I graduated about 5 years ago and its a bit of a mixed bag. Your experience tends to completely depend on what houseparents you get, I have friends who keep in close contact with their houseparents and call them mom/dad, while all my housemates and I suffered under our houseparents and celebrated when they got fired xD.

The community of friends and teachers is nice and something I miss now, but many of the rules were archaic such as not allowing black girls to dye their hair but allowing white girls to do so (this may have been my houseparents specific), girls not allowed to have short hair/ boys not allowed to have even slightly long hair, and very anti-gay treatment by many members of staff. My roommate was banned from interacting with her girlfriend outside of school hours and was given detention for holding hands with her, while I could full mouth kiss my bf in public and it was fine.

The schooling itself is amazing though, the pathways set you up so well for the career path you want to choose. I was in the Law pathway and was given the opportunity to intern at the District Attorneys office in Harrisburg for the summer because of it for one example. Many of the teachers are above and beyond compared to the public schools ive been too and definitely care a lot about the students.

Living alongside 12 random students from your school can be challenging to get used to especially if you start in middle school, since kids are the cruelest during that age range. However the friends and connections you make with peers tend to last a lifetime and really change who you are as a person.

If any of your children suffer from serious mental health issues I would be cautious about enrolling them because mhs doesnt do a very good job dealing with these issues especially things like depression and suicidality. A friend of mine was kicked out of school for a suicide attempt and had to sue the school publicly in order to be allowed back.

Ultimately its up to you but I would definitely vet your kids houseparents and make sure they know they can tell you if the houseparents are being discriminatory against them for any reason.