My children have attended EWS for six years. Our family has been so grateful to have found this education option for our children. The school community, shared values and emphasis on humanity has helped our family to flourish in all aspects of family and community life.
Waldorf has a unique teacher/student set up. The "main lesson" teachers stay with the class from 1st-8th grade allowing for the student-teacher relationships to grow over a long period of time. This was shocking at first, but has proved to be outstanding. Students also have Movement/Gym, Spanish, Handwork, Eurythmy, Music, Farming, Strings in addition to other specialty teachers throughout their school days and at different grade levels (1-8). Early Childhood is combined ages for Nursery (3-4) and Kindergarten (3-6). High School staff are all specialized in their classes in addition to having guest block teachers.
Our kid's teachers invest significant time and effort in the social, emotional growth and development of their students. My children's teachers know them so well. They challenge them academically and artistically because they know what they are capable of all while encouraging them to discover the world around them. In a normal year, the kids have multiple movement and recess breaks throughout the day, they've had additional outside time during COVID as their classrooms have been primarily outside.
We have been so grateful for the schools attentiveness and flexibility to attend to the safety and care of students, teachers and staff uniquely, meeting each family's needs the best they could during COVID.
It is true that some teachers have been teaching remotely this year (4th & 8th) due to COVID (2020-2021) and their family's medical situations. Students always had a speciality teacher with them on campus. However, the 8th grade teacher (also next year's 1st grade teacher) as of March 2021 is in-person on campus. This was never a secret to families and should not have been a shock(previous review). All faculty, staff and students were given the choice to be in-person or at home this school year and accommodations were made for ALL that needed them. As a board member, Parent Organization member, and parent, I can confirm that communications have been extremely transparent and COVID safety has been of highest concern. As of February 2021, we have not had a single community spread case of COVID within our school. We did not have a single shut down due to case positivity within the school. We delayed in-person school at the beginning of the year (online) and 1-12 was online for most of January 2021 due to safety concerns with community spread in our part of North Carolina. Early Childhood was in-person for most of January. read more