Morning Workshops
Three 90-Minute Sessions

You will attend your selection all three mornings

Tuesday & Wednesday, 11:00am-12:30pm
Thursday, 8:30am-10:00am

Creating a Simple, Easy to Use, Financial Picture of Your School - Denese Giordano -
Workshop is Full

Enrollment = Admission Yield + Retention – Attrition

Making managing your net tuition equation easy! Easy to read and understandable financial documents can act as an 'early warning system' for troubles ahead while midcourse corrections can still be undertaken.

Session 1: Tracking our Enrollment & Admissions

During this session we will examine enrollment trends using a simple, useful spreadsheet. Additionally, we will examine admissions efforts, yield and the pain of the ‘admissions churn’. That same spreadsheet can be helpful in forecasting enrollment for future years and act as an early warning signal for challenges ahead. (participants will receive these templates for this work at their respective schools)

Session 2: Deciphering Attrition

In session two, we will review exit interviews and suggested mandates for Retention Task Force work. We will also discuss possible strategies for curbing attrition. (participants will receive suggested mandates & exit surveys)

Session 3: Effecting Change & Tuition Setting Considerations

In the final session together, we will take a deep dive into data analysis, possible action plans and outcomes.

For school leaders, and future leaders, understanding the components of enrollment that drive net tuition revenue is critical to our schools’ sustainability. In our time together, these data points will be examined in a manageable, accessible and user-friendly format. 

Drama as Healing During Challenging Times - Robyn Stevan
Workshop is Full

Waldorf education is unique in recognizing the importance of drama for every student, inclusive of all temperaments and interest levels, for both an individual’s and a group’s development. Integrating all aspects of the Waldorf curriculum—head, heart, and hands—drama has the potential to help a class integrate, re-balance, and bond, and for each child to grow and blossom. Drama helps build connection, empathy, and understanding—vital skills to develop in a world that feels increasingly alienating, polarizing, and divisive.

Educators will look at how plays, as well as drama games and activities, can be chosen and adapted to meet different ages, learning styles, needs, and backgrounds, not only in any drama block, but also across other subjects as a way to enrich and deepen the curriculum.

The three sessions are meant to be dynamic, informative, and fun! Each session will include both theory as well as hands-on practical activities—we will learn by doing! Woven through the sessions, we will be covering the following:

• Drama across the grades—a chart providing an overview showing the progression of the play experience as children journey through the years 
• Drama games to be adapted across grades, learning styles, and subjects, including warm-ups, icebreakers, speech exercises, group bonding games, energizers, games to aid in the recall, and games to help bring a curriculum alive.
• The Class Play--tips, tricks, and time-tested techniques around timing, choosing a play, casting, staging, sets and costumes, music, the rehearsal process, and the performance.

Each participant will leave with a “Drama Toolkit” handout filled with charts, speech exercises, games, and activities, as well as access to scripts which I have used in the past across the grades, including ones I have written, Shakespeare plays I have edited, as well as plays which are “outside of the box” of more conventional choices.

Go in Freedom: Embodying Gender/Sexuality Inclusivity in Waldorf Classrooms - Aleah Black

Join Aleah Black in an exploration of bringing true freedom and inclusivity to the classroom. Students of all genders and sexualities deserve to be loved and represented in our schools. We can create this environment through storytelling, artistic practices, and the study of culture and history. In this workshop, participants can expect to grow their vocabulary around LGBTQ+ topics, increase their capacity to have conversation with students and families around human development/identity, and boost curriculum planning skills around inclusivity.

Introducing Eurythmy in the Working Life - Leonore Russell

This approach to eurythmy addresses the participants as adults, capable of self-awareness and having the capacity for self-change. These capacities are strengthened by the exercises we will experience and are valuable to an understanding of the principles of Waldorf education, working with the threefold human being, and “removing the hindrances” to the learning of the children we teach. Work in eurythmy is inclusive. Each participant is an important member of the group and has the full support of the others. The key motif in the exercises is giving and receiving.

Session 1: We will find our orientation to the group, establish rhythms, take initiative, and realign ourselves in a new group. Exercises using copper balls will be used to create group dynamics and address thinking, feeling, and willing. We will share reflections on the experiences of the exercises and find relationships with working life in a Waldorf School.

