Hyde School Survivors

I don't know where to begin. So happy our son is out of that place!! The arrogance, verbal abuse, poor supervision, and the most dysfunctional cast of characters that they call a staff. If your child has a mental health issue, substance abuse issue, learning disability, or just low self esteem, they will not improve here. The campus is rife with drugs - prescription and otherwise and some students are prone to violent outbursts. They idea of discipline is forced labor and humiliation through meetings with faculty where they verbally abuse, embarrass, and degrade students. The FLC meetings are a joke, not to mention they expect you to go to parent group meetings in your area. They aren't concerned with the fact that you have other children, a job, or other important commitments. My parent group leader divulged very personal graphic issues of her strained marriage in our first meeting!! Its a cult atmosphere and the staff does not take criticism well at all. This idea ...

  HYDE School: Follow Your Own Advice and Heal Thyself A Former Hyde Parents' Review. Original post Our family has now been affiliated with Hyde for several years.  It has taken us some time to figure out Hyde's true colors.  We started Hyde in earnest.  We were not in a true state of crisis, although we had some concerns about our child's path.  Our child enrolled in Summer Challenge which, overall, seemed to be a rather benign experience (with the exception of a couple of group seminars where, clearly, the group facilitators were in over their heads when a couple of parents disclosed some incredibly powerful, sensitive, and provocative information in front of their children and the rest of us -- it was painful to watch and hear the staff's inept handling of the situations). Our child then started Hyde in September of that year.  Initially we bought into the program and attended all meetings (regional, FLCs) faithfully.  We gave it our best shot as we...

Excerpt from UNREQUITED TIME, James McCurrach Jim finally overstepped the boundaries on the bus ride home for the Thanksgiving break in 1977. He brazenly lit up a marijuana cigarette in full view of a bus full of students in the middle of the day. Totally foolish, of course, but also unnecessary in that within only a few hours he would have been out of the school jurisdiction and in the safety of his own home. Leniency wasn't going to work in to this instance- especially since he had already had several warning related to circumstantial situations. This time he had gone too far and was terminated from Berkshire. ...Whatever, young James now required even more serious attention since Berkshire had become ancient history. I was ashamed of him as well as myself.. I needed to get Jim relocated as quickly as possible without, hopefully, making wrong move. Eventually, I heeded the advice of some experienced educational people and we later settled on the Hyde School located in remote part...

FINDING THE RIGHT SCHOOL: LESSONS LEARNED FROM “INSIDE” Rick Reamer and Deborah Siegel Pawtucket, RI freamer@cox.net Parents of struggling teens typically agonize about finding the “right” school or program. They sort through mounds of data – from educational consultants, school directories, pamphlets, promotional videos, websites, campus visits and conversations with school staff – before settling on what they hope is the right choice. We’ve been there. During the spring of 2003, we spent countless hours combing through every morsel of information we could find about an overwhelming array of school options. We knew our child did not need a therapeutic boarding school. We simply needed a school that offered structure; consistent, humane supervision; a positive peer culture; constructive emphasis on personal accountability and integrity; and a willingness to collaborate collegially with parents. We did not seek perfection, realizing that those who do will always be disappointed. We foll...

This book paints an appealing image of an enlightened high school that involves the whole family in developing positive character traits. We do not doubt the authors' sincerity, genuine enthusiasm for, and commitment to the Hyde Schools. Clearly, these authors are eager to spread the good word. However, our actual experience as parents of a Hyde School (in Woodstock, Conn.) student showed us that the practices and policies used to teach "character" often, paradoxically, violate the noble principles articulated in this book and espoused at the school. In our view, it is ironic that a school whose mission is character education is misrepresented in this book, which provides a misleading, partial picture of the Hyde we experienced. Also, it's unfortunate that this book on education, written by educators, does not explicitly refer to the research and theoretical literature on effective behavior management, adolescent development, and education; much of this literature que...

I am amazed & heartened to see this site. I'm a parent whose child left Hyde last year - after 2 years. He transferred to another boarding school, one we should have enrolled in in the first place. ANY good small school with caring faculty would have done it for us - without the high drama of Hyde. People put their kids into Hyde in a crisis - often on the advice of a consultant. It was negligent to do this. Leaving Hyde was leaving a cult. I won't go on about this - lest I be accused by a Hyde fan of being over- emotional. My son wanted to go to a real school - one that valued academics and didn't use him as a 'proctor'. Hyde pressured him intensely, wanting him to stay and 'face his fears'. I had several horrendous phone calls with staff. At Hyde the first day they tell parents not to believe what your child tells you: Deciding to listen to my son and advocate for his leaving was the best and hardest thing I have ever done. Hyde doesn't want to hea...

