Hyde School Survivors

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...

Hyde is accredited by NEASC. Contact them with complaints:  https://www.neasc.org/contact . From SCIAD/Unsilenced  Facility Reporting Map PROGRAM NAME Hyde School FACILITY ADDRESS 616 High St, Bath, ME 04530 STATE ME TELEPHONE (207) 443-5584 STATE LICENSE REPORTING https://www.maine.gov/dhhs/ocfs/provider-resources/staff-development-training/reportable-events and https://www.maine.gov/dhhs/ocfs/support-for-families/childrens-behavioral-health/services/grievance-policy REPORT CHILD ABUSE 1-800-452-1999 REPORT HIPAA VIOLATION (violating patient health care privacy laws - it's a violation for any licensed health care professional - including a nurse, counselor, psychologist, or a social worker - to share any health information without your explicit consent with anyone. Not your family, not your discovery group leader - NO ONE MAY BE TOLD YOUR MENTAL OR PHYSICAL HEALTH INFORMATION BY A HEALTH CARE PROVIDER WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT) https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/filing-a-complaint/index...

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...

 Survivor testimony: I went through hell at Hyde. Of course right when you get there your parents basically have to sign your rights away. So they can’t get sued. First of all, I wasn’t a kid that went there because there parents sent me there; I went willingly. When I visited, I thought it was a regular old prep school. I had no idea what was really going on. I wanted to get out of my old school because my friends were selling drugs and there was violence, and I wanted a healthy environment, so I thought Hyde was my way out where I could play sports and not be around so much danger. So when I got there, I was in for a big shock. The dorms were absolutely out of control. When I mean out of control I mean fight clubs at night like real deal MMA with no gloves, beating the absolute crap out of each other. There was one time when Hyde’s champion wrestler got drunk and beat up 8 kids in my dorm…. We came in for breakfast the next morning and there were multiple kids with black eyes and...

Hyde seems to being trying to improve its credibility by attempting to pass off founder Joe Gauld's son in law, Donald MacMillan, as a "clinician" in a promotional brochure : In the following excerpt entitled "A View of Hyde School— From a Clinician’s Point of View" Don Macmillan writes about the primary ways in which Hyde differs from typical therapeutic boarding schools in how it handles students with cognitive, behavioral, and psychological diagnoses, such as ADD, ADHD, substance abuse, depression, anorexia, oppositional defiance disorder (ODD), etc.: [Therapeutic boarding schools] tend to embody a problem-solving paradigm in which diagnosed deficits are remedied. Rather than remedy deficits, Hyde seeks to build upon strengths. Hyde offers a holistic approach to personal and family growth that has often proved to coincidentally help many teenagers with issues pertaining to a given diagnosis. So, rather than REMEDY any issues, Hyde staff essentially pretend th...

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...

Hyde likes to change its narrative about its intentions and student body as an institution depending on who its recruiters are talking to.  If Hyde School is "not for troubled teens" like the owners and surrogates of Hyde like to sometimes claim, why have they had thousands of "troubled" teens attend their institution for 55 years? And why are they still to this day on sites like Troubled Teen Directory, Family Sanity, Our Troubled Teen, and numerous education consultant websites, right next to residential treatment centers (RTC's), wilderness programs, therapeutic boarding schools, etc.? As stated below on an #educationconsultant website: " Hyde Schools... do not offer any integrated clinical services, since they view the problems of youth as ones of character, rather than as psychological or psychiatric. " Hyde has always actively recruited "troubled" kids with a wide range of diagnoses and issues, while purposely never offering any evidenc...