Disability advocates have released a scathing report about a school program for emotionally disabled kids at in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

After an employee complaint last spring about abuse at the Peck School, the nonprofit Disability Law Center – working on the state’s behalf — spoke to more than 40 parents and staff involved with a therapeutic program there.

Investigators say they found a pattern of egregious mistreatment — from flinging children to the floor and holding them down, to throwing them into locked closets and turning off the lights, to shaming them publicly.

Litigation director Stan Eichner says the abuse was among the worst he’s seen.

“It was so widespread,” he says, “it’d become a culture of power struggles. Us vs Them.”

Eichner says many of the 4th to 8th graders in the program had already experienced trauma at home.

“This kind of excessive inappropriate force has the effect of retraumatizing them,” he says. “So instead of getting services and programs, they’re getting harsh inappropriate punishment.”

Stephen Zrike – the state receiver who took over Holyoke schools last summer — says Peck’s leadership has already been replaced and consultants are helping the program develop new discipline procedures.

“Training around restraints, documentation, we’ve looked at the space the program’s in,” Zrike says.  “So significant improvements have been made since the time school started in September.”

Stan Eichner of the Disability Law Center says that’s a good start, but his staff plans to monitor improvements for at least a year.