Retired superintendent’s nonprofit gives overworked educators space to heal
Courtesy of Tom Clooney, Wild Heart Teacher
On the edge of Mueller State Park in Teller County lies a haven for public educators who have been beaten down by the work they love.
With the new school year now in full swing, 35 teachers from across the country returned to their classrooms with a renewed sense of passion and purpose, following a three-day retreat at John Wesley Ranch in early August.
In a shakeup from her classwork, Ohio elementary schoolteacher Cathy Walden found herself with other educators learning how to work with and tend to rescued horses as part of improving their own mental, emotional and cognitive well being in a session of equine-assisted learning.
Every summer, the nonprofit organization Wild Heart Teacher hosts a series of retreats for teachers and school faculty from across the country at the idyllic estate, offering them space to connect as they take in the splendor of Colorado and reflect on recent difficult years.
“I thought it was great. I really did,” said Walden over the phone, now back in her classroom. “There were a lot of people sharing personal stories about the effects that teachers or students had on them and it just brought it back to why we do what we do and why we love what we do.”
Ohio elementary schoolteacher Cathy Walden grooms American Quarter Horse Angel at Faithful Hearts Equine Learning Center in Woodland Park Aug. 5.
What began as a hike up Crags Trail and some painting sessions has expanded to a variety of activities that include a stroll through Garden of the Gods, shopping sprees in Manitou Springs, a relaxing soak in a Buena Vista hot springs and lessons on fly-fishing and playing the guitar.
Despite the flurry of activity and adventure, attendees can also opt for a more low-key getaway.
“I have one teacher from Kansas City who’s been here every year and there’s a spot on that deck out there (behind the ranch) where she likes to sit and read books,” said Wild Heart Teacher founder Steve Woolf. “That’s it. That’s what she likes to do.”
Motivational speaker and former teacher Kevin Honeycutt teaches a group of teachers how to play the guitar at John Wesley Ranch Aug. 5.
The organization’s mission is to empower teachers and the work they do for their students through recreational opportunities and professional development sessions.
As the former superintendent of Woodland Park School District RE-2, Woolf said he began the nonprofit after witnessing firsthand the recent attrition on teachers.
“It’s hard for a teacher to light a kid’s fire if theirs is out, or to fill their cup when theirs is empty,” he said. “So that’s our goal: to fill their cup and light their fire.”
Also recognizing the financial limitations of a teacher’s salary and local school district budgets, Wild Heart Teacher only requires that attendees pay $150 upfront, $100 of which they get refunded if they stay all three days, and that they purchase their own airplane ticket. All other amenities, including food, lodging and transportation, are covered.
Upon completing the retreat, attendees will also receive a certificate for 10 hours of professional development credit.
For teachers like Heather Anderson from Missouri, the experience has been transformative.
“The past couple of years, I felt like I was in a funk and not quite sure if I wanted to continue,” she said. “But my goal was always to teach for 30 years. So, I was struggling with ‘Do I go ahead and just quit?’”
Other components of the retreat include guest speakers sharing personal stories about how the educators in their lives inspired them.
“And I’m sitting there thinking, ‘I used to be that teacher.’ And I haven’t been that teacher in the last two years,” Anderson said.
Teachers line up to embrace high school teacher Heather Anderson, who was moved to tears during a speech by Wild Heart Teacher volunteer Marilyn Gray (pictured third from the left).
‘An extraordinary mission’
The initial year of cohorts, or “tribes” as they are called, was financed solely by Woolf. He originally intended to host them at his home while still working as Woodland Park’s superintendent, but capacity constraints kept this from ever happening.
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The John Wesley Ranch, located less than a mile away, soon piqued his interest as a possibility.
Purchased by the First United Methodist Church in 1957, the ranch is available to rent for private events, lodging and camping on its 120 acres throughout the year. Familiar with the property and what it offers, Woolf began began hosting three-day retreats there since summer 2021.
As social media buzz and word of mouth about Wild Heart Teacher grew over the years, so did the donors who believed in the nonprofit’s mission. Former classmates, colleagues and even students of Woolf’s have become regular financial contributors, including the Finnup Foundation, the Reed Family Foundation and Aon President and CEO Greg Case.
“Steve and the team at Wild Heart have undertaken an extraordinary mission to reinforce the power of education … one educator at a time,” Case told The Gazette.
“Their work provides a valuable source of renewal, insight, and energy for teachers at different points in their careers. And the work also provides a forum for teachers to network and interact with other professionals seeking to make a difference in the face of increasing demands and challenges.”
Despite Woolf’s personal faith and the religious ownership of the ranch, Wild Heart Teacher is a secular organization open to all school teachers and staff.
