CS birthday C o mm u n i t y Sc h o o l c e l e b r at e s a milestone anniversary
40 years and
counting
BY kate wutz
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Ginny Haire Burnham, one of Community School’s first faculty members, said during a 1994 interview that she vividly remembered the first time she heard Sam Hazard talk about Community School. It was on a field trip to Carey Lake with Hemingway students, a trip on which Sam, principal of Hemingway Elementary School, had decided to drive the bus himself instead of hiring someone else.
OPPOSITE (clockwise from top left): Sam Hazard, 1978; Community School Campus, 1978; Sophomore Class, 1978. ABOVE (clockwise from top left): Students in Community School’s library, 1979; Ginny Haire, 1979; Richard Hislaire, 1979; Community School Campus, 1979.
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ABOVE (left to right): Math teacher Brian Clark, 1979; Community School Campus, 1989; Julie Hazard, 1979.
“He had just gotten fired the night before, and I didn’t know it,” she said. “Sam looked at me and said, ‘How would you like to work at a private school? … I just got fired last night and I think it would be fun if we started one.’” To hear Sam tell it, the story is much more complicated. He had left the Bay Area in the late 1960s to ski and work in Sun Valley with his wife, Julie. Sam was later hired as the principal of Hemingway Elementary School in Ketchum, but after two years and many fights with the Blaine County School District Board, Sam was asked to leave. “The school board was not happy with what they considered my California ideas,” he said in a 1994 interview with Community School students. “After two years, they told me I was through.” Sam left Sun Valley briefly in the summer of 1973 to complete his master’s degree at Northwestern University. Meanwhile, parents in the Wood River Valley were working hard to find someone to run a new school, an alternative to the public schools at the time. After completing his master’s, Sam flew home, only to be approached on the plane by a parent on the plane from Boise, who 50
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said, “I heard you were starting a school in Sun Valley.” Two months later, that’s exactly what he did, in conjuction with dedicated patrons. From the beginning, Community School was founded on the generosity of Wood River Valley residents. Sam went to two families with students at Hemingway who would start middle school that fall. The first family agreed to give a substantial sum of money if Sam could find another donor to match it; the second family matched it, and soon Sam found two more families willing to match those donations. Financing accomplished, Sam started to gather students. “I did have the advantage of having been the principal of Hemingway School,” he said. “I knew the kids who would be really fun to work with and bright, so I called all of those families.” Soon, Sam had 29 students, half of whom received scholarships to defray the $1,500 annual tuition. Sam, Julie, and math and science teacher Brian Clark signed on as the school’s only full-time faculty; Jack Hemingway was hired parttime to teach French and Spanish. “He was wonderful,” Sam said. “The kids learned all about bullfighting and all
about the bistros in Paris.” The outside world was swirling with the Watergate hearings, American involvement in Vietnam had just ended, and “Brother Louie” was at the top of the charts the week Ketchum-Sun Valley Community School students and faculty first gathered together in the basement of St. Thomas Episcopal Church for the start of school. Students were extraordinarily involved in forming the school’s rules and regulations, including the still-cherished tradition of calling faculty by their first names. “Someone raised a hand and said, ‘Can we call you Sam?’ And I said, ‘I don’t care, so long as you do it nicely,’” Sam said. “The only time I was called Mr. Hazard was by one student who was furious with me. He had done something wrong, and I had lowered the boom on him, [and he said,] ‘Mr. Hazard, this isn’t the kind of school I thought it would be!’” One of the school’s most cherished traditions, Powder Day, arose from a combination of that democratic spirit and the fact that classes were held in a basement. Powder Day, typically held on a bluebird day in February or March, is a day when classes are cancelled and students and faculty take advantage of the powder, bonding on the
photography: james bourret
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Sam looked at me and said, ‘How would you like to work at a private school? … I just got fired last night and I think it would be fun if we started one.’ —Sam Hazard Head of School, 1973-1983
mountain instead of in the classroom. The tradition started the very first year the school was formed, on a bluebird day in late January or early February. “We had had about a foot of powder the day before and we all had our skis at school because that was our afternoon P.E. program in the winter,” Sam said. “We went into the dark basement, and Brian Clark said, ‘What are we doing in this dark basement on one of the greatest skiing days of all time?’ And I said, ‘Brian, I haven’t got an intelligent answer to that.’ “So we called a school meeting and we said, ‘We have a problem to solve.’ We told them what the problem was and asked how we were going to solve it, and the roof just went off the church. We rushed out into
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the bus and we were at Baldy by 9:15 a.m. with a foot of powder. It was an absolutely beautiful day.” The school met in the basement for a full school year before moving to Trail Creek Cabin, which didn’t have reliable electricity at the time. The students sometimes studied by candlelight and firelight, receiving heat from the same sources. “One parent called it the Hap-Hazard Academy,” Sam said, laughing. “There were about 55 of us. With our candles and our fire. It was really extraordinary.” Naturally, the school needed to fight against certain stereotypes and erroneous ideas held by the community. As a private independent school, some Wood River Valley residents felt the school was only
ABOVE: Sagewillow Campus was generously donated by Ed and Carol Dumke in 1998. Once a 30-acre ranch, the property now houses soccer fields and a Sun Valley Ski Academy training facility.