TW: Rape, victim blaming  Penelope's story: I was a senior at Hyde during 2020. One night I snuck into the boys' dorm to hang out with my two friends. I was drunk already and wanted something to do other than sit in my room. I walked across campus without being seen and got to Emero Dorm. When I got there, one of the guys started coming on to me, but I didn't give much thought to it. I started blacking out from the alcohol, so we went into one of the guy's rooms so that I could drink some water, eat something, and sit down. I don't remember much, but the guys decided to take turns having sex with me. After both of them were done, I lay alone in the bed in a drunken stupor. A third guy from the dorm came into the room and tried to talk me into having sex with him as well. I said "no" repeatedly and screamed. I slept there that night and woke up to a lot of pain and bruising on and around my vagina. My throat hurt because I had also been choked.  A few days ...

Reposted from an amazing blogger Tuesday, April 23, 2013 The Gym - The Most Depressing Place in America ...When I was about fifteen, I stopped going and found myself gaining weight at an alarming rate. I'd been taking ADHD medications since I was eight and was often told that I was in danger of serious weight gain. My mother had heard that a friend of hers got a trainer for her overweight son at the gym of the Pikesville Hilton who helped him lose quite a bit of weight. I went to the gym, and that's where I met Kathleen. Kathleen was twenty-one, a petite blonde shikse from Glen Burnie, whom for reasons I could not fathom worked at the Pikesville Hilton. She constantly wreaked of cigarette smoke and had a giant, multicolored tattoo on the small on her back. She was constantly telling me how much she couldn't stand the other trainers. Half-hour sessions turned into two hours as she regaled me with stories of her ex-boyfriends and how much her girl-friends slept around. I was ...

Reader response/Letters to the Editor, Maine Times 1992 Joe Gauld still loose? I was interested to read Diane L Potter’s letter . I hadn’t seen the article she was referring to and was very surprised to find that Joe Gauld is not in an institution. As the father of a student at Hyde School in the mid-80s, I have an insider’s perspective. Ms. Potter’s letter covers some very valid points but she doesn’t know the half of it!  When my wife first checked out Hyde school Timothy Wilson was in charge but when we brought our daughter there to start school Mr. Wilson was gone and Joe Gauld was in full charge. What a difference! Joe claims the school is not for kids with behavior problems, yet most of the students I’ve seen were there in a desperation situation. The next step for most of them was either running away from home or reform school or jail. That is the only reason the parents and students put up with what they did. One of Joe’s fun little games is what he calls a “Family Learning...

Our family has now been affiliated with Hyde for several years.  It has taken us some time to figure out Hyde's true colors.  We started Hyde in earnest.  We were not in a true state of crisis, although we had some concerns about our child's path.  Our child enrolled in Summer Challenge which, overall, seemed to be a rather benign experience (with the exception of a couple of group seminars where, clearly, the group facilitators were in over their heads when a couple of parents disclosed some incredibly powerful, sensitive, and provocative information in front of their children and the rest of us -- it was painful to watch and hear the staff's inept handling of the situations). Our child then started Hyde in September of that year.  Initially we bought into the program and attended all meetings (regional, FLCs) faithfully.  We gave it our best shot as we embraced Hyde's core message about character, attitude, and values.  Slowly, we began to realize ho...

An anonymous submission by a survivor of Hyde: I attended the Hyde Woodstock Campus for two years and graduated. I came to Hyde because my therapist recommended it due to another client who attended Hyde School. Before I went, I was in a residential facility for a year due to suicide attempt, self-harm, and alcohol and drug abuse. I was a victim of sexual abuse and physical abuse by a family member. During summer challenge, we were doing an activity and I shared this abuse. My discovery group turned on me and told me all I did was pity myself. I was told by two staff members that I took myself too seriously, I was too sensitive, and I live in a perpetual state of self-pity. I will never forget those words or forgive those who uttered them. Although now I believe in not dwelling in trauma, at that age I was not able to understand why anyone would say this to me. I was humiliated. I was belittled. After summer challenge, I started my junior year. I hitched a ride with another family and ...

Parent of a former Hyde Student shares experience I. Sitting in Associate Head of School Mike Dawes’ office during our initial interview, I wasn’t convinced that the Hyde School was a logical fit for our family. For sure, our son, then 16, was in deep trouble... smoking dope four times a day, maxxed out oppositional defiant behavior... ach, you’ve heard it all a thousand times. So had Mike, and the self-deprecating way he described his alcoholism, the destructive ways Mike Jr. had behaved until they found the Hyde School, how he and Lynn both ended up working there, and his strong belief that we would all heal if we stepped inside the Hyde circle, made a persuasive case. And yet, there was something troubling about the deifying language Mike used when he discussed the school’s 77-year-old founder, Joe Gauld. Mike told me, however, that Hyde would welcome the challenging but open-minded attitude I seemed to possess, and my wife had a good feeling about the place. So absolutely, I said, ...