What is Washington Waldorf like? Similar to Oneness?

[Anonymous]

Just wondering what the difference might be in curriculum, philosphy, teaching styles...Also, class sizes in early grades, culture of the school...Nice community of parents, or not?

[Anonymous]

For what it's worth, here is what I took away from open houses at each--

I think they share some similarities in that they are both "crunchy", generally progressive education.

However, Waldorf has a very specific educational philosophy/school culture. Much of the school year is oriented around Christian holidays (not just Christmas, but Michaelmas and others for the other seasons). We were told "oh there's always some Jewish families here too" but personally it was an odd note that I wasn't 100% comfortable with as a non-Christian (I don't think that they are religious, but they seem to be culturally Christian, if that makes sense).

Waldorf also is big on movement, but does not teach reading until later grades. This makes many parents uncomfortable, and I think it makes it hard to go from Waldorf to another school if you decide you don't like it in, say, 4th grade. Waldorf will tell you their kids end up liking reading more and being ahead of the game at the end though.

Oneness is more of a Montessori/Reggiano approach-- although they don't seem very doctrinaire about it. Their guiding principle seems to be educate kids to be citizens of the world spreading peace. They are big on internationalism, multi-culturalism and conflict resolution. They are also (I think) much smaller (at least in later grades, say 6-8) than Waldorf (and their physical facilities are more limited). Oneness does offer aftercare (I can't remember if Waldorf did).

In the end I think we were closer to sending our child to Oneness for pre-k, but ended up deciding we couldn't justify the cost (it wasn't so much the monthly tuition/aftercare as the additional costs for summer and days off during the year).

[Anonymous]

I have a friend who sends her kids there. She likes it a lot because it emphasizes creativity so much, but she works on reading at home with her kids since they start it so late there. She is not Christian, but has never mentioned anything about the school's take on religion to me.