TRUSTEES RETREAT HONORS THE PAST, CELEBRATES THE FUTURE

The annual Realms Board of Trustees summer planning retreat was held Saturday, July 11. Generously hosted by Chair, Dan Jones, the Board delved deeply into the issues and opportunities for the future growth and development of the thirty-seven year old independent, accelerated school.

Reports from committee chairs were presented to the full Board, with one excused member who was out of town. Staff representatives and student leaders participated in the last hours of the discussion and joined the Board for lunch. Topics addressed included financial reports and improved reporting procedures, budget alignment, the Realms raison d’etre, visioning, continued and enhanced relationships with Westminster College and the University of Utah, new classroom discipline procedures, calls for new members of the Realms Community Council (RCC) and additional places available for members of the Board of Trustees.

Co-founder of the school, Peggy Olsen Mitchell, presented a history of the early years of the school and donated hundreds of color slides of trips, plays, and productions from 1974 to 1982 to the Realms History Project. She noted that Realms of Inquiry was created to specifically aid students who are academically bored or creatively stunted by other schools, and who need greater opportunities for personal expression and intellectual stimulation.

In their early 20’s, the Olsens set out to create the first private school of its kind in Utah. Peggy’s mother, a civic leader in Price, Utah, had created a county-wide school for special needs students in the 1960’s, prior to Special Education becoming part of the Utah public school curriculum. Rick’s father, an innovative Idaho educator, had created a nationally franchised accelerated learning system to tutor students who had fallen behind in reading, math, and spelling skills. Thus, the daunting task of creating a private school did not seem out of reach to the young couple.

When the Olsens purchased the Salt Lake City tutoring franchise, they discovered that their students were almost always very bright, but had fallen behind out of boredom or other unmet needs. Dedicated to high intellectual and creative pursuits, they decided to create a full-time school that would intellectually, creatively, and personally engage children in the exciting world of learning. The fact that their three-year old daughter had taught herself how to read spurred them on to make the school happen.

Peggy reported that the early upper school students had nick-named them “Rack and Pinion” for being the turning point in their education and feelings of self worth. To rekindle the passion for learning in students who had been bored in the classroom, and to prevent intellectual boredom from happening to younger students, the Olsens fell almost immediately on two techniques that created the Realms’ raison d’etre: capturing the excitement for learning by getting students out of the classroom and into the real world, and catapulting the students’ self-confidence by putting them successfully on stage. Thus the special legacy in expeditionary learning and the performing arts that is Realms was born. Peggy noted that Realms’ exemplary outdoor teachers, Gary Wilden and Kayo Robertson contributed greatly to the school’s history as a leader in expeditionary learning.

Board Member and Salt Lake attorney Jordan Cheng, recounted his years as a lower school student who came to the United States from Beijing, China. Cheng expressed his appreciation for the wonderful Realms teachers Laura Roe, Dan Cortsen, and Barbara MaCaulley who had the time to spend with him to teach him to speak, read, and write in English. He also expressed appreciation for Elenore Cosgriff who helped pay his tuition and for the school allowing his mother, a ballet artist, to teach dance at the school to help cover the cost of his education.

Other Board Members expressed their appreciation to the historically incredible teachers, individual attention and special expeditionary and performing arts programs available only at Realms that had made such a positive difference in their children’s lives. Peggy also noted that the Realms requirement of classrooms of fourteen students or less began not only in the ideology of the school, but in the fact that the school started in a rented physician’s office space and the exam rooms only accommodated five or six students.

Most exciting of all topics covered at the retreat was the Challenge Grant offered to Realms this year by the William Eccles Charitable Foundation. This matching grant, available to the school in increments of $25,000, is for a total of $100,000, but only if the school and its community raise the matching funds. Steve Denkers, Board Member and officer of the foundation, presented ways to help raise the matching funds, and challenged the Board to work with the school’s community to make that happen. JD Donnelly, Acting Headmaster, proudly announced that 100% of the Board had made a personal pledge or contribution, and that 100% of the staff would also soon be represented.

The retreat finished its full agenda listening to staff and student leaders discuss their needs and their enthusiasm about the programs and opportunities offered to Realms of Inquiry students and their families this year. The request was made for nominations for the RCC and for the following positions on the Board of Trustees: Advanced Educator, Physician/Health Expert, Hispanic Leader, African American Leader, Government/Law Enforcement Leader, Technology Expert, and Global Travel Expert. Board Members and parents of students were asked to forward all such nominations and the nominee’s vitae to JD Donnelly for consideration. Also accepted was the proposal to create an Honorary Board , as well as the active Board of Trustees.