Washington Waldorf School?

[Anonymous]

Feedback and Tuition please?

[Anonymous]

I was wondering the same thing after reading that NYT article

[Anonymous]

Can't find anything about tuition on their website

[Anonymous]

I posted this on a previous WWS thread. I have a child in the Lower School, and i believe the tuition is about 18 or 19K for the lower school and less for the Children's Garden (pre-K and K).

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The best way to get educated about WWS is by calling them and asking for a tour. Waldorf has its huge fans and also its detractors. The education works amazingly for some and resonates with some families, and totally doesn't work or doesn't resonate with others. We have one child at WWS and another at another school. The Waldorf approach mostly resonates with our family but doesn't work for one of our children, who needs much more direct instruction. When Waldorf work well, it is beautiful - the most ideal (in my view) combination of academics, arts, music, moral education, respect for and integration of nature, etc. But as a parent, you have to be OK with the European model of delayed intro to formal academics until 1st grade, and you have to be comfortable with the spiritual (though not religious) undertones to some aspects of the school. I went through a Waldorf school myself (not WWS) and so am comfortable with the delayed intro to academics as I know from my own experience as well as from the research that although Waldorf children tend to test about a year behind public school children through fourth grade, thereafter they tend to test about a year ahead and have excellent HS and college placements. But the best way to decide if this works for you is to see the education in process for yourself. Go visit - ask questions - get a feel if it will work for you.

Here is info from the WWS website http://www.washingtonwaldorf.org/AboutUs_091906.html

The Washington Waldorf School's mission is to cultivate each student’s capacity to think clearly, feel compassionately, and act purposefully in the world. We are committed to the educational movement inspired by the pioneering work of Rudolf Steiner and advanced by Waldorf teachers worldwide.

The Washington Waldorf School has certain timeless values that are the basis of our thoughts and actions. These core values guide our choices, define our courses, and establish our direction. We summarize our core values as follows:

- The Healthy Development of Children and Adolescents
- A Balanced, Dynamic Curriculum
- Meaningful Teacher-Student Relationships
- Exceptional Teaching
- A Diverse and Inclusive Community
- A Respect for Nature
- Moral Discernment
- An Active Spiritual Life

[Anonymous]

We pulled our two children, then K and grade 3, out of Montgomery County Public School three years ago to put them in the Washington Waldorf School. My daughter was stressed about the (pointless, endless) homework and about the standardized testing. She--a great reader and a smart kid--said she hated going to school (where she was very happy socially, by the way, and for the most part had very devoted teachers.)

What an attitude change! We have been thrilled with the school and its curriculum. The emphasis on unplugging your children from screens at home has also been a great change--our kids now fight less, read and draw more, and best of all, play outside much more!

Please note that many, many families (including ours) receive financial aid at Washington Waldorf; its tuition is the lowest in the DC area for a private non-parochial school from what I can see, excepting the German school.

What other questions can I answer for posters? We love the school and both kids are very, very happy!

[Anonymous]

My daughter graduated from WWS last year and is now at an academically demanding college. Although she and her classmates never took a standardized test prior to the PSAT, they all did phenomenally well on the SAT and were much sought after by a number of selective colleges and universities.

I can't say that our journey through Waldorf was an easy one. Being different from my public school education, I spent a fair amount of time reading up on the philosophy in order to understand the underpinnings of the education. But my husband and I have concluded that our daughter's Waldorf education was the best investment of time and money we've ever made.

T

[Anonymous]

Our child is also a graduate of the Washington Waldorf School. I would recommend it to anyone, with one important caveat. It may appear that in the early grades children are not moving at the same pace as children in the same grade elsewhere. Ideally, parents will be comfortable with this difference and recognize that the what's being cultivated is a love of learning and a solid educational foundation. By about the third grade, Waldorf starts to accelerate and the program becomes much more demanding. The middle school and high school are very rigorous.

Because Waldorf is a balanced and comprehensive education, children are challenged not just academically, but in the fine arts, music, crafts, movement, and so much more.

As someone mentioned above, WWS has a generous financial aid program. While we didn't receive financial aid while at WWS, our child received an academic scholarship that's about equal to what we paid for WWS high school tuition. It's almost as if we got a rebate.

[Anonymous]

My daughter graduated from WWS last year and is now at an academically demanding college. Although she and her classmates never took a standardized test prior to the PSAT, they all did phenomenally well on the SAT and were much sought after by a number of selective colleges and universities.

