DeSisto School
The Hanna Estate and Bonnie Brier Farm), in the Berkshires region of Massachusetts, near Tanglewood Music Center, and the Stockbridge Bowl.
DeSisto originally envisioned a string of schools nationally and internationally based on the principles of Gestalt psychology, and his own therapeutic model.
[7] The annual tuition for the DeSisto School in 1978 was $10,000 for room and board excluding costs of therapy and other miscellaneous fees, and expenses.
[citation needed] In 1986, the DeSisto School received national media attention with the case of Heather Burdick from Old Bridge, New Jersey.
"[16] At Adelphi, administrator Margaret Elaine Wittman said, "there are no records of DeSisto having been a faculty member, the man is completely foreign to us, the fact that he would say this on his vita is incredible.
"[16] On November 15, 1988, the Orlando Sentinel ran an article, titled "Reports Raise Questions About Desisto [sic] Drug Policy".
Nevertheless, as early as, March 1981 the Massachusetts Office for Children cited school staff members in Stockbridge for permitting untrained dormitory parents to distribute prescription drugs.
The Sentinel found that "the presentation of one story in the three-day series may have led to the unintentionally misleading conclusion that his entire career was built on false credentials.
In 1993, after years of pursuing the defunct DeSisto at Howey School, the town council of Howey-in-the-Hills agreed to accept a cash and property settlement worth about $80,000, much less than the total judgment amount of approximately $250,000.
[13] In 1989 the United States Department of Labor brought a $1 million lawsuit against the school on behalf of former staff members demanding back wages and damages.
[21] On January 29, 1999, two workers at the DeSisto at Stockbridge school were arraigned in Berkshire Superior Court on a single count each for abuse or neglect of a disabled patient taking the drug lithium, resulting in the student's hospitalization.
In 1999, DeSisto produced an off-off-Broadway musical titled Inappropriate[23][24][25][26] with Lonnie McNeil and Michael Sottile based on the journals and life experiences of the student performers.
[28] Author Roger Kahn claimed in his memoir Into My Own (2006) (p. 261) that the school's tough love policy, "led to at least one fatality, when a boy put off campus mid-winter, froze to death on an icy Berkshire Hill".
[29][30] Pinal County, Arizona Sheriff and 2012 Republican Congressional candidate Paul Babeu is embroiled in controversy concerning events that occurred at the DeSisto School while he was its executive director and headmaster from 1999 to 2001.
[31][32] Following a long legal fight with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts over licensing and allegations of child abuse, a Commonwealth-imposed enrollment freeze, and accusations of failing to create a safe environment for its students, the DeSisto at Stockbridge School chose to voluntarily close in June 2004.
[33][34] A month previously, officials from the state Office of Child Care Services ordered DeSisto administrators to suspend their admissions process.
Frank McNear, DeSisto's executive director, told The Boston Globe at the time, that the school could not run properly without its customary admissions process.
