Quote:
Originally Posted by Bluegrassplayer
This recent death at the boarding school for troubled teens in Utah caused someone to bring up Elan, another school for troubled teens which was closed. It is one of the darkest things I've ever read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lan_School
Better than the wikipedia article is this incredibly well done first hand account of life there: https://elan.school/
It's seriously dark, be prepared.
I know a dude that was put into a military school (I think that's what he called it). What you listed above was about the same as what he experienced. I don't think he holds any grudges and enjoys telling the stories. One of his favorites is:
His older brother was there with him. His brother decided they were going to escape so he was told to put on layers of clothes so they wouldn't have to carry them and they would beat feet when everyone was asleep. They put on too many layers, couldn't run fast enough, and were caught. They were taken to a room where they were given a stern talking to and assumed they were going to get beat. His brother picked up a glass soda bottle (this was a long time ago), broke it, and pointed it at the dudes who were talking to them/going to beat them. He said, "You can beat us tomorrow, or you can beat us some other time but you are not going to beat us now!". They didn't get beat.
The dude I knew also was not well behaved at all. He was given hundreds and hundreds of demerit points for things like talking to the girls (who lived in a separate camp), cussing, and just general teenage BS. He bought a roll of these demerits into work one day so that I could see them (it looked like a drug dealer's roll), and they were exactly as described.
To put demerits into perspective, having over five or so demerits meant you couldn't use the phone, so there were no calls to and from home. Having over another number of demerits meant you couldn't go home for visits. He was WELL over both of these numbers.
On weekends when most everyone went home he was left there because of his demerits, and forced to do stupid things like digging holes and then filling them back in as a form of additional punishment. He was also, at times, forced to carry buckets of sand around campus as another form of punishment.
He would regale us with stories like these all the time with a certain form of sick fondness.