Over a decade ago, Hope Forgey had a dream. She, together with a small handful of colleagues, had the audacity to believe in a different kind of middle school. A middle school without meanness. A middle school where learners could thrive in their educational pursuits as they find their unique voice in the world. A safe place to learn, to challenge, to wonder, to take risks, and to inevitably make mistakes along the way and to learn from what those mistakes had to teach. A middle school where, just maybe, students would want to return long past the day of their 8th-grade graduation.

Flash forward to May 2020. 37 8th graders will be the 7th class to matriculate from the International School of Denver Middle School. A dewey-eyed Hope Forgey, now mother to four ISDenver students in the Chinese program, is proud as she speaks about the Middle School she helped build from the ground up. She is even more proud of each of the students who have passed through its doors.

There is perhaps no louder statement of the value of Hope’s story, and that of the team of visionaries behind the ISDenver Middle School, then our alumni. Alumni visits are no longer a wistful hope, but rather much-anticipated annual migrations during high school and college breaks. It’s hard to say who is more excited for each reunion -- the teachers or the alums. 

Hope has close relationships with each of our graduating classes -- both as a cohort with its own unique character and as individual alums who are very much their own people. It’s only fitting -- in addition to her roles as International Baccalaureate Curriculum Coordinator, Design teacher, and Assistant Summer Camp Director, Hope also manages our Alumni Relations. The inaugural graduating class, who started as 6th graders in 2011, are now finishing their sophomore years of college. Hope had the chance to connect with most of the inaugural class in a Zoom reunion in April!

In 2021, just ten years after the first class of nineteen 6th graders started their ISDenver middle school journey, a new academic building will open that will be home to the middle school. And, we know Hope will continue to do what she has always done. Greet learners by name. Cheer them on as she sorts them into Dragon Houses. Be an innovator, a mentor, a teacher. A dreamer of big dreams. Because with the hard work, with the passion, with the dedication - dreams, like our Middle School, do come true.

Thank you, Hope, for your beautiful dream.

• Learn more about our Middle School experience.
   
• Learn more about how to get involved with our New Academic Building.