Former School of Rock students accuse founder Paul Green of inappropriate sexual behavior

Former students and a current School of Rock official allege that school founder Paul Green routinely abused his position as founder of the now famed musical education program that he began out of his living room in 1996.

While Green has long been known for a penchant for vulgar and derisive language, many of the new allegations from former students, published this week in the digital magazine Air Mail, allege sexually inappropriate behavior, including grilling teens about their sex lives and pressuring students into intimate acts, like kissing, with himself and other students.

School of Rock, which is no longer affiliated with Green, now operates 350 locations across the globe. Green, who opened his first brick-and-mortar school in a former South Philly dentistry office in 2000, sold most of his company to investors in 2009. Green has not been affiliated with School of Rock since 2010. During his time at the Paul Green School of Rock Music, Green taught hundreds of teens, focusing mostly on the School of Rock All-Stars, an elite group of under-17 musicians who tour the country as headline acts.

Investigative reporter Ezra Marcus interviewed 60 former students; Deanna Stull, a Philly rock scene veteran who helped Green form the school; and Michael Morpurgo, who operates five School of Rock programs, including ones in Princeton, Philadelphia, and Doylestown.

While some former students described Green as a genius and the “best teacher they ever had,” others said Green was volatile, violent, and sexually inappropriate and abused the power he had as a teacher. Nearly 10 students and the school officials were quoted by name in the article.

Air Mail reported that Green did not respond to multiple requests for an interview or comment on the former students’ and staffers’ allegations; nor did he respond to request for comment from the Inquirer.

One former Philly student, Carolyn Satlow, who was 17 in 2005, said Green “would meddle in everyone’s relationships,” allegedly deciding which students should date each other. Satlow recalled an incident when Green said she should break up with her boyfriend and date another student.

“At that moment, I was so under the spell of Paul,” Satlow told Air Mail. “I did literally anything to impress him.”

Upon learning that Satlow’s new boyfriend was a virgin, she said Green allegedly secured the young couple a private room during an All-Stars tour.

Former student and singer-songwriter Madi Diaz told Air Mail that she was 15 when Green once chased her in a “sort of joking way” into a school bathroom, then turned off the lights and locked the door. Then she said he told how “his wife was jealous of me” because she knew that Diaz wanted to have sex with him.

“Eventually, the seriousness of it broke and he just turned on the lights, laughed, and left the bathroom,” she told the magazine.

In a Facebook post Monday, Diaz encouraged anyone with a connection to the School of Rock to read the Air Mail article.

“There are no words for the quiet pain I held for 25 years,” she wrote, adding: “I still don’t think I’ve fully processed the grief, hurt, and trauma that those few very formative years of my life left with me … there are so many others — it’s crazy, so many stories, so ugly, so unnerving.”

Green outfitted “Studio House,” a house in Ronkonkoma, N.Y., with high-end recording equipment, according to the article, and encouraged former students to record there instead of pursuing jobs or higher education.

But there was limited supervision and rampant drug use in that house on Long Island, according to musician Paco Cathcart, who told Air Mail that he did not live at the house but visited a few times.

“We didn’t really get any recording done. Kids were hooked on drugs. It just felt like a dream,” he told the magazine. “You’re still very much a kid, and you’re living out in Long Island in this giant house, not really doing anything. It felt like, does this place even exist? Is this even real?”

Satlow said Green would regularly “tear me down” during her years as a Paul Green School of Rock Music student — until she turned 18, graduated from the program, and began working as a chaperone for All-Star trips. Then, she says, Green, who was in his mid-30s and married at the time, suddenly warmed up, buying her alcohol during trips and daring her to kiss him.

“I remember going in for a closed-mouth kiss, and then there was tongue in my mouth,” she said.

It was only a few months later, she told the magazine, that Green initiated a sexual relationship.

“When we started sleeping together, I thought, ‘Finally, he likes me,’” she told the magazine.

Male students Alex DeSimine and Eric Slick both said Green uninvitedly kissed them on the lips at separate times as a way to humiliate them. Slick, who is now the drummer for the Philadelphia band Dr Dog, said after kissing him in front of other students, Green said, “I’m Eric’s first kiss!”; Slick felt robbed of a milestone.

After the article was published, Slick posted a message on Instagram.

“I think that the story is far from over,” he wrote. I still have trouble wanting to get back into teaching and I still cringe when I see kids performing classic rock songs. I hope I can get over it."