And despite the inclusion of “teacher” in the nonprofit’s name, all attendees are referred to as “staffulty.” The reason for this is that Woolf also recognizes the role staff members like bus drivers and librarians can have in inspiring students and ensured that they are welcomed and treated the same as teachers.
Teachers learn how to paint at John Wesley Ranch as part of Wild Heart Teacher’s three-day retreat Aug. 5.
Angie Sallee has taught in various schools across Missouri, Oklahoma and Georgia and is a high school librarian in University City, Mo. She has attended the retreats since 2022 and says they’ve led to stronger school cultures and leadership roles for her.
This summer marked the first year Sallee returned as a volunteer. She said she wanted to make sure that she wasn’t taking a spot from someone who may be coming for the first time.
“It’s what we do here. We get filled up, we go back, and then we count the days until we’re back on the mountain,” she said. “It’s already marked on my calendar, and I already have one new person that’s agreed to come.”
Today’s public education
While Woolf identified a solution to a need nationwide, he admitted that he underestimated the impact it would ultimately have on people.
“I didn’t realize how big of a recovery this would be for teachers who were going through trauma, frankly,” Woolf said. “And that’s a wonderful side benefit that I did not see coming.”
Woolf explained how he noticed communities’ respect and admiration toward the teaching profession dwindle over his decadeslong career in public education. Among the reasons he suspected were the rise of vitriol spread through social media and increased scrutiny toward public education since the pandemic.
“Teachers became an easy target, because teachers can’t bully back, and they have to sit there and take it,” he said. “So, who’s going to help them recover from that? We knew that the last five years have cost them something.”
On a systematic level, veteran teachers also shared how they were forced to adjust how they taught in their classrooms. Anderson said that an increased emphasis on regular testing and standardized curriculum has impeded the ways that teachers like her could instruct and connect with their students.
“So, it’s almost like it’s an assembly line,” she said of teaching today. “And that’s what really started to bother me. They want us to have grace and make connections with these kids, but we’re not allowed to share anything (personally), and I used to be able to do that.”
Home life outside of school and postsecondary opportunities were mentioned as topics that she used to discuss with her students on an empathetic level, but no longer can.
Walden noted that, since the pandemic’s remote instruction via laptops and tablets, electronic screens have become mainstays in public education, which she believes is stunting the development of younger students’ reading and writing skills. Specifically, she thinks the time now spent typing on a screen versus writing on paper could be time spent on mastering these skills.
A 2021 study conducted by the academic journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience suggested that the motor functions of handwriting lead to greater memorization of new words and more positive moods during learning compared to keyboard typing.
As in other states across the country, test scores in Colorado nosedived following the pandemic and state education departments have worked to regain this lost ground ever since.
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Compounding stunted growth is further screen time outside of school. Walden said she’s noticed students coming to her class tired and unable to focus, which she suspects is due to late-night screen time depriving them of sleep.
Palmer High School social studies teacher Paul Blakesly told The Gazette that, along with declining reading and writing skills, he noticed more students struggling to regulate their emotions, which he believes is influenced by screen addiction.
“They are so wrapped up in technology and kids are hiding behind their screens,” he said. “I would guess, for many students, it’s the social anxiety that causes them to not show up.”
In Anderson’s case, she’s noticed a decline in student accountability on the high school level ever since the pandemic. She said what began as “offering grace” during the first year back in school has carried over into following years, degrading the value of grades and students’ work ethic.
“We’re now at year four (after the pandemic) and starting year five and we’re still saying ‘Have some grace,’” she said. “At the high school level, we are doing them (the students) a disservice.”
Among the fallouts have been veteran educators burning out and retiring early. Those who have continued to teach then took on greater workloads to account for lingering staffing gaps in their schools.
Despite the mounting pressures, the remaining teachers feel they’re needed just as much now, if not more so.
“We’re impacting lives and it’s not just for one day,” Walden said. “For some kids, it’s the rest of their lives.”
Personal healing
While experiencing the natural wonder and local charms of El Paso and Teller counties was undoubtedly memorable, the final tribe of 2025 largely agreed that the breakout sessions and self-care lessons were their biggest takeaways.
In Anderson’s case, she admitted that the retreat was the first chance to care for herself after years of solely focusing on the well-being of her family and students.
“I thought that I was coming here to figure out why I became a teacher and get back to that. I had no idea of all the personal healing that would start to occur or get me going on that path,” she said. “And maybe that personal healing is how I get back to why I became a teacher in the first place.”
Anderson plans to talk with administrators to find “the baseline” of how she can build relationships with her students so she can inspire them.
With years of success and growth to look back on, Woolf hopes that similar programs will start up throughout the country to offer more educators what Wild Heart Teacher provides.
“We’ve got to find leaders in our communities who will stand up and raise this profession again,” he said. “Because without these teachers and public education, our society does not work.”
Gazette’s Grace Brajkovich contributed to this report.
