Welcome to Summerfield Waldorf
Summerfield Waldorf School & Farm is a top-rated, AWSNA & WASC-accredited private school located on a 38-acre campus in beautiful Sonoma County. The school was established in 1974 by parents who wanted to offer an educational experience to their children that balanced academic rigor, arts, and farm work. As an established school with a 50-year history, we offer a deep curriculum, and are the only school in the state that integrates a working Demeter Certified Biodynamic® farm into its campus and curriculum along with parent & infant classes, Preschool, Kindergarten, Lower School (G1-G8), and High School (G9-G12).
Best Private School
In Sonoma County, Seven Years Running
Picturesque orchards, vineyards, and dairies abound around the school campus. Many of our hills and mountains are still truly wild and offer hikers and bikers miles of trails to explore. Many local farmers are using organic and Biodynamic® methods, with their bounties found in our markets and restaurants. This is the setting our students and families enjoy!
The Summerfield community honors the sacred earth upon which our school and farm stands, and we acknowledge that our campus is located on the traditional lands of the Southern Pomo People. We pay our respects to Pomo elders both past and present and recognize that this land was not given freely, but rather, it is stolen land from which the Pomo People were removed by force. We recognize that it is upon this legacy that we build our community today.
In the spirit of truth and reconciliation, may we, the Summerfield Community, keep in our hearts and minds the complex truths of our country’s history. And may we continue to work towards a healthy culture and society that warmly welcomes all People, cares for our Mother Earth, and encourages the flourishing of our inner spiritual life.
A Welcome Message from our All-School Director
Kalen Wood
We honor the vision and commitment of our founders, and the hundreds of families who have enrolled and contributed to the evolution of Summerfield Waldorf School and Farm. Fifty years of supporting students to grow into competent, capable, happy adults is our proud legacy. We know that families choose Waldorf because they believe their child will benefit from an education that sees their uniqueness and fosters their development into whole human beings through the development of healthy will forces, a compassionate emotional life and clear thinking expressed through creative and constructive actions.
What are the benefits of being part of Summerfield Waldorf School and Farm? Rudolf Steiner hoped to build a future society in which we can fully develop as human beings. This education was designed for our times.
At Summerfield, our curriculum includes:
-
Parent toddler, preschool, kindergarten, and grades 1-12, the entire developmental arc!
-
Education is designed to foster individual qualities and purpose, interest in others, and the capacity to contribute meaningfully to the world.
-
Our faculty are acknowledged as experienced and dedicated professionals. In our recent accreditation cycle, the quality of instruction was noted as superior. The school has won Best Private School for the seventh year in a row by readers of the North Bay Bohemian. The school also won additional recognition for Best Preschool and Best Kids Education Center.
-
Board members are invested in the mission of the school.
-
An excellent operational staff facilitates the business of our non-profit organization.
-
Parents and caregivers are supported in their efforts to provide a healthy home life in community with other like-minded families.
-
Our site includes a nature preserve, Demeter Certified Biodynamic® farm and circus program that enriches the academic and artistic education offered to all students.
Kalen Wood, All-School Director
Summerfield Waldorf School & Farm
Our Mission
Our mission is to offer the students of Summerfield Waldorf School & Farm a comprehensive learning environment designed to challenge and support them in strengthening their cognitive, emotional, and intentional abilities; and support the growth of social awareness and active tolerance, giving students the experiential background they need to meet new challenges in a creative and responsible manner.
Summerfield graduates will have learned:
- Sense of Self: A clear sense of their strengths, weaknesses, gifts, and challenges...and will have developed the tools to work with them.
-
Academic Competency: A solid understanding of the methods and contemporary issues in STEM sciences, history, and the English language, as well as proficiency in a foreign language.
-
Artistic Exploration: Achieved exploration throughout various fields of artistic expression, and gained proficiency in at least one of these.
-
Social Responsibility: Gained a sense of contemporary social issues as well as an understanding of how they have come into being. Ideally, the two together have come to life within the soul of each student, creating a sense of social responsibility and the tools to live accordingly.
-
Human Experience: Had the opportunity to explore, in depth, those questions which lie at the foundation of human experience: life, death, friendship, spirituality, and vocation.
-
Life Skills: Developed the necessary life skills needed for interpersonal communication and conflict management, decision-making, parenting, time management, the art of entertainment, and the ability to play.
-
Independent Thinking: Gained the ability to form judgments independently. This means that they will have acquired the skills of thinking and can apply these to enhance their understanding. This thinking should be as richly textured and as individually colored as possible. Students are now able to take on the task of self-education.
Summerfield Waldorf School of Santa Rosa began in September of 1974. Begun as an initiative of a small group of parents who were convinced that they wanted a Waldorf education for their children, Summerfield opened its doors to eleven children. Some of those founding families are still active in the community today.
In our second year we were blessed with the arrival from England of Irene Ellis. Bringing with her a wealth of experience in Waldorf education, Irene remained with the school for five years as faculty advisor, establishing and teaching the school’s in-house faculty training.
Read about our Environmental Commitments and Indigenous Land Acknowledgment here.
(click image to enlarge)
Summerfield Waldorf Origins
Our Values
Our Values form the basis of our striving together to foster whole human beings through educational experiences connected to nature, farming, and community.
What matters most to us as a working Educational Community
Students First
We prioritize students’ learning, development, engagement with teachers, and safety within a collaborative working community of faculty, staff, parents and supporters.
Courage
We see the necessity of cultivating a resilient human-centered future where people matter more than things. We stand boldly for the creative presence of spirit, which guides our work in the practical world. We practice the courage to educate students holistically as a preparation for the future.
Connection
We celebrate the interconnectedness of all beings. Out of this recognition, we steward relationships—between land, individuals, and community—out of the reality of reciprocity and the imperative of sustainable regeneration.
Diversity in Ways of Learning and Knowing
We hold that intelligences of mind, heart, and body manifest in many forms. Each person, regardless of role, is both learner and teacher out of an authentic discovery of self and world. As a learning community our task is to develop together new ways of being and doing in the world. We see this as a foundation for leadership toward the future.
Bay Bohemian
Inspiration
We hold that valuing the inherited wisdom of the past along with observing and participating in the reality of the present will create an inspired and critically imagined future. We tend to the emergent truth, beauty, and goodness around us, and also see the importance and transformative power of conflict.
Responsibility of Soul
As an educational community we commit to being responsible for supporting each other’s success and development—this includes students, colleagues, parents and the wider community. We recognize that each human being brings their gifts out of interest in and service to our shared purpose. We commit to develop the tools to understand all that this entails, to work with each other, learn together, and to hold ourselves accountable to the agreements that we make together and serve as reflective accountability partners with others. As a working educational community, we walk a shared social and spiritual path.