this I sell eggs (talk) 21:43, 26 February 2024 (UTC)