About
Wilderland at Harmony Ranch is a non-profit K-8 learning community set in the rural enclave of Ogden Valley. We balance the ideals of inclusivity and affordability with innovative, curiosity-centered approaches to education. Wilderland is a living institution, adaptive to feedback the needs of our hyperlocal community.
Our Educational Philosophy
Preparing the next generation to adapt to and thrive in an ever-changing world
Our Daily Schedule
Giving students meaningful choice and autonomy over their educational journey
Our Staff
We know that there may be no more important element of Wilderland than the people who staff our learning community. We have searched far and wide and have had countless conversations with our community about what attributes and qualifications would bring Wilderland's philosophies to life.
Program Director & 2-8 Foundation Guide | Board Vice President
Shanan has been teaching with Montessori methods for two decades throughout northern Utah, from one-room schoolhouses in rural communities to our region’s very own Maria Montessori Academy in North Ogden. With 6 years of early childhood teaching experiences, 10 years of elementary, and 3 years in middle school, Shanan has shepherded children through the most formative years of childhood. She even taught for 4 years at the Ogden Valley Montessori school that operated right here in Eden 20 years ago!
Inspired by the modern and nature-based update on elementary education we are ushering in with Wilderland, Shanan joined us as our Lead Educator in 2024 to work directly with students on their academic progress in a Montessori-inspired, freedom-based environment. Since then, Shanan has set up proven and engaging exploratory environments for self-directed learning.
Shanan has a Bachelor’s Degree of Education from Utah State University and a Master’s Degree in Advanced Montessori Education from St. Catherine University. She is a certified Montessori teacher encompassing early childhood ages through 6th grade, and is a licensed teacher in the state of Utah in both elementary and secondary education. She has taught in both public and private schools. As many of her prior students and colleagues will attest, Shanan lights children up with joy, purpose, and enthusiasm for learning.
At Utah State University, she received the May Swenson Naturalist Writing Scholarship, a prestigious award for her poems and essays that expressed her love for wild spaces. Shanan continues to write about and enjoy nature and has shared this love of nature with students through years of summer outdoor camps, field trips and daily lessons that are embedded in studying nature. Shanan spends most of her free time gardening, hiking, camping, paddle boarding and walking her dog—anything that will get her outside.
Shanan truly is the full package and we are thrilled to have her at Wilderland!
Middle School (6-8) Lead Field Guide
Scott is an experienced educator and school builder who founded and led Knox Academy, a project-based private school he grew from 30 students to 200. There, students aged 5 to 14 designed, built, and presented hundreds of self-directed projects each year, and graduates went on to become valedictorians, Sterling Scholars, and Division I scholarship recipients. He built the school on the ideas of leading educational thinkers and on the principles of self-direction, real-world relevance, high academic achievement, and collaborative creativity. For five years he also directed the school’s humanitarian work in Mexico, where students designed and built projects ranging from a health clinic to a playground for an underserved school. He holds a Master of Arts in English Literature from Brigham Young University.
Most recently, Scott has served as AI Director and writing instructor at Canyon Grove Academy, where he authored the school’s first AI policy, led staff training on integrating AI tools to personalize learning, and used student data to drive achievement in a competency-based setting. He is fluent in Spanish, conversational in Mandarin Chinese, a PSIA-certified ski coach at Powder Mountain, and a soon-to-be certified lead sport climber. At Wilderland, Scott leads our 6th through 8th grade program at Harmony Ranch, where he pairs high expectations with the mentorship older students need to meet them. He is passionate about helping young people develop the independence, character, and capability that will carry them well beyond their years at Wilderland.
2-5 Field Guide
April brings more than two decades of experience working with elementary-age children, the consistent thread through every role she has held. She taught first and second grade at Promontory School of Expeditionary Learning while leading cross-curricular, project-based work across grade levels, and she led a multi-age classroom at Maria Montessori Academy. Montessori-certified and deeply practiced in hands-on, student-centered learning, she is known above all for her warmth and her gift for building trusting relationships with children and families. A longtime mentor described her as among the most trusted and well-liked teachers in her school community, with parents regularly requesting her classroom by name.
April is genuinely at home in the outdoors. She is an active hiker, backpacker, and cyclist, and she collaborates with Utah State University on bringing outdoor, experiential learning into schools. Her background as a yoga instructor, scout leader, and community youth mentor reflects a coaching approach to education: she sets the conditions, holds the standard, and trusts students to rise to it. At Wilderland, April serves as the Field Guide for our 2nd through 5th grade students at Harmony Ranch, where she leads workshops, coaches passion projects, and anchors the daily culture of her cohort. She is especially drawn to Wilderland’s model of high standards, high support, and genuine student autonomy, and to the belief that every child is capable of more than they know.
Our Administrative Team
Our Board and other founding team members are 100% volunteer, and we pay tuition just like any other family in the community. Some might think we're a little extreme to dedicate significant amounts of time building a new educational environment—and for no ulterior financial benefit! But extreme times call for extreme measures. We are building this learning community for our own kids as well as many others in our community who are stagnating or withering amid outmoded and restrictive educational paradigms.
Board President
Director of Special Projects
Our Advisors
It truly takes a village to bring a learning environment like Wilderland together. So much of what we love about Wilderland wouldn't be possible without some of our greatest supporters out in the educational field!
Emeritus Board Member
Anne has 20 years of education policy experience. She has worked for multiple non-profits locally and nationally, including as Executive Director of Education Opportunity for Every Child, which spearheaded the successful passage of Utah Fits All this past winter in the state legislature. She has also been the Development Director at Utah Association of Public Charter Schools and Development Manager at Sutherland Institute.
Anne also has experience working within schools, as a Vice Principal at a charter high school and at a private school that educated dropout students across the country. Anne is known for her ability to grow things from the bottom up, and is driven to help every child love their education.
Anne's parents grew up in Ogden Valley, and has rich ties throughout the community. She has five children, each of whom has vastly different education needs.
Business Advisor
Ian brings over 25 years of advising, investment, venture capital, entrepreneurship, and strategic consulting experience, with a primary interest in the health & wellness, real estate/community building, and high physical and social impact arenas. Ian and his wife Courtney are the proud parents of Lauryn (14) and Ashton (9) and are currently building intentional living communities in Utah, Costa Rica, and New Zealand.
Today, Ian spends his business-facing time as a thinking and accountability partner for driven entrepreneurs and small business owners, experts and thought leaders, devoted parents, and impactivists. He helps them get more of what they want out of life through frameworks, systems, strategies and tools that increase mental, physical, and financial performance.
Founding Director of Operations
Nicole currently works as a therapist at Resilience Life Counseling, focused on women's mental health. She graduated from BYU with a degree in humanities: art history, and a recent graduate of LCSW masters program at the University of Utah. She has a diverse background with non-profit organizations and entrepreneurship. She worked at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, co-founded Antho—an interactive personal history app, and volunteered for the HER Foundation as a mentor for women suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum. She has also worked as a Youth Mentor at Waypoint Academy, a residential anxiety treatment center for teenagers in Huntsville.
As the parent of a twice-neurodivergent child, Nicole knows intimately the challenges that parents face when their child doesn't fit into the public school model of education. She is a passionate advocate for nature-based mental health solutions and loves all things outdoors.
Our Donors
In addition to a sizable anonymous donation to help us get our educational community started, Wilderland is a proud recipient of the VELA Education Micro Grant and Horizon Grant.
Anonymous Donor
Our Declaration of Academic Neutrality
Our Inspirations
Where most of our ideas came from (hint: we're standing on the shoulders of researchers & innovators)