Private Schools

Middlebridge is an absolutely wonderful school. I would probably not be going to college this fall if I had never attended MBS. Previous schools had been completely inept when it came to identifying and catering to my academic and social needs. Friendships that will be lifelong, understanding how to advocate for myself, communicating my learning differences to future teachers/professors, keeping my room organized, yielding to the opinions of others that may be very different than mine, opening up about my thoughts and feelings, and utilizing the supports around me are all the wonderful things Middlebridge has taught me that I will bring with me to college and beyond.

awesome amazing -emu

Where my daughter went to high school. Couldn't have asked for a been place to nurture & educate my child.

After having a rough go with another school in town we were THRILLED to enroll our daughter in Goddard. It is very clear how much every staff member cares about her and she has learned so much! We could not be happier!

As a 5 year old, my dad was in the military and we owned 302 Corys Lane. Circa 1960. We would sneak off our property and play on the swings. One Easter the nuns gave us the best Easter Baskets of all time. I was to young to properly thank them and would like to now. I loved you all. We moved a lot but I always remembered my true home address of 302 Corys lane. I Googled that address tonight and never realized how lucky a child I was to had you folks to be a part of my childhood. Yes, we had the 2 pigs, Oscar and Osrow. The dog Poochie who would bring us home baby rabbits which we had to save. We went trick or treating to the gardens where we were brought around back and told we were the only kids to come so we just kept picking candy to put in our pillow cases. The fisherman gave us a sandshark once and we pulled it home in our little red wagon and hung it on the porch to give it an Indian burial. Dad got mad about that one a few days later. Can't say as I blamed him, it sure did smell. I remember Ms. Sousa (not sure of spelling). She gave us rain water from a barrel to drink. We had a garden and us kids would sell to the parents coming and going to your school. Yes my life was good. While my given name is Frank Hyde, you called me Kippy. Thanks for the greatest childhood any kid could have.

Wonderful church with kind people. I had never met them before and they treated me like a friend!

Very pleased with the consistent great job by staff and teachers. Clearly focused on preparing my children for adulthood and the future.

Mead Hall "took over" Aiken Preparatory School in 2012, due to Aiken Prep having financial problems and Mead Hall needing a high school (previously K-8). We originally moved to Aiken from out of the country in 2008, specifically for Aiken Prep, so for this change to take place my daughter's 11th grade year was distressing, to say the least. In addition, Mead Hall did not respect the fact that Aiken Prep had not been a religious school, and that many of us chose Aiken Prep specifically for this reason. They started REQUIRING all students to go to chapel every Weds. before lunch, incl. trotting them all up to the front of the church for communion. My daughter was extremely uncomfortable with this. I wrote two times to the Head of the HS and asked that my daughter be allowed to stay in study hall for chapel time, but both times I wrote, my emails were ignored. I decided to handle it by signing her out of school every Weds. for a mother/daughter lunch which worked out well (and there WERE times she indeed used that time for study at the lunch table). For her junior year, nothing was said to us about this arrangement. However, at the end of that school year, right after a ceremony of my daughter being inducted into the NATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY, the head of school asked us to come and meet with her in her office. We were informed that if my daughter, the VALEDICTORIAN (!) did not attend chapel her 12th grade year, she would be expelled. This changed Mead Hall's status in my eyes to a cult. It was obvious they knew what an expulsion would do to my daughter's future as well as scholarship possibilities, but they were willing to threaten her with this, in order to force their religious views on her, as well as myself (I was told they wanted me to also become part of the "Mead Hall Community"). So, after uprooting my daughter from her first school, getting her settled and happy at Aiken Prep, she and I decided to withdraw her from Mead Hall, and therefore, she would not be graduating with all the very close friends she has been with during these last very important years of school. It was painstaking and very emotional for my daughter, but we feel we made the right choice. Mead Hall has lowered their education standards in several areas, one of which was Spanish, so my daughter was unable to progress in her language studies and lost the entire 11th grade year. We now have her finishing the one credit she needed to graduate HS online (PIE), and additionally, have her enrolled for Calculus & Spanish at the local college. We know we made the right choice. We had to turn our back on the Valedictorian scholarship, as well as having the Valedictorian distinction on her diploma. However, I know if she stayed in an environment where so little respect was given to a student's individual beliefs, they would have surely squashed her spirit....or at least attempted to. They have lost many of the Aiken Prep students. They could have so easily avoided that by not forcing their policies on the newly acquired AP students and gradually made the changes as the Aiken Prep students graduated and moved on. Eventually, they would be left only with their own MH students and have the Stepford lifestyle they so desire.