“We owe it all to Courtney’s intention to revolutionize an educational system that was pretty stuck in the past,” Tom Sturtevant, the head of school at the Ross School, said this week.
Mr. Sturtevant was remembering Courtney Sale Ross, who in 1991 co-founded the school with her husband, the late Steve Ross.
“Courtney thought big,” Mr. Sturtevant said. “She had a vision to create an education that would suit a future that was, at that time even, rapidly globalizing, introducing technology in new ways and having a lot of new kinds of political and social discourse — frankly, we’re still in that phase, but at the next level. So, the education she designed asks for students to be more creative, technically skilled at the same time, socially agile, problem solvers.”
Ms. Sale Ross transitioned to the role of trustee emeritus on the school’s board in 2018. “I am proud of all we have accomplished in our first 27 years,” she said at a celebration attended by more than 400 members of the Ross community. “The upcoming integration of the Lower School into the East Hampton campus fulfills our goal of creating a sustainable prenursery to postgraduate school in one location, which allows students of all ages to interact with and learn from one another. . . . I look forward to the school’s future guided by a new generation of leaders.”
Ms. Sale Ross, who was also a documentary filmmaker, died on June 1 in Malibu, Calif. Her daughter, Nicole, was with her.
“Courtney elected the Ross School motto to be ‘Know thyself, in order to serve’ as a beacon of hope for a better world,” according to an announcement of Ms. Sale Ross’s death issued by the school.
“Service is the end point of a great education,” agreed Mr. Sturtevant, who said he had seen Ms. Sale Ross just a few months ago. “Not the kind that’s like, ‘I did this that helped other people,’ but ‘I was able to strengthen a community through an idea I developed and was able to cultivate.’ Beyond ‘I give you something you want,’ to ‘I can create the conditions for others to thrive in meaningful ways.’ ”
Ms. Sale Ross, he said, was “courageous, generous, bold in her thinking — always asking harder questions of herself as well, never satisfied with just good, always looking to get to the next level.”
Courtney Sale was born in Texas on March 12, 1948, to Elbert B. Sale and Gloria Stephan Sale. She grew up in Bryan, Tex., and graduated from the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Md., and Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
In the 1970s, following her graduation, she opened an art gallery in Dallas before relocating to New York a few years later. There she established herself as a pioneering art curator. At the request of then-Gov. Hugh Carey, she curated an exhibition of public works, breaking with the tradition of presenting art in chronological order.
She and Mr. Ross, the chief executive and chairman of Warner Communications at the time, met through mutual friends in 1982. They married that year at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. Their daughter was born in June of the following year.
As a filmmaker, she produced “Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones,” a 1990 portrait of the legendary composer and producer, following the art documentary “Strokes of Genius,” an exploration of the creative processes, philosophies, and studio habits of artists including Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Franz Kline.
Ms. Sale Ross and her husband were devoted supporters of the arts and collectors of modern art. They traveled the world, and shared a vision for education that would come to life with the founding of the Ross School. Mr. Ross died in 1992, the year after the school opened.
Ms. Sale Ross developed the Ross Learning System and, in 1995, pioneered K-12 Ross School Global Spiral Curriculum, which is rooted in the concept of teaching the evolution of human consciousness through a chronological, interconnected lens. She personally designed the grade 12 curriculum as a recapitulation of the spiral curriculum, with a focus on art history and culminating in senior projects built around each student’s passions.
A book, “Educating the Whole Child for the Whole World: The Ross School Model and Education for the Global Era,” was praised by luminaries including Jones, who died in 2024, Oprah Winfrey, and Deepak Chopra. “Courtney Ross has devoted her life to holistic education for young people,” Mr. Chopra wrote. “ ‘Educating the Whole Child for the Whole World’ tells the marvelous story of how one day they will be our future leaders and help create a peaceful, just, sustainable, and healthy society.”
Ross students “will be at the top of their fields 10 years out,” Mr. Sturtevant said. Ms. Sale Ross “dreamed of this educational experience that really engaged kids as to who they were, and created a set of standards and a level of excellence that got them to develop really good work.”
Ms. Sale Ross adapted the Ross School model to public schools in Stockholm, and founded one of New York City’s only charter schools with an open-admissions lottery. She served as a board member or adviser to the Asia Society, New York University, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California, and the United Nations Association of the United States. She was named honorary chairwoman of a Pontifical Academy of Sciences workshop on children and sustainable development, and in 2016 she received the inaugural UCLA Global Citizen Award.
Along with her daughter, Ms. Sale Ross is survived by three grandchildren, Kitt, Benji, and Sadie, two sisters, Stephanie and Lynsey, and five nieces and nephews, Alexis, Maine, Zachary, Cheney, and Siri.
A celebration of her life will be announced at a future date. Her family has suggested memorial contributions to the Ross School, 18 Goodfriend Drive, East Hampton 11937.
