Great Barrington — A state order to protect children and impose sanctions in response to a criminal investigation into emotional and physical abuse of Eagleton School students documents a pattern of violence against its disabled students, continued failures of the administration to manage and report it, and a “systemic propensity” to hide evidence and cover up incidents, including some in which students were struck while held in restraints.
The order was redacted to conceal identifying information in what is still an open investigation by the Berkshire County District Attorney’s office.
A Great Barrington Police Department investigation that led to a massive multi-law enforcement agency search of the school on January 31 led to criminal charges against four employees for assault and battery and one for tampering with video surveillance and witness intimidation. The school has 24 hour video surveillance.
Eagleton School is a year-round residential school off Route 23 for boys and young men ages 9-22 who have developmental, cognitive and psychiatric disabilities. For most students the $141,000 to $149,000 tuition is paid in some combination by school districts and the state. It has been described as a last resort for students for whom other school or institutional settings did not work, and a more holistic treatment, living and learning environment.
But details in the state’s order paints a dark picture of what may have been a culture among at least some of the administration and direct care, low-wage-earning staff in a formidable workplace. The attorney for one of the staff arrested for assault and battery said her client told her the school was understaffed, for instance.
The order indicates police were first alerted to problems at the school last May after they were called when staff member, in response to verbal provocation, “slammed the [redacted] resident’s head onto the metal picnic table, causing the resident to strike his face, cut his lip and chip a tooth” for which the student required medical and dental treatment.
Eagleton attorney Roderick MacLeish told the Edge Thursday that those five employees have since been fired, and 11 in connection with the investigation were fired since January 30, the day of the search. Of those one was Program Director James Yeaman, whom the state said must be replaced by March 15. MacLeish said the administration is now vetting several candidates.
MacLeish said the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC), the oversight agency for residential programs, had a list of 15 school staff who were forbidden to have contact with students, and that all of those staff have been fired. The Edge received an unconfirmed report earlier this week that a total of 14 had been fired. MacLeish further said the school with its attorneys and new consultants is responding full time to regulators’ requests and cooperating fully.
But the order chides the school for endangering the safety of its students with a “reactive rather than proactive” approach to behavior problems, in which “over the past three months, there appears to have been a conscious decision by Eagleton’s administration not to report the scope and extent of residents’ injuries to EEC and other state agencies to avoid investigation.”
What the EEC learned isn’t pretty. In one 2013 incident, an off-duty staff member punched a student in the head “without provocation,” and punched him again “after he fell to the ground.” In another that year, an employee being investigated for allegations of child neglect had “unsupervised contact with children.” Also that year, the Program Director did not notify the EEC after one student was injured by another.
In 2014 a staff member pushed an agitated student backwards by his throat causing him to fall over a low railing, while another staff member “shoved the resident with both hands when aggressively approached by the resident.” After this incident the EEC “determined that Eagleton did not have a sound process for conducting internal investigations…” and in response an EEC investigator came to the school to do an on-site training in “transparency, incident reporting and internal investigations.”
Then in June 2015 a staff member “picked up the [redacted] resident from his chair” and brought him to the bathroom where he yelled at him and slapped him in the face.
In September administrators met with EEC officials in Springfield to discuss concerns about inconsistency in reporting and internal investigations. Despite this, several months later a staff member used “excessive force during an unapproved restraint resulting in serious injuries to the resident’s face and head.” It was not reported in a timely way, and the report states the staff member, despite video evidence of excessive force, was still allowed to have unsupervised contact with students.
There were “systemic” attempts to cover up these incidents. Later in 2015 a student suffered a bloody nose from a “two person restraint,” and after school nursing staff examined him, “determined that there was no need for further medical follow-up.” The student later developed bruising and swelling on his face that the redacted print indicates may have involved hospitalization. Program Quality Insurance Manager Lawrence Murray originally reported that there was no video footage of the incident,” the order says. “However, Eagleton eventually provided video footage which indicated that the staff member holding the residents’ upper body did strike the [redacted] resident two or three times during the restraint.”
