Glen Mills 2.0: A new start for troubled school

They say the first step toward resolving a problem is admitting you have one.

They say the first step toward resolving a problem is admitting you have one.

For too long officials at the troubled Glen Mills Schools avoided doing just that.

It appears that may be about to change.

Reports of problems at Glen Mills – the nation’s oldest reform school – are not exactly new. There have been whispers surrounding the school and its rigid form of discipline for years.

But those rumors took on the cloak of stark reality in the last year, with criminal charges being filed against two employees involving the alleged assault of a student.

Then came a blockbuster investigative report in the Philadelphia Inquirer in which former staffers and students talked openly about what they claimed was systemic abuse at the school, including covering up the problem and intimidating those who complained.

Finally, a lawsuit filed by the Juvenile Law Center, Education Law Center and others on behalf of hundreds of former Glen Mills students demolished the school’s longtime claim to being the “Harvard of reform schools.”

Philadelphia, as well as some counties already had stopped sending young offenders to the sprawling Thornbury campus. Then the state brought the hammer down, ordering all remaining students off the campus. The school, for all intent and purpose, was shut down.

For its part, while all this transpired, the school seemed to be in denial. They denied the rumors. They denied the published reports. They denied the words of former students and counselors.

Executive Director Randy Ireson, who insisted the problems were “isolated incidents,” took a leave of absence for “health reasons.”

The school still faces investigations by Delaware County District Attorney Katayoun Copeland, state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale and the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General.

The state revoked all of the institutions’s 14 licenses.

The school laid off approximately 250 employees.

Glen Mills appeared to be on life support. But it’s not dead yet. In fact, the school is hoping for a rebirth. This massive task will fall largely in the hands of Acting Executive Director Chris Spriggs. The longtime Glen Mills employee is part of a leadership team that includes new board President Carolyn Seagraves. They have no intention of burying the school’s decades of service. At the same time, they realize they no longer can bury the problems either.

“What’s happened in the past year has been difficult,” Spriggs said. “It’s been concerning. But we’re confident that taking a step back at this point with no kids being here and looking at everything that we need to evaluate moving forward, we’re willing to do any and everything we need to do to make sure Glen Mills is up and functioning properly.”

Spriggs vowed that every aspect of the school is being examined, under the direction of an administration team with 10 different committees working on everything from the dorm facilities to hiring to de-escalation techniques.

The school is cooperating with an outside review panel along with investigators from the auditor general’s and inspector general’s office.

There is no timetable for the return of students to the campus, nor the process of restoring the school’s operating licenses.

But the new team seems to have grasped two factors – one new and one old. They appear intent on changing things for the better at the school. And they can see that the demand for services is still there.

“We have customers that still want to do business with us that are hopeful to get their kids back here,” Seagraves said.

She and Spriggs mark change of a different sort for the campus as well. She is the first woman president in the school’s history, Spriggs the first African-American executive director.

For now, the school will continue what Spriggs categorizes as a “complete program overhaul,” leading to a school that will be “vastly different” from the way it was run in the past. Every aspect of campus life and curriculum is under review.

Spriggs did not shy away from the problems of the past, admitting the school had its share of “bad actors” and that furloughed staff will be examined on a “case-by-case” basis.

Spriggs and Seagraves are calling the turnaround push “Glen Mills 2.0” They deserve the chance to put it into action.