About Jeff Hyde: Jeff Hyde was born in Milton, Florida, and raised from at age 6 in Valdese, North Carolina. After attending district schools through high school, he earned a bachelor's degree in history at Wake Forest University. He and his wife Natalie own Aesthetic Images Photography, which provides individual and business photography services from locations in Greensboro and Raleigh, North Carolina. He is vice chairman of the North Carolina Rules Review Commission and president of the North Carolina Partnership for Reform. He is also active in his church. Jeff and Natalie have two sons, Joe, aged 21, and Henry, 19, both students of North Carolina State. They live in Greensboro. 

Why and how did you join the Board? "Jeff Phillips, another founding Board member, recruited me. I had been active in political efforts to increase support for school choice in the state's General Assembly. After those efforts led to the lifting of the state's charter school cap in 2011, there was interest in a new charter school in Guilford County, where Greensboro Academy was already succeeding.

"My interest in public education first intensified when our older son reached school age. We realized that the neighborhood school just five blocks away had concerns about both academic performance and safety. We wound up educating our sons mainly with a combination of Christian schools and home-schooling.

"With this experience in mind, I decided I wanted to help create a new school option in East Greensboro, where most parents don't have the options we enjoyed. They simply cannot afford to move to a better district or pay for private schools. 

"My Board service is most satisfying when I see students' achievements on state assessments and hear their parents and grandparents voice their appreciation. Our principal, Natasha Robertson, and the deans are doing a wonderful job supporting efficient school operations and classroom instruction. We are fortunate to have him.

"Thank goodness NHA is our management partner. My trust in NHA doing the right thing is high. The Board benefits from accepting that our role is governance and oversight, and we leave operations to NHA. That understanding is crucial to the school success.

"I would love to broaden our programs so that they not only enhance children's learning but also enrich students' home lives and family structure. One set of parents described Gate City in glowing terms, saying it had not only improved their children's learning but also had given new strength and structure to the family's home life. 

"We hope to offer that value more often and more systematically. For example, we are exploring the possibility of offering parents a seminar on the basics of managing family finances."