for students from wealthy families, while others felt the school didn’t provide the kind of academic rigor they expected. But faculty and parents knew differently. “People thought it was a play school for rich kids,” said Richard Hislaire, who was hired as a French teacher in 1974. “It wasn’t then, and it isn’t now.” Community School was, and still is, founded on a radical new way of teaching, based in academic excellence, personal growth, and human dignity. Students may have studied by candlelight for part of the second year, but Richard said the Wood River Valley gained more respect for the school when Steve Brown ’77, a member of the first graduating class, was accepted to Harvard on a full scholarship. co m m u n it ys ch o o l.o r g
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People thought it was a play school for rich kids. It wasn’t then, and isn’t now.
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—Richard Hislaire French teacher, math teacher, and interim headmaster, 1974-2006
ABOVE: Community School Campus, 1976.
“A lot of people started taking us more seriously then,” Richard said. The school moved to its current location, Trail Creek Campus, in 1975. The lot was owned by Sun Valley Center for the Arts, headed by school patrons Bill and Glenn Janss. The school started upgrading buildings and increasing enrollment. The school purchased Trail Creek Campus in 1985, thanks to the generosity of donors and Sun Valley Center for the Arts, who sold the property to the Ketchum-Sun Valley Community School. In 1987, Community School hired Jon Maksik, who would go on to oversee the school’s largest period of growth. Jon stepped into the role of Head of School following the ignominious resignation of a previous head, a situation that had resulted in dropping enrollment numbers. Mike Wade, Upper School math and science teacher, said the school was in need of a “fearless and aggressive” leader in order to ensure the school’s survival. Under Jon’s leadership, the school joined with The Mountain School, an elementary school in Elkhorn. The Mountain School had been started by Board Director Michael Engl and others, so the merger seemed a natural fit. For the first time, the school served kindergarten through twelfth grade students, and the name was shortened to The Community School. Upper School Math and Science Teacher Mike Wade, who has worked at the school since 1983, said Jon was a strong leader of both students and faculty, but was not above dressing up for Halloweeen or Groundhog Day.
It became clear in the 1990s that the campus needed to improve its facilities in order to continue to attract new students. Thanks to $8 million raised by donors, Engl Hall, named after the Engl family, opened in 1996. Dumke Middle School, named for Community School philanthropists Ed and Carol Dumke, was renovated the same year. The gym and theater, also built in 1996, were completed due to the efforts of many generous donors who recognized the importance of giving students athletics and performing arts space. But construction costs proved larger than estimates, and the school found itself short on funds just shy of the building’s completion. “We had stopped ordering supplies,” Mike said. “We didn’t have the money to complete the building, so the plan was to open part of it and maybe try again the next year.” Actors Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, whose three daughters attended the school, gave a final gift to ensure the vision of all the theater’s donors could be fulfilled. In 1998, the campus expanded once more with Ed and Carol Dumke’s donation of the Sagewillow Campus, a 30-acre farm in Elkhorn. The school faculty and board had dreams of expanding into that area in the future, but turned much of the area into athletic fields for the time being. Two subsequent campaigns raised $8.7 million and $11.2 million, respectively, adding to the school’s endowment and allowing for a massive upgrade to the Trail Creek Campus in 2006. Jon retired that year, and the Great Recession hit soon after, causing Community
School to struggle with dropping enrollment and other financial difficulties. Head of School Andy Jones-Wilkins continued Jon’s legacy of student-centered leadership, but left the school in 2011. The school’s challenges did not deter the school’s strongest supporters, nor Head of School David Holmes from accepting a leadership role in 2011. “This was a school with incredible foundations that had fallen into a difficult financial situation,” he said. “It was exciting, seeing this school with an incredible vision for the future and realizing I could help make it happen.” The school began to regain its financial footing and began its boarding program in 2011. Sun Valley Ski Academy, a partnership between Community School and the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation, launched that same year, allowing student athletes to compete on a high level in snow sports while completing the school’s rigorous college prep curriculum. The Outdoor Leadership Academy was also created in 2011, boosting the school’s already-impressive Outdoor Program. The Residential Program grew to about 25 students this year, and the school itself has set enrollment records for the past three years — 377 students enrolled this year. David said the parent body, the faculty, and the Board of Directors all have high aspirations, striving to become one of the best independent schools in the nation. “We’re always building on the foundations Sam laid in 1973,” David said. “We’re always improving, and always trying to find ways to become better at what we do.”