I was amazed at the stories of kids' (and some parents') psychiatric problems, and I was amazed to discover that Hyde is less than prepared to deal with these issues. That seems downright criminal to me. Why does Hyde accept kids with such serious psychiatric issues? These kids deserve help as much as anyone else, but they should be enrolled in schools designed to deal with their unique issues.
There have been many identities that Hyde has taken on to market itself, oft times within the same time frame. Some of these identities could be construed to be at odds with one another.
Ones that I know of:
In the late 1960's, when Joe was just starting out, he told people to "give me the kids you have the most problems with, the ones you can not teach," as he couldn't get anyone else, being a less than tried commodity (my paraphrase of his quote, which I can't find at the moment). The school was all boys then, and primarily troublemakers, JuVies, and like-minded malcontents of the rebellious sort.
In the early 70's I think it was, the school went co-ed, and it worked hard to attract the more typical prep school crowd, all the while still enrolling the rebellious trouble makers... At some point just before this period, or perhaps a little earlier, they started really banging the character education gong. I think that may have always been part of the big-sell, but now it really came to the fore. (I don't actually truly know this for a fact, but this is the impression I glean from many things overheard plus allusions to said picture from administrator speeches et al in school meetings.).
In the mid to late 1970's, they started calling themselves a "leadership school", and there began a push to "change the face of American education"... Cliche's such as "America's Spirit" and "national commitment" stem from this time period.
There is a gap in my understanding of how they marketed themselves from the late 1970's to the late 1980's.
In 1989/1990 they started including themselves on Lon Woodbury's Struggling Teens site. This is an "educational consultant" site aimed primarily at parents at a loss for what to do with their errant offspring. The first phrase you encounter on the home page is: "Have the terms At Risk Youth, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Conduct Disorder, Private Military Boarding Schools, Juvenile Boot Camps, Special Education, Teen Help for Depression, Lying and Stealing, Tough Love, Alternative Schools, Troubled Teens, Wilderness Camps, Residential Treatment, Therapeutic Boarding Schools, Educational Consultants or Struggling Teens been used regarding parenting your boy or girl?" Hyde actively participated in this advertising, as they sent in many an update of information or news, even minutia such as the number of graduates they had for certain years. The avowed focus of this website "is on residential Emotional Growth (Character) schools and programs that work. This includes short and long term wilderness and outdoor programs, home style programs, highly structured boarding schools, therapy boarding schools, RTCs and psychiatric hospitals for children with behavior and emotional problems." Basically the gamit of everything on the fornits website, but from a different viewpoint.
There is a gap in my understanding of how they marketed themselves from the late 1990's to the present.
Please note that it is my understanding that they presented themselves differently depending on who they were dealing with. For example, to one parent they would wear the emotional growth/therapy school hat, to another they would depict themselves as the leadership school with a character ed twist, and both in the same recruiting season.
This dichotomous marketing strategy ends up creating a fractured and confused parent/student community with widely varied goals and needs. The only entity that does not appear confused in all of this is Hyde, and if you fall in line right behind their footsteps, the Truth will become apparent soon enough.
I think it is important that both students and parents compare notes. The above historical sequence is incomplete, both as to gaps in certain time periods, as well as in the variety of hues that Hyde has painted itself in per any given time period. I think it would be great if we all could chip in with our own versions/impressions/understandings of how Hyde sold itself to us or others.
Urs