Sebastopol Charter was founded by Greg Haynes, who had been a parent, teacher, and administrator at Summerfield Waldorf School and Farm. He dedicated himself to creating a K-8 public charter school with the depth, beauty, and rigor of a Waldorf school, guided by the core principles of Public Waldorf education, but without the private school tuition that was a barrier for many families in Sonoma County. A group of parents and teachers joined together and held a weekly study group on the educational model Rudolf Steiner developed; out of those meetings, the school was formed.
The school’s founders believed that academics must be accompanied by the arts and practical skills to prepare students for the 21st Century effectively. They prized creative thinking, deep exploration of content, experiential learning, and music and arts instruction. Author Howard Gardner has noted that our school embodies his multiple intelligences.
In 1995, the school opened its doors to a single kindergarten class in rented space. The following year, we added another kindergarten and a first grade. A new grade was added each subsequent year, and in 2004, the first eighth-grade class graduated.
The school quickly outgrew the rented, renovated bank building (currently Wells Fargo) in downtown Sebastopol, and in the late 1990s purchased and built the building at 200 South Main Street. The state does not provide charter schools with buildings, land, or funding for capital expenses. Prudent management, parent donations, and loan funds from the Rudolf Steiner Foundation made the acquisition possible. As of July 2010, the non-profit foundation that supports the school, the Charter Foundation, paid off the mortgage.
In 2013, the Charter Foundation purchased a 21-acre property with a 5,000-square-foot residential house at its current campus at 1111 Hwy 116 North. This five-year building project cost $9 million, half of which was paid from a combination of the sale of the building at 200 South Main Street and donations. The other half, $4.5 million, was borrowed from Rudolf Steiner Foundation with a mortgage payment of approximately $230,000 per year, which the school pays in rent to the Charter Foundation. In the fall of 2018, the school inaugurated this school campus as its forever home.
Sebastopol Charter has been successful in recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers. In addition to having a California teaching credential, many class teachers have a formal Waldorf teacher training, the equivalent of more than two years of full-time training, studying child development, curriculum, and teaching the arts and music. Sebastopol Charter was the first charter school to become a full member after an accreditation-like process with the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education. The school’s success has inspired scores of other public schools to offer a curriculum inspired by the principles of Public Waldorf education. The school is now widely regarded as one of the leaders nationwide, with families and teachers moving from far and wide to become a part of the community.
