2020: Summer Newsletter

Dear Parents and Families,

As our community and our country continue to face COVID-19, we are truly blessed to be part of a supporting, comforting, and loving school.  The Board of Trustees is working to ensure that the School has the tools it needs to safely open our campus in the Fall for the 2020-2021 school year.  While this past year has brought us many changes and challenges, it has also brought us opportunity and growth.  From our structure and governance work with Lisa Mahar, the organizational consultant, to our growing and ongoing team-building work with our Faculty and Staff, and looking forward to our new Administrator, Wendy Gittleman, joining us from the Sacramento Waldorf School, the Waldorf School of Palm Beach is ever so bright.  

We look forward to the upcoming 2020-2021 school year with warmth, optimism, and much gratitude to our community.

2020-2021 RE-OPENING PLAN

A NOTE FROM The Management Team

A NOTE FROM OUR NEW ADMINISTRATOR

I wholeheartedly believe in Waldorf Education. As a parent of two Waldorf school graduates I have personally seen how this education supports students to become not only successful and productive adults, but confident and engaged human beings. I want to acknowledge the difficulties and demands that Covid-19 brought to not only our community but the world last year. I want to thank the faculty, community leaders, and parents for having the courage and fortitude to protect and educate our students during this unusual time. As you know, there continues to be concerns and questions regarding this virus. We are all feeling into an uncomfortable space of unknown when thinking of what our school year will look like in the Fall. I want you to know that I take the responsibility to keep our community safe very seriously, it is one of my top priorities not only during this time, but always. My goal is to communicate to the parent body weekly any updates, even if some weeks have little or no change to report. Since I started on Wednesday, I have been monitoring state and county authorities, reading through the WSPB re-opening plan, and familiarizing myself with the building and resources we have available. I am pleased with the room size, outdoor space, and number of bathrooms and sinks available to us and I believe this gives us many options for next year. One of the most important aspects of my work will be building strong relationships with students, teachers, and families. To start the process of getting to know our community, I will be calling each family this week. I would love to hear about your dreams and hopes for WSPB, your children, your concerns, or anything else that is on your mind. I look forward to connecting with each of you. Please feel free to reach out by email or phone at any time.

With gratitude,

Wendy Gittleman
Administrative Director, WSPB
administrator@waldorfschoolpalmbeach.org

AN UPDATE FROM THE BOARD

The Board of Trustees bears legal and financial responsibility for Waldorf School of Palm Beach and is composed of volunteers who are not compensated for their service. This past year, while it did not end as we had hoped, we are happy to share with you our progress and goals for the upcoming year. In September, we celebrated 100 years of Waldorf education by joining thousands of Waldorf schools from around the world and taking an aerial drone photo and video with the image of 100. From the month of October until March of this year, we had the wonderful opportunity to work with Lisa Mahar an organizational consultant to develop and establish structures and processes that will better suit our school as we grow and evolve. The Board of Trustees, Faculty and Parent Council worked together throughout this time to collaboratively improve our governance, roles, responsibilities, and our School as a whole. We are dedicated to continuing with this work. We finished the year with the fantastic accomplishment of hiring our new Administrator, Wendy Gittleman. Wendy will also be responsible for admissions/enrollment for the 2020-2021 school year. She is quickly getting settled in and familiarizing herself with our School, Faculty, Board and Families. We are extremely grateful and excited to have her join us. She brings a wealth of knowledge, expertise and enthusiasm.

Additionally, we finished the year by forming our new Board structure. John Ludwig will be serving as President of the Board of Trustees, Giselle Chia as Vice President of the Board of Trustees and Hardwig Fischer as Treasurer of the Board of Trustees. This year, we dealt with many changes in our Board of Trustees and we want to thank all our past Board Members who dedicated their time and efforts for our school. Tomer Porat and Ivy Dash who stepped down as Co-Chairs of the Board. We are deeply thankful for your commitment and devotion to WSPB and the many ways you helped to move our school forward. It was a privilege to have you leading us. We want to thank our Faculty for joining our meetings and helping us throughout the year and our administrative staff for all their hard work and commitment, Jennifer Sarria, Connie Granja and Patricia Godoy. We sadly said goodbye to two wonderful and incredible members of our administrative staff, Tal Solomon and Britt Gregson. Thank you for the time spent with us. It was a pleasure working with you and we wish you a wonderful and bright future in your new endeavors.

Next year, the Board will be working on continuing to increase our financial well-being. We also look forward to developing structure and processes for our task-specific committees and getting them underway. Our committees consist of the following: Grounds/Security; Marketing/Communications; Governance; Resource Development; and Campus Planning. Our governance work provides the foundation that our school needs to grow and we will remain committed to continuing with this work. Our 2020-2021 goal is to strengthen our communication and trust with Faculty, Administration and Families.

