I understand this post is old but I feel its important for me to say that Penn School was not a good school. It was quite a horrible place and there is a good reason why it shut down back in 2015. I was a former student there and my experience at the school affected me severely.
The school kept accepting violent, sociopathic students with severe behavioural problems and the school decided to keep them there, even after they proved they did not belong there and should have been moved to a young offenders institute. Fights started by these students happened everyday and both bullying and violence were rampant at the school, and me and several other former students were unsafe as a result. These violent students also had no problem taking their anger out at vulnerable students, including those who were deaf and autistic, and they would vandalise property when they were in a bad mood, it was sickening. The most angering part is that these violent students were never disciplined by the former staff, and were even granted special privileges, and the violent students continued to make the school a living hell for everyone as a result.
The former staff themselves were no better either. Most of them were unsuitable to be working with children with learning difficulties, and were very prone to verbally abusing and shouting at students over the smallest things, being volatile and impatient towards them without doing anything to help them with their learning difficulties. They were also prone to power-tripping and abuse of authority and doing everything in their power to make life complete misery for the students they worked with. They also did nothing to prevent bullying, which is why the violent students (mentioned above) continued to do what they did, and if you made any complaint to them about being harassed by another student, they were dismissive and condescending, treating students like their problems were not important. These former staff also had no problem forcing students to share their private life (what they do on the weekends, holidays, and what they do in their personal lives, etc) with them against their will, through means of coercion, basically violating the student’s privacy and boundaries. Furthermore, they would also immediately punish students who were falsely accused of something, without actually trying to investigate if they were innocent or guilty of whatever they were accused of or even trying to listen to the student’s side of the story.
Only the deaf students were treated with any kindness or given help with their learning difficulties. They were the happiest at the school for a reason. But any student who had less severe learning difficulties, such as Asperger’s or ADHD were more or less treated like second class citizens, being viewed with nothing but disdain and indifference.
I’m only making this post because I feel people deserve to know the truth about the school and why they shut down. It was less of a school for children with learning difficulties, and more of a school for problem children, or rather, a dumping ground for students who could not be accepted into mainstream schools. The place 100% deserved to go bankrupt.