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By Elinor Nelson
Following a legal fight with the state over licensing and allegations
of failing to create a safe environment for its students, the DeSisto
School of Stockbridge, Mass., a residential school for emotionally
disturbed children is closing after 26 years of operation.
Frank McNear, DeSisto's executive director, says that about 15
of the school's students have been sent to DeSisto's San Miguel
de Allende Mexico facility. DeSisto is hoping to reopen in another
state by September, he says and suggests Vermont or Montana as possibilities.
McNear says that the state's regulatory agency, the Office of Child
Care Services, has had a "vendetta not to license, but to close"
DeSisto ever since the school litigated to be excluded from the
state licensing requirement. The school lost the case in which it
argued that it educated gifted children with behavioral and emotional
problems and not children with special needs.
In response to allegations that DeSisto failed to properly care
for its students and protect children with self-injurious behavior,
including a girl who swallowed a razor blade, McNear says that "it
was only about 1/20 of a razor blade and it was enclosed in plastic
... nothing happened at DeSisto that hasn't happened at every other
school."
McNear says that DeSisto would succeed in another state and not
in Massachusetts because "there isn't another state in the Union
that has a regulatory agency that has a vendetta against us." The
school's closing is "a direct result of OCCS closing admissions,"
and not because of any misconduct by DeSisto, McNear adds.
However, Andrea Watson, founder of Parents for Residential Reform
(PFRR), a project of the Federation for Children with Special Needs,
finds it "very disappointing that instead of trying to make it right,
they closed up." In addition, she adds "the state was not out to
get them, nor are they out to get anyone else."
Donna Rheaume, spokes-person for the Executive Office of Health
and Human Services states that "DeSisto voluntarily decided to close
for financial reasons and move their program to Mexico. Their attempt
to blame OCCS for the school's failure to operate a safe and fiscally
sound program is disappointing. However, it's typical of their approach
not to take responsibility for their own actions and blame others
for the school's problems."
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