Alliance e-News

Dear Colleagues,

New Growth!

This edition is centered on growth and harvesting, certainly appropriately for the season as our Northern Hemisphere days draw shorter and the produce at farmers' markets changes from summer bounty to the less showy (but no less delicious) crops of Fall. Goodbye stone fruit and luscious berries; hello and welcome pumpkins, dark leafy greens, root crops, apples, and pears!

In this seasonal mood, we are delighted to announce our new Director of School Development and Membership! After an extensive search process, we are thrilled that Sarah Arnold has accepted our offer and will begin in her new role this week. We received many strong, varied applications and are very grateful for the time and attention candidates put into these. Our work is filled with talented, passionate people. Sarah is introducing herself below; she brings many years of experience in Waldorf education, including establishing and running a pre-school program and serving as the founding director of Northeast Woodland Chartered Public School. She has served on the WECAN (Waldorf early childhood) and Alliance Boards, and in her role with WECAN, participated with one of our important partners, the Ideal Learning Round Table. Sarah brings a grounded, thoughtful approach to her work. She listens carefully and balances thinking and action. She is both scholarly and practical. You will soon see her priorities and talents at work.

We knew that there would be interest in this new position and wanted to ensure a fair, transparent selection process. Two former Alliance Board members, Dr. Allegra Alessandri and Nikki Lloyd, both former directors of Alliance schools but not currently active in the Alliance, joined me in a review of almost 40 candidates. We each independently reviewed and evaluated resumes and letters of interest; from this, several candidates were selected for further assessment. Our evaluation was unanimous; based on the job description, her experience, and the current needs of the Alliance, Sarah emerged as the right person for this job at this time. Thank you so much, Allegra and Nikki, for your time and expert guidance in this important process.

This is a very significant step for the Alliance and I am personally grateful to the Board for recognizing and addressing the need. We have had one full-time employee since 2022 with continued strong support from volunteers, primarily our Board members (a reminder that this work was built on a tradition of the work of committed, knowledgeable volunteers). We have also been supported by an administrative assistant, currently Carly Fedor, and, more recently, in our summer professional development and annual conference, Melanie Medina. We have achieved a lot in that time, and our membership continues to grow. The needs have grown as well, and we have been confronting capacity limitations. The Board recognized this and agreed to this exciting expansion. Sarah and I will initially partner on planning, school site visits, and building membership services. We will then start to differentiate our efforts, all in service of providing more support, greater visibility, and contributing our voice to the needs of education at this challenging time in human history.

Welcome, Sarah!

Sarah Arnold

Director of School Development and Membership

“I am thrilled at the opportunity to join the Alliance in this exciting moment for Public Waldorf Education. I can’t wait to begin my work supporting all our schools on their developmental paths, and assisting new groups as they work to write and implement new charters or develop new district programs.”

Read Sarah's full bio →

Harvesting from Our Fields

We are delighted to introduce a new feature in our E-news: focus on the remarkable, innovative work that is being done within our schools and by individuals within our Public Waldorf movement. Fall, the “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”, seems an ideal time to start gathering our bounty for all to share. We will include this once a month; if your school has an innovation (e.g. in festivals or curriculum) that you would like to share, please contact us. If you, or someone you know, is breaking new ground with a project or activity, please let us know.

Our first “crop” is an oral history project by teacher Roel op ‘t Ende, Voices of Waldorf Elders. This work is gaining attention and is being recommended for good reason: Roel has been busy conducting interviews with respected elders within Waldorf education to capture their rich biographies. The results are very individual, detailed, and fascinating. Roel brings sensitive listening to each session and creates a space in which our elders can reflect on their careers, their thoughts on Waldorf education today, and lessons learned. You may not have met, or even heard of some of these individuals, but they are a true fund of knowledge and source of inspiration for our work.

Recordings can be accessed at https://www.youtube.com/@VoicesofWaldorfElders.

The series is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts under *Voices of

Waldorf Elders*. There are 13 interviews currently available, with more to come.

Thank you so much, Roel, for this initiative. I only wish we had thought of this for some of the voices that are no longer with us - thinking particularly of my dear friend and mentor Betty Staley, who gave so much to the development of Public Waldorf!

Roel op ‘t Ende was born and educated in the Netherlands. He is a Waldorf alum and has been a Waldorf teacher for over 15 years. In addition to teaching in the Netherlands, Roel has experience in three Public Waldorf charter schools: Wasatch, Credo High, and currently at Sebastopol. He is active in teacher education and carries a passion for teaching 1and the questions of today.