OLDTOWN - Officials at Three Springs New Dominion Maryland are facing battles on multiple fronts. While dealing with criticism from the community, teachers and counselors at the alternative high school for troubled boys still have a primary mission of reaching out to those who need it most.

The school accepts difficult cases. Through student interviews and background checks, counselors try to exclude those charged with sex offenses or with histories of aggression.

It's not easy, Ron Brown, Three Springs regional director based in Alabama, said, "but we take it very seriously. It's our calling." The boys have lost their way, Brown said. Some have been abused. They have "suffered greatly."

The school has 32 students on campus with a licensed capacity to house up to 72 young men. Gary Wolz, school administrator, said economics has changed the makeup of the students - 88 percent of them are now referred there by the courts.

Unfortunately for the school, any publicity surrounding the goings-on tends to focus on the negative.

Neighbors of the 330-acre outdoor therapy campus feel that promises made when the program opened nearly 30 years ago have been broken. Some of the nearly 75 area residents who attended a meeting March 25 with school officials at the Oldtown Volunteer Fire Company Community Center noted feelings of betrayal and frustration about what the school was planned to be.

"Twenty-nine years ago, there were to be zero offenders and zero tax dollars (used)," said Three Springs neighbor Wayne Gross. "I'd like to know when that policy got changed."

Those broken promises have been magnified in the light of recent walk-offs by students at the school. Those walk-offs have led to theft, damaged property, one reported assault and at least one stolen car - all perpetrated by students leaving the school without permission or graduates of the school.

Officials from Three Springs can't speak to promises made when the facility was established in the early 1980s. They weren't there then, said Brown.

Brown indicated that the school wants to focus now on moving forward - with its primary goal being to reach out to troubled youth.

"We want this to be the most successful program anywhere," Brown said of Three Springs, which operates 28 facilities in 10 states. "Do we reach them all? No, we don't. But we try every day."

If a student has left campus without permission, then he's probably scared, Wolz said, and not the same kid one would meet in a classroom environment.

"I wouldn't want to be the person who tells you they're not a threat," Wolz said. "I would say, 'be careful.' "

Staff on March 25 was quick to point out that the program doesn't work for everyone.

"Sometimes we bring in a kid (and) something comes up," said Tracy Smith, admissions coordinator. "We then request the student be removed from the program. Eight years ago, we were looking at kids that were a lot easier. Now, we're getting referrals on harder kids."

Ben Montana, group administrator for Three Springs New Dominion, said he understands the neighborhood's concern for its safety. But "we want to be safe, too," he said.

"We are not trying to warehouse kids," Montana said. "We've got to have kids that respond to us."

The students there volunteer with local civic organizations. They attend local churches.

Montana said his parents question what type of work he does - and why. He has a ready response: "Come and see."

There is "always an open invitation" to visit a Three Springs campus and see firsthand what students there accomplish.

Contact Kevin Spradlin at kspradlin@times-news.com.