Foundation

Meridian School was founded in 1989. A void had been left in Utah County, Utah, after the private Waterford School had relocated from Provo, Utah to Salt Lake City metropolitan area.^[3] The school was formed by a few Brigham Young University professors, nearby businessmen, and Waterford parents.^[4] The school was based at 931 E. Third North, the former location of Waterford School, and rented the building from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City.^[4][5] The school chose its mascot as the mongoose because the mongoose is "small but tough, quick and tenacious".^[5] For the 1989–1990 school year, tuition was set at $2,500 per pupil and $2,000 for every subsequent sibling.^[4] The school aimed to rely on parent volunteers and focus on a liberal arts education. Serving students from preschool to twelfth grade, Meridian also taught students Mormon catechism.^[4] Hal Miller was the school's headmaster when it opened in 1989,^[4] and Kevin Clyde took over as headmaster in 1991.^[5]

In 2004, Meridian bought a private park at Geneva Road and Interstate 15 owned by Geneva Steel's employee group Geneva Recreation Association, planning to move their campus there by 2005.^[6][7] The 14-acre site lacked utilities, which posed an issue for construction and preventing Meridian from moving there.^[8][9] In 2008, after spending 19 years at their original location, Meridian moved to 280 S. 400 East in Orem, Utah, renting the property from Christ Evangelical Church.^[8]

Closing and reopening

In the late 2000s, roughly 10% of Meridian School's students were from a foreign student exchange program. The foreign students largely came from Asia and Central America.^[3] In the 2009–2010 school year, 170 students attended the school.^[3] But in the 2010–2011 school year, only 100 students were enrolled at the beginning of the year.^[3] The school's new head, Dan Smith, a Meridian School alumnus, told the Daily Herald that 100 was a "fragile number" and that "it started changing quickly. We did see something like a run on the banks."^[3] The school closed on August 19, 2010, owing to financial issues and diminishing student enrollment.^[3] In December 2010, parents announced their plans to reopen Meridian as a for-profit school in its earlier location in Provo with former Meridian part-time teacher Tasi Young as its leader.^[10][11] They believed that a for-profit structure would be more sustainable than a non-profit one.^[12]

In the 2011–2012 school year, the school underwent at restructuring and reopened after receiving lasting financial backing from Align International Education Group, an international investing firm. Daniel Wong, a student's father who had international finance experience, contacted the school, spearheading the reopening, and was joined by teachers, parents, and Chinese businesspeople. Meridian signed a "cooperation agreement" with Beijing No.4 High School, a widely known high school in China, in which the two schools would jointly use materials. Meridian planned to have a student exchange program, a teacher exchange program, and summer camps in China and the United States. Roughly 20% of Meridian's high school students in the first year of the agreement would be from China.^[13]

In the 2013–2014 school year, some Meridian teachers created a new school called Arches Academy at the same location in Orem previously used by Meridian. The new school moved away from being a for-profit concentrated on international studies to a non-profit focused on the local community. Arches Academy teaches Singapore math, balanced literacy, and FranklinCovey's The Leader in Me curriculum.^[14]