Session 2: We will review our work from session one. We will practice how to reorient to a new focus point. Making change is a constant challenge in teaching, parent relationships, and school growth. It also brings a sense of joy when we can move effortlessly through changes around us. Groups of four participants will be asked to form a square and find ways to combine the forms of the single squares into a larger square with everyone involved.

Session 3: Review, and our final effort will be directed to thinking, feeling, and willing in a group form based on a verse by Rudolf Steiner. Final sharing will center on our perceptions, thoughts relating to the experiences of the workshops, and how these relate to the participants' experiences in their work in a Waldorf school.

No experience in eurythmy is needed. Please bring eurythmy shoes if you have them.

Localizing Waldorf: Lessons from the First Waldorf School - Daniel Hindes
Workshop is Full

In the summer of 1919 a pioneering group of future teachers absorbed guidance from Rudolf Steiner and started the first Waldorf school. While Steiner talked a lot about teaching, he said a lot less about curriculum. He left it to the teachers to work out. By studying the first set of choices, we can ponder how we might advance similar work localizing Waldorf to our school communities.

Rediscovering the Social Mission of Waldorf Education - Lisa Mahar & Jody Spanglet
Workshop is Full

The times we live in call for powerful models for how human beings can work together in service to something greater than individual likes and dislikes and personal opinion. Waldorf schools are a spark of hope, demonstrating that we can: disagree without losing warmth, develop the stamina for commitment to our ideals, and build a vision for enlivening collegial relationships that serve the children entrusted to our care.

Topics:

• The social mission of Waldorf education: What is social pedagogy?
• How do we build collaboration in the age of the consciousness soul?
• How do we form groups that are able to achieve success, preserve the freedom of each member, and develop a “fine mesh of mutual perception”
• Meetings are at the heart of our work
• The ABCs of the faculty meeting: content, interaction, procedure, or policy
• The power of process and content roles in the meeting
• The time element of successful dialogue
• Individual and group temperaments
• Decision making as process
• The power of authority, consensus, mandates, and delegation
• Applying efficiency, transparency, and inclusion
• The art of generative conversation
• Recognizing bias

The Twelve Senses, Learning Differences, and Differentiation - Jen Kershaw

This workshop is for educators who are striving to understand the challenges and learning differences of the children of today. Our world is filled with labels and documentation that can be difficult to understand, challenging to implement, and provide only one view of the developing human being. Through the lens of the 12 senses, we can begin to understand learning differences and develop strategies for supporting children socially, emotionally, and academically.

On Day 1, we will strive to understand the 12 senses and their impact on the social, emotional, and academic growth of the child. We will connect this understanding to the school age child, particularly in Grades 1 - 8.

On Day 2, through case studies and real documentation, participants will learn how to make direct connections between the 12 senses and learning differences.

On Day 3, our work will focus on writing initial support plans and discuss strategies for differentiating instruction to meet a variety of needs.

Participants are encouraged to bring the imagination of a child and/or a question that they have about a particular child in their care.

Using Projective Geometry to Inform us About the Spiritual Nature of the Human Being - Jeff O'Brien

Participants will complete three constructions from projective geometry (one each session) and discuss how these constructions give us insight into the spiritual nature of the human being. No previous experience with projective geometry is required. A sharp writing utensil is required. Colored pencils (and a sharpener) would be helpful, but not required. Rulers and paper will will provided.

Woodcarving - Atta Turck
Workshop is Full

Carving calls forth clear perception and practical problem-solving: It awakens feeling through form, proportion, and gesture, and it strengthens the will through steady, rhythmic handwork. When these capacities work in balance, they foster health and integration.

In this hands-on workshop, participants will carve a life-sized little mouse from a pre-sized piece of dry wood. Once the carving is complete, the mouse will be outfitted with simple leather ears and a tail. All materials and tools will be provided.

The project is intentionally chosen from the early middle school repertoire, offering a developmentally appropriate balance of technical focus and emotional engagement without requiring sustained intellectual effort. As in a Grade 5 classroom, the emphasis rests on attentive doing rather than analysis. For conference participants, this creates a genuine alternative to mental activity and an opportunity to rest in purposeful, embodied work. 

Participants will leave with a small carved companion and, perhaps more importantly, with a renewed appreciation for the quiet strength and joy that arise when hands, heart, and head work together.