I started Chrysalis in my home in 1983 for my own children. I have three children Brendon,Sarah and Zach. I had several friends who brought their children to my house for school. They told their friends about it and they brought their children and before I knew it my home became too small.  I bought memberships for all of the students and we met at the Gold Creek Fitness Center. That’s when we added the high school, at the students’ request. Our students enjoyed a great PE program. In addition to a little school each day, they had swim lessons, martial arts classes and used the resident ducks for motivation for their creative writing stories.

We later moved into our first leased space in Bothell and our population grew. As we needed more space we moved into our current location in Woodinville in 1990. My oldest children graduated shortly after that and as a family, we made the decision to keep Chrysalis going even after our children had graduated. They each went on to graduate from college and were successful in careers of their own. They have recently returned to this area and have taken on positions at the school. I now have a grandson attending. We have continued to add space including a separate elementary campus.

We have had over 1500 graduates. We even have students whose parents graduated from Chrysalis. Our graduates have gone on to many varied careers. They are college graduates, athletes, musicians, lawyers, mechanics, parents and teachers. We are very proud of all of them. We continue to hear from our students. Several have graduated from law school, one entered medical school this year and we have students who have graduated recently from a variety of universities including Yale, Lehigh and Vanderbilt.

As parents you are pioneers. I said that 27 years ago and it remains true today. We are still challenged in our society to really appreciate the talents of all of our children and to find the ways to best ways to encourage those talents. We are challenged to believe what we know to be true about how children learn. The field of neuroscience is growing daily and providing the research to support the ideas and observations that teachers have observed about learning for many years.

Life is about the journey and what a journey our students have thanks to the support and courage of their parents.