I can't say that our journey through Waldorf was an easy one. Being different from my public school education, I spent a fair amount of time reading up on the philosophy in order to understand the underpinnings of the education. But my husband and I have concluded that our daughter's Waldorf education was the best investment of time and money we've ever made.

Did your daughter use one of the local prep services for the PSAT and/or SAT or did she prep on her own?

[Anonymous]

"While we didn't receive financial aid while at WWS, our child received an academic scholarship that's about equal to what we paid for WWS high school tuition. It's almost as if we got a rebate."

I should clarify that the academic scholarship was for college.

[Anonymous]

"Did your daughter use one of the local prep services for the PSAT and/or SAT or did she prep on her own?"

She used the practice tests on the College Board website.

[Anonymous]

Thanks

[Anonymous]

They hold a bazaar in Novemeber and if you are really interested in the school it is well worth checking out. You can see examples of the kids school work and classrooms. It was actually going and seeing some of the classroom work that turned me off and realized it wasn't for us. There were some writtings from the kids about saints that didn't actually exist and I couldn't quite figure out what the basis was - was it actually something they taught the kids, was it something the kids made up, was it some sort of religion class??? I just wasn't comfortable with the curriculum. I loved the actual bazaar though!

[Anonymous]

We have two children at the Washington Waldorf School and we are extremely happy with this school.
It's hard to explain Waldorf education briefly - I encourage anyone interested to visit an Open House. You can find
dates on the website or by calling the school. It's an amazing place once you learn about it - but that can take some time.
We started with a parent-child class and thought we would only stay for pre-school. But as you slowly learn more
about the richness of the education it is hard to leave.

The reasons we make big financial sacrifices to send our two children to WWS are many. Our children like school, WWS makes
learning active and fun. The teachers are exceptional, have gone through special training and are very devoted to teaching and to each child.
Teachers feel more like family members than random teachers. The educational approach is always geared towards what is appropriate for each age
of the child, which has been thought about very carefully. (They did not "officially" teach my daughter to read chapter books until about second grade,
but the benefit of waiting and not pushing is that she now really loves to read! She always has a book in her hand at home.) They also spend a lot of time outside, in nature -
an activity that is lost on many children now. Creativity and each child's artistic side is also developed. In short - they help create well rounded children
who are creative, big thinkers, respect nature, and they let them enjoy a simple old-fashioned childhood. The children are surrounded each day in beauty.
It's too hard to explain in a post - you have to go visit and see for yourself. If you are lucky and your children are under 6 you have discovered Waldorf right in time!

[Anonymous]

I'm one of the PPs whose child goes to WWS, responding to 20:51's comment, "There were some writtings from the kids about saints that didn't actually exist and I couldn't quite figure out what the basis was - was it actually something they taught the kids, was it something the kids made up, was it some sort of religion class???"

One of the foci of the second grade curriculum is to study saints and fables: saints represent the highest, most "pure" form of human being, whereas fables represent the lowest form. As with all of Waldorf, the choice of saints and fables for second grade is very carefully made; anyone who has had a 7-8 year old knows that these little beings often embody all that is pure and also all that is base, all at the same time, so what better time for them to learn about these in history and myth.

The definition of "saint" is very broad -- and also what I would say is non-religious, though certainly it IS spiritual in that there is definite value - and judgment of "good" - placed on the acts and beings of those who give to the poor, care for the weak, nurture the needy, etc. In my daughter's second grade class last year they looked at especially good human beings from a whole range of beliefs and religions, and I, through my daughter, learned about saints I had not heard of before --- but this doesn't mean that they were "made up;" in fact, they all derived from different traditions and different sets of beliefs, ones that I had not been exposed to in my own combined Christian/Jewish background.

This bringing together of beliefs and drawing from a very international, multi-ethnic, multicultural, interdisciplinary base for the curriculum is part of what we love so much about the Waldorf school -- and part of what I am sure attracts such a nicely diverse population to the school. In one class of 23 children, we have several Jewish families of varying strains of Judaism, several Muslim families (again, of different strains), a fundamentalist Christian family, several atheists, and a whole range of folks of general Christian belief. There is also real ethnic and racial diversity, as well as a nice range of class diversity (rare in a DC private school).

Overall, if you're not comfortable with the idea of spiritual underpinings to a curriculum, then Waldorf isn't right for you. But it's distinct from "religion" per se, and certainly there are no religious beliefs pushed at all.

[Anonymous]

22:20 are you Jewish? I toured the school and got a sort of weird vibe that there was a somewhat Christian orientation although "some of my best friends are Jewish".