Necessity… is the mother of invention.”
- Plato

In 1989, a small group of parents of gifted children began meeting at the home of Barbara Mitchell Hutton and Pam McKinnie to explore educational options for gifted children and to share experiences with a variety of public and private schools. It soon became clear that if an educational environment were to exist in which Chelsea’s needs, and the needs of others like her, were to be honored and encouraged, that environment would have to be created.

In January of 1990, Families for the Future was founded with the mission of providing education and support for children with exceptional needs and abilities and their families, so that these children would be prepared to make a positive contribution to an interconnected and interdependent world. In the same month, enrichment programs began for eight home schooled students. That summer, Families for the Future offered summer enrichment programs for the community under the name Rocky Mountain School for the Gifted and Creative. These classes, called Celebrate Summer! were among the first summer enrichment programs offered in Boulder County. In September 1990, Rocky Mountain School for the Gifted and Creative opened as a full-time, independent school with three four-year-old students and one full-time teacher in the basement at First United Methodist Church in downtown Boulder. The organization’s name was officially changed to Rocky Mountain School for the Gifted and Creative in 1992.

The original Board of Directors included Barbara Mitchell Hutton and Pam McKinnie, co-founders; as well as Nicci Clark, the first Master Teacher at Rocky Mountain School; Linda Krieger Silverman, Director of the Gifted Development Center in Denver; Dorothy Knopper, state consultant on gifted education; and Bonnie Rush, parent of one of the original students. Since that time, the Board has grown to eight members representing stake holders such as parents and alumni families as well as community business people. An adjunct Advisory Board was formed in 2005 to engage with the board and parent community in visioning and building a vibrant and sustainable future. Barbara Mitchell Hutton assumed the directorship of the school in 1996 as Rocky Mountain School relocated to a larger facility to accommodate thirty students.

By 1996, five full time teachers were teaching 47 students. Music, art, and Latin were offered and students were transported by the school van to the YMCA for physical education instruction. In 1997 plans were initiated to prepare for moving the growing school to a former mattress factory on Mapleton Avenue. Generous donations from RMS families, friends and alumni made it possible to begin renovation and on October 5, 1998, Rocky Mountain School opened in an 11,000 square foot location anticipated to accommodate growth to nearly 100 students. In 2000, Rocky Mountain School was approved for bond financing by the Colorado Education and Cultural Facilities Authority (CECFA) for the purchase or development of a permanent facility for the school. In that same year, the program was expanded to serve middle school students. Seven years later, having outgrown the Mapleton facility, the RMS community pledged the funds necessary to renovate a newly leased building. In September 2004, Rocky Mountain School opened at the current campus at 5490 Spine Road. The remodeled community college building can accommodate an enrollment of 120 students. Sixteen years after opening with one teacher and three students, there are now nine classrooms serving over 90 students, nine master teachers and five focus teachers as well as three administrative staff, a school counselor and a Director of Curriculum and Instruction to oversee the program elements.

Under the leadership of Karen Rogers, Ph.D., then Associate Professor of Education with the University of St. Thomas, the faculty and a small group of parents developed a curriculum specific to the learning style and pace of gifted students for implementation in the 1995 school year. Known as, Curriculum Challenge! it has become a model for educating gifted children. Rocky Mountain School has hosted educators from Europe, Great Britain, Australia, Lebanon, China, Japan and Hong Kong. Additionally, hundreds of area parents, teachers and counselors have benefited from the Rocky Mountain School Community Education Series that brings nationally recognized experts in gifted education to Boulder.

In 1996, Barbara Mitchell Hutton presented a workshop featuring Curriculum Challenge! at the National Association for Gifted Children Conference (NAGC) in Tampa, taking the first step in establishing a national presence for Rocky Mountain School. This commitment has led the staff to present the unique education model at the Hollingworth Center Conference for the Highly Gifted in Boston, the Colorado Association for the Gifted and Talented Annual Conference in Denver, the Annemarie Roeper Symposium in Chicago, the SENG (Supporting the Social and Emotional Needs of the Gifted) Conference in St. Paul, and the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) Annual Conventions in Tampa, Little Rock, Albuquerque, Denver, Indianapolis, Salt Lake City and Louisville. At the NAGC Conference held in Denver in 2002, the school was an Action Lab site hosting a pre-conference workshop for nearly forty educators from around the world. RMS staff made six presentations at the 2004 conference in Salt Lake City and two in 2005 in Louisville. Fine arts teacher Nan Hathaway presented the choice based art program at the National Art Education Association national conferences in Boston and Chicago, the Colorado Art Education Association conferences in Pueblo and twice in Vail, the Colorado Alliance for Arts Education at Adams State in Alamosa and ArtSource Colorado in Boulder. In 2005, Barbara Mitchell Hutton traveled to China where she presented Who is that Child in My Daughter/Sons Bedroom: Living with Asynchrony and other Mysteries of the Gifted at the Beijing Gifted Education Institute.

Rocky Mountain School continues to evolve in response to the needs of its students, their families and the community. We are not finished yet.