Bob DeBoer

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DeBoer, Bob Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Minneapolis- based nonprofit A Chance To Grow passed away on February 14, 2020, after a lifelong struggle with the effects of polio. He was 73 years old. Bob was born on January 11, 1947 in Adrian, Minnesota. At a year old, he contracted polio, and spent his early years mainly in hospitals, an experience that gave him insight into how medical systems work, their strengths and weaknesses, which he would later use to help his own daughter. His parents, Gerrit and Bernice DeBoer, were educators, and like his sisters, Bob followed in their footsteps, graduating from Macalester College in 1969 and receiving his M.A. from St. Mary's College. His early professional years involved working with all ages, from directing the development for infants in a childcare center, where he met his wife, Kathy, to later working with "at risk" students, setting the stage for his life's work. In 1979, when daughter Jesse suffered a traumatic brain injury at birth, medical professionals did not offer much hope for her future. The DeBoers refused to accept this and, while studying available research on brain injury, discovered the work of Art Sandler and his neurophysio logical approach linking movement to brain development. He recommended a rigorous program of daily exercises, which they followed for more than four years. Ultimately, Jesse was able to walk, talk and participate in daily life. The DeBoers began sharing this approach with other families of brain- injured children, all the while continuing to research solutions for brain injuries, focusing on brain stem development. By 1983, they had founded A Chance To Grow, a nonprofit whose mission is to promote the maximum development of the whole child and adult through innovative, individualized and comprehensive brain-centered programs and services. From its early beginnings around the DeBoers' kitchen table, ACTG has grown today into a multidisciplinary, multi-service organization, serving thousands of individuals every year at its NE Minneapolis offices, in schools and in homes. Wanting to move beyond helping children with severe brain injury, Bob set out to help children who struggle to learn for any reason. He was a pioneer of the 1980's emerging charter school movement, seeing an opportunity to provide parents with choices about their children's welfare. In the movement's early days, the idea was to try new approaches in the charter schools, then bring them to other public schools. Bob was one of few in the movement who did just that, creating a neuro-developmental approach called S.M.A.R.T. and then bringing it into traditional schools. Today more than 7000 educators use the S.M.A.R.T. approach in schools across the country. Bob was instrumental in the opening of two schools the New Visions Academy in Minneapolis, and the Jane Goodall Environmental Sciences Academy, in Maple Lake, MN. In 2017 he received the Minnesota Charter School Pioneer Award from the MN Association of Charter Schools. ACTG's growth was the product of Bob's vision, his knowledge of both the medical and educational systems, and his enduring commitment to helping at-risk children and their families. Bob instilled in agency staff the importance of multi-disciplinary approaches that take into account the well being of both child and parents. Every service and program is based on the two ingredients that led Bob and Kathy to help Jesse and thousands of others the unlimited hope of a parent's dreams for their child to grow to their highest potential and the application of the latest research on the neuro-physiological development of the brain. Bob is survived by his wife, Kathy, his daughter Jesse, sisters Leslie (Wayne) Giese and Marti (David Haddock) DeBoer and nieces Cara (Dan) Spainhour, Valerie (Tyler), Adrienne and Blayne Barnhardt and Erin (Jeff) Haddock. In lieu of flowers, the family requests those wanting to honor Bob to make donations to A Chance To Grow at actg.org/…. A memorial will be held at A Chance to Grow in Minneapolis on May 30, 2020 at 1:00 p.m. Invitations will be sent. Isaiah 35:6 ~ Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.

Published on February 23, 2020