After nearly 30 years at Hyde School, the last five as headmaster, Don MacMillan has announced plans to leave the Bath school at the end of the school year.

Laura Gauld, a Hyde graduate, will be moving from Hyde’s Woodstock, Conn., campus to Bath, where she will continue her role as executive director of Hyde’s boarding schools and will act as Head of School.

MacMillan informed the school community of his plans in a letter this week.

“I have appreciated the opportunity to provide leadership to the school during the past five years,” he wrote. “Hyde School’s unique approach to education, in which the teachers’ and parents’ growth is encouraged and is as essential as the students’ growth, is what first attracted me to Hyde nearly 30 years ago and has kept me intrigued and involved all these years later.”

Malcolm Gauld, president of Hyde Schools, praised MacMillan’s diverse contributions to the extended Hyde community.

“Since he began fresh out of Bowdoin College, Don has been an exemplary math teacher and athletic coach being twice named Maine’s Lacrosse Coach of the Year by his peers,” Gauld said. “He set the standard of what it means to be a dean of students at Hyde.”

After serving as assistant head, MacMillan was the founding head of Hyde’s first public charter school and has served as Head of School in Bath for the past five years. “He has truly done it all,” Gauld said.

This move will signal a return to Bath for Gauld. She taught and served as an administrator for several years before assuming the reins as head of the Woodstock campus in 2006.

“Being part of the growth of the ‘younger boarding campus’ has been exhilarating, and the seven years have flown by, similar to raising children,” Gauld said, in anticipation of her return. “I look forward to returning to Bath as we work to manage the opportunities and challenges of operating two boarding campuses with one philosophy.

“Simply put, my ultimate goal will be to help guide the teams of both campuses to manage the uniqueness of each campus as well as work together in a unified manner to achieve our long-term goals of being the world class leader in family-based character education.”

The Hyde School approach to education has been developed since 1966 at the school’s boarding campuses in Bath and Woodstock, and through public school initiatives in New Haven, Conn., and New York City.

Officials say the school is known for its success in developing leadership skills in teenagers.

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