History
Founded in 1946 by Hamilton "Ham" and Barbara "Babs" Warren, Verde Valley School opened in 1948 with sixteen students and a handful of teachers and artists.
Hamilton Warren was raised in New England, a graduate of Harvard College. His mentor at Harvard was Clyde Kluckhohn --- the first president of the modern American Anthropological Association, for twenty-five years the chair of the Department of Anthropology at Harvard, and one of the earliest group of Rhodes Scholars. Clyde Kluckhohn was the one who inspired Hamilton Warren through his reputation as a truly international educator and inspirational teacher. Kluckhohn learned Navajo by the age of fifteen and had set a standard for the importance and value of engaging cultures different from one's own.
Barbara Warren grew up in Guatemala, the child of British coffee finca owners.
Other individuals that helped shape the founding generation of the School included Margaret Mead, one of the century's most articulate exponents of both anthropological studies and progressive education, and John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs during Franklin Roosevelt's administration, and Max Ernst who lived in Sedona for two years in the 1940s when the school was being built. With the assistance of scholars and public figures like these, Ham and Babs determined to establish a school for talented young people. Mindful of the global horrors of World War II and the ravages of ethnocentrism and racism in this country, the Warrens believed that America — indeed the world — needed a school where the values of cultural diversity would be understood and celebrated, not simply studied and tolerated.
In the years since, Verde Valley School has looked internationally, to Germany, Spain, Italy, Vietnam, China and Korea, for other cultures to represent at the school and has continues its efforts to attract Native Americans and Mexicans, which originally formed a percentage of the students.
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