Board of Directors

Board Biographies
Kim Miller
Mrs. Miller is one of the original founders as well as the first and current President of the Board of Directors. As a member of the board she developed the initial and current budgets, wrote grants on behalf of Ridgeview, oversees the business services, and develops the schedule. She also holds a paid job at Ridgeview as the registrar. She held the first meeting and began organizing Ridgeview in the fall of 1999. She had been gathering information on charter schools and charter law since enrolling her children the first Core Knowledge charter school in Fort Collins, Liberty Common School, in 1997. She served on the first accountability committee at Liberty Common School and then chaired the committee for the next two years. She handled the enrollment for Liberty and was an interim office manager in 2000. She also developed the school schedule for Liberty Common School from the fall of 1998 through spring 2001. She graduated from Colorado State University in 1986 with a B.S. in occupational therapy, passed the board exams, and holds the title of OTR. She worked as an occupational therapist at North Colorado Medical Center in Greeley, Colorado, from 1986 - 1993, at which time she had her fourth child. She began practicing occupational therapy again in 1995, working in geriatric rehabilitation until 1999. From 1979-2000 she also owned a gymnastics school where she choreographed and coached gymnastics. She was board president for the GymKats gymnastics team and was instrumental in facilitating fundraising participation in bingo that generated $100,000.00 per year from 1997-1999. She was also the president of the local MADD chapter from 1986-1988. She has been married for 24 years. Her oldest daughter graduated from CSU in May 2007; her twin daughters graduated from Ridgeview in 2007: Katelyn is attending Kansas University and Kelly is attending Ashland University in Ohio. Her son is a freshman at Ridgeview.

Peggy Schunk
Mrs. Schunk is currently Vice President and Secretary of the Board of Directors. She also works at the school as the Enrollment Coordinator and a member of the student services department. Her many duties within these titles include participating in board meetings, decisions and policy making; holding monthly informational meetings to ensure understanding before enrollment; and maintaining the lottery, as well as being the point person for all new families to the school. She fills the role of Secretary for student services, trying to lighten the load of overwhelming legal paper-work in that department. She does all this as well as finding time to volunteer as a parent in the school. Her daughter, Whitney, was in the first high school class that attended all four grades at Ridgeview, graduating in 2005. Her son, Peter, is currently a third grader. Mrs. Schunk believes public education is in trouble in this country and although at first she tried to change the system from within, she soon realized she needed to find a more direct and immediate avenue to pursue. She found that avenue in charter schools. Since then she has devoted her time and energy to making a difference in education in this country. She is very involved in educational reform and wants to ensure education is improved throughout the United States.

Chelli Purcell
Mrs. Purcell was elected to the board of directors in May 2006. She graduated from the University of Kansas with a B.S. in occupational therapy in 1980. She worked as an OT for the Loveland School District. She has volunteered in schools for the past 20 years. She was a member of the Poudre School District parents' advisory board, the boundary committee, and the gifted and talented committee. She was a member of the team at Timnath Elementary School that piloted and developed the policies for PSD's site-based management program. As the mother of three children, ages 25, 23, and 17, she has had children in public, private, and charter schools and home schooled for one summer. She greatly admires parents who home school. Besides volunteering at her children's schools, Mrs. Purcell has served on her neighborhood's HOA board of directors. At her church she has been the director of AWANA programs, taught an ESL class, and was a member of the Women's Events Team. She has been married for 28 years. Her 17-year-old son has been a student at Ridgeview since the school opened in 2001.

Patrick Quadrel
Mr. Quadrel was a member of the original Ridgeview Board of Directors and has two children currently attending the school: a daughter, who was in the inaugural Kindergarten class, and a son who entered Kindergarten in 2005. Mr. Quadrel graduated from Rutgers University in 1983 with a B.S. in economics. In 1986 he became a CPA and received his M.B.A in finance and business policy from the University of Chicago in 1987. He has over 20 years of experience in accounting, investing, and finance as an auditor, controller, financial analyst, proprietary trader, and business manager. He has worked in a variety of entrepreneurial, not-for-profit, investment bank, and international corporate settings. In addition to serving on the Ridgeview Board of Directors, Mr. Quadrel is a youth soccer coach and holds a CSYSA-USSF National D coaching license. He has lived in Fort Collins since 1993.

Laurel Van Maren
Mrs. Van Maren has lived in Fort Collins for 25 years and has been involved in educational reform for close to two decades. She served as an academic advisor to the founders of Ridgeview during the development of the school and is the person who brought the vision of Latin as a requirement to both Liberty and Ridgeview. She has been married to her husband, David, for 27 years and has five sons, two of whom have graduated from Ridgeview Classical Schools. Ridgeview's first Valedictorian was her second son, Emrys, and Ridgeview's Salutatorian in 2006 was her third son, Tristan. Though these achievements are theirs alone, she is proud to be related to these young men who have honored the school and themselves with their intellectual commitment. She is a founding parent of Liberty Common School, served on the Board of Directors there for four years, and is a continuing member of their Academic Advisory Committee. She has served on various other boards in Larimer County over the past 25 years and wrote for the Coloradoan for two years, during which time she made many friends and enemies as a vocal advocate for educational choice. She is a graduate of the University of Wyoming English Department.