Hopewell believes that the purpose of education is to facilitate the development of the potential of each student, especially those students with special needs. Our students have encountered unique challenges that prevent them from finding lasting success both in school and in the community. We believe that the solution to those challenges lies both within the student and within the learning community. A prerequisite for every member of our learning community in meeting life’s responsibilities is competence in the use of the rational thought processes needed to make intelligent, ethical choices and decisions. If our students ultimately want to achieve their life goals in a free society, they need to be competent to solve the problems they will encounter even though their challenges may make this difficult. We feel that all students with challenges have the ability to overcome those challenges and to become happy and successful members of society.

We strongly believe that providing students with relevant and rigorous instruction, supportive and empowering therapeutic support, and meaningful and effective vocational support, will ultimately allow students to become self-sufficient individuals able to meet their own needs in a way that supports not just their opportunities but also supports the opportunities of others. We also believe that good modeling and respectful engagement of students helps to create within them the importance that they should contribute to the common good of society and be positive active members of their communities. 

Students today face growing obstacles as they seek to make positive choices in life. Their ability to handle societal stresses such as peer pressure, poverty, drug and alcohol prevalence, bullying, technology overuse, and other stresses makes learning the thought and action process involved in taking intelligent, ethical action even more imperative.

We strive to help students develop these skills by modeling those skills through our own behaviors and interactions, by teaching students what those skills are, by allowing students to practice those skills while applying constructive criticism, and by applying those skills in the community through vocational and social activities.

Hopewell is committed to helping students become better at learning, become better at getting along with others, and become better at understanding what it takes to be a happy, productive member of society.