Murray’s Elizabeth Academy to Offer ‘A Gifted Education for Every Child’

MURRAY, Utah--(BUSINESS WIRE)--When Gail S. Williamsen of Salt Lake City asked the local school district for a special education plan for Lauren, her 5-year-old who has Down syndrome and could not speak, the district offered to provide a specialist to tutor Lauren 15 minutes a week. Down syndrome includes cognitive impairment, and a child with the congenital condition is often better at understanding language than speaking it.

“Everyone has strengths and weaknesses and it’s easy to marginalize special needs children, but no one benefits”

“I knew if I fought for more resources for my daughter, other special needs children would lose out because the district doesn’t have enough specialists,” said Williamsen. The heartbreak of watching her child routinely excluded from the company of others was compounded for Williamsen by her inability to find a way to teach Lauren to talk, something her six other children learned readily.

Williamsen decided to use her own resources to find an educational answer that would work for Lauren and others as well. Her promise: “Lauren will be my catalyst, but she won’t be the only beneficiary.”

Elizabeth Academy (www.elizabethacademy.com) is Williamsen’s solution. She and husband Thom purchased a building at 154 E. Myrtle Ave. (5065 S.), Murray for a school serving children ages 3-6 by cultivating creative learning and independence in an environment that includes exceptional, typical and special needs children in the same proportions as society at large, or 15-20 percent special needs children. The non-profit school is named after Lauren’s middle name.

Elizabeth Academy’s philosophy is Montessori, a 100-year-old method renown today for the high level of creativity and achievement of its students. For example, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos were Montessori method students. But Maria Montessori, Italy’s first female physician who was nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize, devised her system to teach children in Rome’s asylums who were believed to be ineducable. Soon these students were able to pass public school standardized tests for their age level.

Williamsen discovered Montessori methods through Maria Gurrister, speech language pathologist at Wasatch Speech and Language Center. Gurrister’s method with Lauren was to allow access to objects that interested her, if Lauren would say their name. Lauren’s natural curiosity overcame her reluctance to speak.

Montessori schools don’t separate children with special learning issues. “Everyone has strengths and weaknesses and it’s easy to marginalize special needs children, but no one benefits,” said Williamsen. “My father’s life was an example. His first grade teacher labeled him ‘retarded.’ But it turned out his slow, reflective approach was smart.” Williamsen’s father, the late James LeVoy Sorenson, was dyslexic, but became one of the world’s most gifted medical device inventors, developing the first computerized heart monitoring system and many other innovative healthcare tools.

“This will be a nationally accredited school and a true learning community,” said Elizabeth Academy director Nancy Lindeman, of Eden, Utah, who ran her own Montessori school in Covington, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, for 18 years. “Gail [Williamsen] is so dedicated to children that she will make this work very well for all of them.”

The Sorenson Legacy Foundation, a charitable organization of the Sorenson family, provided a substantial grant in 2008 to make creation of the school possible. Scholarships to qualified special needs families may be available from the foundation in 2010.

Elizabeth Academy will cater to the needs of its exceptional and typically developing children, said Williamsen, and provide maximum benefit for its special needs children. “This will be a gifted education for every child who attends.”

About Elizabeth Academy

Elizabeth Academy (www.elizabethacademy.com) is a private preschool with Montessori curriculum, MACTE trained and certified teachers, and low student/instructor ratios. Full- and half-day kindergarten and half-day preschool classes begin at the start of 2009-10 school year following the traditional school calendar. 154 E. Myrtle Ave. (5065 S.), Murray, Utah 84107.

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