Late in January, a day before the search warrant was executed, Murray told the EEC that a Disabled Persons Protection Commission Report was filed on behalf of a student who “had been stuck with a finger in the eye by an Eagleton staff member during a restraint.” The student “had slight swelling on his right cheek and eye.” The EEC later learned, however, that that the student suffered an [redacted] injury that involved “black and swollen eyes which were not reported…”
The following day local and state police descended on the school following an “extensive investigation by both departments outlining a systemic propensity for the staff…to alter, destroy, and hide evidence in an effort to avoid criminal and civil liability.” Following the search, “EEC learned of at least seven incidents” that had not been properly reported. These include: a student punched in the head during a restraint; a student “body slammed to the ground” and possibly hospitalized; a student who provoked a staff member being hit from behind the head, “forcing the resident’s head off a picnic table” and causing facial injuries and a chipped front tooth; a student “assaulted by a staff member in the gym,” causing the student to act out and leading to “an unwarranted restraint”; a student with an extended high fever not seen by a doctor; and another incident of emotional abuse that lead to a restraint where “the resident apparently was punched several times and suffered [redacted] black swollen eyes.”
There were also at least six incidents in 2015 that were not reported to EEC, according to the agency. At least four incidents were in “classroom settings.”
EEC’s residential regulations require that prone restraints only be used “in an emergency situation to prevent serious injury to the resident, other residents, and/or staff.” And this is where training comes in. The school trains its staff in Non-Abusive Psychological and Physical Intervention (NAPPI), which Eagleton Executive Director Bruce Bona is part-owner of. NAPPI teaches institutional staff around the country ways to “de-escalate” to avoid physical restraints, but also teaches how to use restraints.
Clinical Director Maureen Pryjma told The Edge last month that many students were “physically, sexually, and verbally abused, and neglected” before they came here, and such a history can result in episodes of acting out that sometimes requires restraints for safety.
The order said the school must replace its “restraint reviewer,” and said NAPPI CEO and majority owner David Farrell was to be removed from the school’s board of advisors and restraint advisors. MacLeish said Farrell had resigned from the board in anticipation of the order, and further said that the school’s lawyers are “satisfied that the commitment is there with the management and board. There are a lot of changes that have to happen quickly and that’s part of the responsibility when you run programs like this. You should accept the fact that you will be regulated.”
MacLeish noted that NAPPI is a well-known organization — one of its clients is the Cleveland Clinic, for instance. “If the state doesn’t find NAPPI acceptable then we’ll find another organization [for staff training],” he added. He doesn’t think that will happen, he said, but that it was wise to avoid any conflicts of interest on the board.
Farrell, also Director of Salisbury Bank and Trust and former Vice President of Berkshire Insurance Group at Berkshire Bank, told The Edge he could not comment on NAPPI in relation to the school “while the situation is ongoing.” But said his business is “wide open about what we do and how we do it. It’s all on our website.”
The school has its work cut out for it if it wants to keep operating and avoid fines. Satisfying the sanctions laid out by regulators involves a number of mandated steps and overhauls. One was to hire an independent consultant approved by EEC, though MacLeish says the school had hired Charles Conroy, Ed.D, before the order was issued. Conroy must work at the school for at least 6 months and possibly longer. MacLeish said he has known Conroy for 30 years, and said “his reputation for integrity is impeccable.” MacLeish said Conroy has direct access to regulators and “doesn’t have to go through Bona or Eagleton lawyers. He’s not your typical consultant.”
The school was also required to hire a physician, one unaffiliated with the school and experienced with disabled young people, to examine all students for “evidence of previous abuse or neglect” by March 18. This is now being “finalized,” MacLeish said, and the physician will travel to the school to examine students.
The sanctions, which must be posted around the school, include hiring more clinical staff, and more staff to improve student to staff ratios. That deadline was March 2. More extensive background checks are now required, including criminal, Department of Children and Families, Sex Offender, and federal and state fingerprinting, all by a private company hired by the school. The state has expedited the checks, MacLeish said, to speed up the immediate hiring requirements.
And “no direct care staff will have unmonitored contact with residents until the investigation is over,” the order states.
“New staff have to be well qualified and think about whether they want this challenge,” MacLeish said. “We want the very best people we can get…we’re revising personnel policies to make it a more attractive place to work.”
A staff member last month told the Edge “the pay is close to McDonald’s and Subway.”
“We’re not yet increasing compensation but that’s being looked at,” MacLeish said Friday. He said it was easier to find qualified administrative staff, but said “direct care is always a challenge.
“A lot of people are working overtime right now and working hard and compensation is important,” he added.
MacLeish said the school did not opt to contest the sanctions, but decided it was “the best thing for students” to “try to work cooperatively with the state.” He said another attorney from his firm was recently called in to help work with regulators.
“There’s a lot of challenges,” MacLeish added. “[Eagleton] is under a microscope right now and it should be…we appreciate the state for not taking away licenses but working with [the school] to make it a better place.”
Until regulators are satisfied and the investigation complete, the school is not allowed to admit new students.
