L. Davis (whose name has been changed) was a 15-year-old runaway when she was given a choice by a Georgia court: Go home, go to foster care or go to the Elan School.

She came to Maine and says it was absolutely the best thing she could have done for herself.

Now a student at Mission College in Santa Clara, Calif., she spent just under three years at Elan between 2004 and 2007.

She liked the structure at the school as soon as she arrived and embraced the peer accountability fostered there.

“The school kind of acted as a micro-society,” she said, where “everybody had a position.” And everybody knew the rules.

There were consequences for breaking the rules, but she said any accusations of abuse are entirely false.

She remembered getting caught sneaking around to see a boy, which is a violation of school rules, and having to scrub floors as punishment. But she was provided a knee pad while scrubbing and “that was the worst of my stay.”

“My experience was really great,” she said, especially when she had been in Poland for a while and new students arrived. “All these people who once were doing bad were all coming together to help others who were coming in,” she said, through student-led programs. She found a sense of community there, and she felt welcome.

Abused by her mother as a child, “this was the first place I could go to sleep at night and feel safe. I didn’t have to worry about who was going to come into my room and hurt me, or that I would hurt myself.”

She was at Elan for several months when her mother died. Staff members accompanied her to the funeral and supported her in her grief, she said. “My life did a complete 180 (at Elan).”

When she was running away from home, she was dating an older boy and her plan was to marry him, have children and become a housewife. Now, she’s moving toward college graduation and wants to start a career in event planning or international business.

Her father was scared by her teenage behavior, she said. “Now, he says he’s proud of me.”

Editor’s note: This story was edited on April 11, 2014.

To read more stories about the Elan School and students’ experiences there, visit sunjournal.com/elan.

To read more stories about the Elan School and students’ experiences there, visit sunjournal.com/elan.