News Highlights

Music Violinists Bri Yellowhorse (senior) and Lily Clark (sophomore) were chosen to perform in the All-State Music Festival and Conference in January 2020. The 76-year-old event, hosted by the New Mexico Music Educators Association, highlights the State’s most gifted music students. Applicants must pass complex auditions in a musical area such as orchestra, jazz band, or chorus, to be accepted to three days of workshops and rehearsals, ending in a full day of performances for the general public.

Waldorf Community

SFWS and Lakota Waldorf

The Santa Fe Waldorf School continued to support the Lakota Waldorf School on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota as part of a program by the Association of Waldorf Schools in North America. In March, Administraor Gerson Pérez and Grade 8 teacher Daisy Barnard traveled to South Dakota to work with the administration and upper grades faculty.

Barnard writes “We were excited to begin our partnership and were able to get quite a bit done in two days. Then, as fate would have it, COVID-19 shutdowns expanded across the country. During our final hours with the Lakota Waldorf School, we found ourselves involved in helping teachers and staff plan for the

upcoming closures. Their needs and capabilities are very different from our own, and it was an eye-opening conversation. For example, LWS provides two meals a day to their students, so this service would have to transform into mobile food delivery. Most households in Pine Ridge are not able to support online learning, so this was another factor the school has to work around."

Barnard continues, “Since our visit, Pine Ridge Reservation has been seriously affected by the pandemic in numerous ways. The school has continued to provide support to dozens of families throughout the quarantine. Like other schools across the country, they are unsure what their 20/21 school year will look like, but one thing is certain: LWS will continue to serve its students and their families in whatever ways it can.”

Grade 8 Donates Trip Funds for COVID Support

Denied their year-end trip because of the pandemic, the eighth grade decided instead to help others. The class agreed to use $2,800 of the money they had raised for the trip to meet the growing COVID-19 emergency in the Navajo Nation. Grade 8 mom Jess Falkenhagen writes that in late May, she and her eldest daughter Indie (rising Grade 12), "drove a big Budget passenger van loaded to the brim with supplies to Window Rock, AZ. We purchased large quantities of non-perishable food, toiletries, paper products, school supplies, pet food, thermometers, handmade masks and 60 gallons of drinking water." This story of generosity was covered by national news services including the Good News Network, ABC, Microsoft News, CNN, among others.

The RainDropWonderShop

Indie Russell, a SFWS rising senior, launched an Etsy shop, the RainDropWonderShop, in November to display her handmade Waldorf-inspired toys and crafts (shown above), which she describes as “immediately successful.” Russell also sold her products at December's Holiday Faire. She offers seasonal and holiday gifts and found that her website experienced a surge in business around Easter due to quarantined shoppers looking for handmade gifts. Russell also started making masks, including those donated to the Navajo Nation (see above) but found she could not balance skyrocketing demand and her school work. She hopes to expand her product line in the summer.

Applying Wilderness Wisdom to the Current Pandemic

Karl Johnson, the SFWS Pedagogical Chair, had a timely and relevant article, titled "When In Wilderness—Applying Wilderness Wisdom to Navigating the Current Pandemic" published on Waldorf Today. Read the article here: karljohnsoneducator.com/blog. Johnson has been part of the SFWS community for over 25 years and helped found and led the school's Wilderness Education Program—now a hallmark program of SFWS.

Board of Trustees The Board is pleased to welcome back Micky Leach as our newest member. Leach served on the SFWS board from 2000 to 2006 and is a member of the Western Regional Council for the Anthroposophical Society in America. Her two grandchildren currently attend SFWS.