Board of Trustees
board@waldorfschoolpalmbeach.org

President - John Ludwig (jludwig@tekpartners.com)
Vice President - Giselle Chia (giselle@greenberglawgrp.com)  
Treasurer - Hardwig Fischer (hardwig.fischer@gmx.de)

A MESSAGE FROM OUR Faculty

Rosebuds and Apple Blossoms:
Ms. Charissa & Ms. Andrea

The Rosebud & Apple Blossoms have had a very full 2019-2020 school year!  While the two classes began the year as separate classes, after our Holiday Break we came together to form one larger group.  This was an unexpected change but it brought with it many wonderful gifts---new friendships, new experiences, new teachers—and the children thrived.  We spent our days busy with our good work, and whether it be baking, sewing, painting or dishwashing, the children eagerly and joyfully participated.  We heard nature stories and fairy tales, and sang many, many songs to help carry us through our transitions of the day, and through the changing of the seasons.  We jumped, skipped, crawled, twirled, and danced in our circles, and had a wonderful time with our fingerplays and handclapping games.  Outside we were proud of our work in the garden and enjoyed the times we were able to pick herbs or lettuces to nibble on.  Many forts were built, many cakes and ice cream cones were made and sold in the sandbox bakery, many fairy houses were created, and many flowers were picked and gifted to each other.  We had a wonderful year, and are so very much looking forward to our return to school, and being together in person again in the fall!  ~ Ms. Charissa & Ms. Andrea

Buttercup Kindergarten:
Ms. Mindy

We had an amazing year. Many new children joined our Buttercup Kindergarten this year,their families coming from many different countries joining together to create our beautiful school community. We learned new words and customs and songs from our diverse group that we incorporated into our class. The children created wonderful crafts that reflected our seasonal celebrations, beginning with Michaelmas. We learned songs and dances and ate food that reflected and captured the holiday spirit as we moved through the year. The children made many new friendships that will continue to grow and flourish as they move together into first grade. They grew tall like sunflowers, they shined like the stars, and their eyes twinkled with the magic of the fairy tales and their hearts were full love and joy ready for a new day. 

1st Grade: Ms. Wilner

As the young child enters the First Grade, the big transition is coming from play-based learning to becoming part of a class community through form and imitation.  The children learn that we do all that we do together as a class and through imitation everyday the learning is natural.  Form drawing is how we start the year, straight line and curved line, which then leads into learning the letters.  Form drawing also is pre-geometry.

2nd Grade: Ms. Hawk

The exuberant second grader is living in the world of imagination while learning more about the world around us. The Waldorf curriculum met this moment in the second grader's life with stories of fables, saints, and legends of great people. These stories helped the child to ponder the follies of the fable characters and reflect on the consequences, while the stories of saints illuminated the human potential of goodness, strength and the ability to overcome challenges. This year, second graders stepped though an important doorway in their academic learning with the deepening of literacy skills through daily writing and reading, both in groups and individually, and expanded foundational concepts in arithmetic with the learning of the times tables to twelve and place value. Music, form drawing, handwork, gardening, and games were practiced throughout the week in second grade, supporting their growth in many capacities.      

3rd Grade: Ms. Wilner

As young children enter the Third Grade they awaken to the world around them in a new way, and they want to learn how to be in it.  In a Waldorf School the curriculum meets them and teaches them how to cook, garden, weave, measure, and about shelters to name a few of these ways.   During the block about shelters we look at the first shelters human beings lived in, caves, trees, and work our way to modern civilizations.  The class builds a shelter as a class, a lean-to, work in pairs and build a stilt house, and finish the block with an individual project where they choose a shelter from around the world and build a model of it with a written report about it, too.

4th Grade: Ms. Cleveland

In Fourth Grade, students find their feet planted on the earth and from there are able to stand upright and observe the world around them. They find new meaning and understanding of both themselves and their environment. Study of Human and Animal brings deeper insights into the gifts of being human, with focus on the head, heart, and hands. Students discover infinite intelligence found in nature while determining the similarities and differences between humans and animals. Local Native History, Geography and Map Making provide a hands-on learning experience about the land we walk upon, a taste of ancient culture, understanding of the development of mankind, and a clear sense of placement in the world. In Language Arts, study of the Norse Myths present a safe opportunity for students to explore morals. Learning about the Norse Gods, who are not always so “God-like,” allows children to decide for themselves about right and wrong and to become aware of and process mischief, a behavior often displayed by fourth graders. The children are ready to experience more complexity in our world and are happy to learn about fractions, long division, and grammar. Fourth grade is a delightful year in which children encounter deeper levels of thought and learning while simultaneously unfolding greater wisdom in their hearts.

5th Grade: Ms. Hourican

Equipped with the more enhanced 11th-year consciousness, the fifth grade year is known to be one of balance and harmony.  The children were led further into the world through the study of geography and physics, yet brought in towards themselves through the study of the ancient civilizations of the Mayans, Egyptians and Greeks. The children studied botany, language arts, decimal fractions, the metric system, graphing, pentathlon events, German, music, painting, woodworking and clay modeling.

6th Grade: Ms. Bowes

Sixth grade is a year of transition from childhood to adolescence. Rapid physical growth is accompanied by corresponding brain development, which quickens the unfolding abstract thinking. With this came an increasingly complex study of history and geography and the development of Western cultures from the founding of Rome through the growth of chivalry and monastic life during the Middle Ages. Together, we stood with Romulus and Remus, traveled with merchants along the Silk Road, discussed the fears of the citizens of Pompeii during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and, taking our lessons  from Geology considered the thrill of the archaeologists who discovered this important site hundreds of years later. Science and Mathematics become more specific in Sixth grade as well, with the study of Geometry, Geology and Mineralogy, Astronomy, Business Math, and Physics. With Distance Learning, our students were devoted to Physics, both with the recitation of our play, “Archimedes’ Greatest Challenge,” and through our introduction of Physics (with Ms. Hourican’s rising sixth grade class) where we were able to perform several experiments dealing with sound, electricity, and heat. The sixth grade year has been a beautiful combination of academic and artistic growth. 

7th Grade: Ms. Abbade

Seventh Grade is a year of struggle and transformation.  Just like the caterpillar is constrained in the chrysalis and pushes against the boundaries of that cast that no longer serves it, so does the seventh grader, pushing against the boundaries of all authorities and forms that no longer inspire them.   The Waldorf curriculum meets that moment with lessons that explore the dramatic shift in human consciousness through biographies of people who struggled with existing authorities and social institutions to bring about the changes that led to the birth of modern art and science in the Renaissance. They sail with explorers out of known lands into the unknown and protest with the Reformers against an authority they did not believe in.  In Math there are introduced to Algebra while in Language Arts they explore their fervent emotions through Creative Writing.  Chemistry, Physics and Physiology compose the science curriculum.

8th Grade: Ms. Domokos

Eighth grade is the year of the Waldorf grade school when the many seeds planted in the previous years come to fruition. All subjects connect to create a wholesome view of the world. History is intertwined with geography. In organic chemistry they learn how plants produce the nutrient our bodies use and what chemical reactions happen in our digestive system. This year the 8th graders learned to separate gluten from flour, test materials for starches and sugars, make plastic from milk and so many other wonderful "food things". They read biographies of Fredrick Douglass and Mahatma Gandhi, got a taste of dystopian literature and closed the year exploring The Book Thief by Mark Zusak. They visited the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Seminole Museum in the Everglades, The Holocaust Memorial in Miami Beach, FAU's Music Department. They saw Les Miserables at the Broward Center, and played basketball with the Waldorf students from Miami. In history they traveled from the American Revolution to the current day. They tested the boundaries of watercolor painting by making their own paints and using old ones in new ways.

All year long they worked on a project that was special to them. The projects were meant to be presented live before the entire school community. We hope that you got to watch them on YouTube.

On Saturday, the faculty and staff of the school said their emotional good byes to this class in a drive-by graduation. (We'll be sharing pictures soon.)

They are now ready to embark on a new adventure. We wish them good luck as they enter high school. They will be scattered around in Boca High, Spanish River, Broward Prep, Grandview, FAU High and Stoneman Douglass.

A NOTE FROM PARENT COUNCIL

We are deeply grateful to all of the parent community for their contributions of time, talent, and treasure.

For the fall of 2020, there is an opportunity for a new parent to take the lead, as Aline is stepping down as Parent Council Chair. Once a new Chair has been chosen, Aline will be assisting them to transition into this position. We are very thankful for Aline’s commitment to this year! If you look are interested in volunteering for the Parent Council Chair position, please email Aline at aline_cleto@yahoo.com.

2020-2021 School Calendar

United Together

Like you, our thoughts are with those whose lives are affected by this pandemic in our community and around the world. We look forward to a new school year together in 2020-2021. Until then, please know we are with you in spirit. We know that with kindness, patience, and partnership we will get through this together.

With gratitude and wishing you all health and wellness,

Waldorf School of Palm Beach