Waldorf Education Options
We turned in Lucas’s application to Kindergarten at Sacramento Waldorf School today.
Technically we are applying to Pre-Kindergarten, but since the Pre-K and K years are mixed into the same room with the same teacher (4, 5, and 6-year-olds together), it amounts to the same thing. Because we turned in our application on time, we are guaranteed to get a parent/teacher/student interview in the coming weeks. I’m looking forward to this dialog with the K teacher and observing Lucas’s interaction with her as a mean of determining whether he’ll be ready to go there at 4.25 years old next fall.
We also attended a Parent Information Meeting at the Golden Valley Charter School. This is a Waldorf Methods charter school that is about the same distance from our house (in the opposite direction as Sac Waldorf School on the way to Ian’s office) and is a public school. That’s right: Public school, as in FREE. Well, they do want you to contribute money to help fund the school, but this option would be MUCH cheaper than private school tuition. Unfortunately–or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint–the charter school must adhere to State testing standards, must deal with the No Child Left Behind legislative mandates, must be absorbed into San Juan Unified School District, etc. This school must fight to survive, to attract teachers with credentials and Waldorf training, to get parents on board with contributions and volunteerism, to get funding through attendance, etc. While they are valiantly trying to implement a Waldorf curriculum, they have a lot of outside influences that they must contend with. Then there’s the fact that the school is in an old SJUSD school with it’s typical grey military barracks aesthetic. They’re not even allowed to paint the walls of the classrooms.
I would love not to pay the tuition. Yet, I hate the insecurity of the charter and the possibility that it could cease to exist at some point, or be forced to move to another school site because they’re only renting. It looks like we’ll either have money stress for the next 14 years or political/security stress. I am not at all sure which I would prefer.
We will likely apply to Golden Valley too. Ian pragmatically mentioned that we could try GV for a year and get one year of free Kindergarten (saving $6 to $8K), and then transfer if we don’t like it.
We can also keep Lucas at Hidden Treasure Nursery another year. We like it there. I guess it’s good to have options.
Although I would love to be plotting out my master’s degree and adding a bunch of art and creative writing classes to my already full schedule, I must settle, for the time being, on obsessing about my son’s education.
