Anonymous’ Testimony – Devereux Glenholme School

My experience at the Deveraux Glenholme School in Washington, CT was nothing short of traumatic.

I still remember the day on February 1st, 2016, I was only 12 years old. Now, almost 19 I still have nightmares every night.

I’m not gonna make this too formal because there’s just so much to list starting with how we had a token cheat that we had to carry around 24 seven. We would get marked for everything from going to the bathroom to talking during quiet time to wearing make up. Being marked gave you consequences every single day such as not being able to shower and not being able to email your parents during our monitored email time. You would get this thing called percentage and you had to have basically no marks the entire day which was impossible because they marked you for everything and if you had percentage then you were allowed to do little things like watch TV or wear make up (if you were older than 12) if you didn’t have a percentage they would make you turn around in a chair and facing the wall when everyone else watched TV. If you had a high enough percentage you could level up to different colored token slips and they would hang a level sheet up in the school hallway for everyone to see and make fun of you and they would even change your percentage on purpose to make you stay at a low level. I was there for 10 months and I was on the lowest level (phase 3) the WHOLE time even tho there were times I deserved phase 2.

They gave us computers that had no access to Internet and the only thing we could do was get school stuff only when we were allowed to have our laptops out and we could email strictly parents only once a day if you had percentage and the email were monitored all copy’s were sent you your “social worker” as they Called it. If anything was sent that made the school look bad you would be punished badly. We had a thing called lower school which was their version of solitary confinement it was a little room with a drain in the middle and we couldn’t go to the bathroom or have water or food and no social interaction for hours and hours on end. We had chores and staff would choose their least favorites to do all of the hard work when their favorites (or who gave the school most money) got to do nothing. We were forced medication we didn’t want to take or need down our throats.

Whenever addressing staff we had to call them miss or sir and would get marked if we forgot to. I was literally 12 calling every guy sir. Ridiculous. They would put the overweight kids on some thing called Health table and you weren’t allowed to have anything with sugar and you weren’t allowed to have seconds and they would embarrass you publicly by telling people you were on health table after dinner sometimes they would pass out ice cream and skip the kids who were on health table. If you were in something called a sheet which is another punishment form you couldn’t do anything when they were school dances they would only invite the favorite kids and others had to sit in a room and wait.

You were only allowed to use the bathroom once a day even if you were on your period. One time in gym class I bled through my tan uniform skirt and they refused to let me go back to my room to change and I had to go to school all day and all the activities at night in a blood covered skirt in front of everyone at 12 years old. Traumatizing. Our rooms had to be completely spotless and if we even left a sock out we would be marked. We had to be absolutely perfect and we’re walking on eggshells just to not be punished. My friends were sexually assaulted by staff and older students and nobody listened to them. One of the older male staff restrained me and shoved his knee up my ass and touching me inappropriately. There was bullying going on from the older students and nothing was done about it.

We also only could do the activities that are cottage staff planned and it was the same thing every single day we were literally living the same day on loop it was awful. We were forced to do just dance every day even if we were self-conscious about it. And we were forced to do performances for the parents when they came like singing on stage to make it look like the school is so great and you had to do it even if you were uncomfortable doing it. Whenever they had parents events they would give us Scrips so we wouldn’t say anything that parents would be concerned about and also the token slips came home with us and our parents had to Mark us. One time I had a fever and they refused to give me any Tylenol and made me go to school and I passed out. We weren’t allowed to know the day or the time. And we had no access or contact with the outside world and they used all the donation money on things to make the school look even better and fancier even even though we never used any of the facilities. They have a race car track and a horse barn and a pool and so much others that make it look like the fanciest school ever but it’s just to draw people in we never use any of those facilities and they get a ton of famous kids to come and kiss up to the famous parents and have them talk publicly about how great school.

The absolute worst experience of my entire life and I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemy