WSA History

 The Waldorf School of Atlanta (WSA) was founded in 1986. Waldorf Education celebrated it's 100-year worldwide anniversary in 2019, and WSA has over three decades of expanding the worldwide movement of Waldorf education in Atlanta. We believe there is much to celebrate about Waldorf Education, and the Waldorf School of Atlanta's history and community. 

In 1980, Katie Reily, a speech therapist and educator, attended a eurythmy performance by a traveling troupe from Stuttgart. A few months later, she visited a small Waldorf kindergarten in the mountains of north Georgia. Struck by the nobility and originality of Rudolf Steiner, the father and founder of Waldorf Education in 1919, Katie began to research his lectures and share her discoveries in adult study groups in Atlanta. It was Katie's knowledge, enthusiasm, and dedication that nurtured Atlanta's first Waldorf community of parents. As a new mother, she also extended the gift of Waldorf education to the young children in her Grant Park neighborhood.

Eventually convinced that the need and understanding were present to support a Waldorf kindergarten, Katie invited Susan Jones, the accomplished teacher of that small rural school in Young Harris, Georgia to move to Atlanta to teach. With Katie's vision, Susan's experience, and the support of devoted parents, the first Atlanta Waldorf kindergarten, The Children's Garden, was established in 1986.

Along with the establishment of The Children's Garden, The Georgia Waldorf Association, a nonprofit organization, was founded. Its primary purpose was to build community awareness of Waldorf education in an effort to organize and support a Waldorf school in Atlanta. An Association newsletter was first published in 1986, esteemed Waldorf lecturers were sponsored, and various workshops were offered. As of October 1987, the Association boasted fifty members.

The kindergarten program expanded in 1991 to include a three-day class for younger children (co-taught by Theresa Moreno and Annamay Keeney); Annie Sommerville-Hall and Cheri Munske, among others, continued the Waldorf playgroup tradition by offering morning programs for very young children in their homes. In 1992, our school, and particularly its faithful parents, took another inspired step and established our first Grade 1 class: Susan Jones was the school's founding grades teacher.

The name of our school was changed to The Waldorf School of Atlanta in 1993, to reflect the growth of our community and our aspirations for the future. Susan Jones stayed with her pioneer class through Grade 5.

The formative years of this school were impelled by three essential convictions: Susan stood for the pedagogy, Katie stood for the community, and the parents stood for their children. These elements represent, in essence, the head, the heart, and the hands: those aspects of the human being which Steiner's education faithfully seeks to develop in its students.

Land Acknowledgement

The wind rustling the leaves of tall oaks in the Glade, a robin foraging among ripe mulberries on the kindergarten play yard, a chipmunk scurrying across aromatic pine needles knocked to the ground by a recent storm, delicate wildflowers blooming in spring.

We at WSA recognize our great privilege to spend our school days immersed in nature. Especially during our year of outdoor learning in 2020-21, we have had a front-row seat to the rhythm of nature, always changing, yet always the same from season to season. One can imagine standing in the Glade a thousand years ago and feeling that it might have looked much the same as it does now, minus the tents and desks, of course!

Our campus is located on land that was historically the territory of indigenous people. For many generations, the Muskogee Creek and their predecessors lived from the richness of the earth, raising families and shaping the land in ways that are still visible today if we know where to look.

The Muskogee Creek suffered extensively after the arrival of European settlers to this area – first from infectious diseases and later from the colonizers’ greed for more land. In the early 1800s, the Creek who remained in Georgia, including DeKalb County, were forcibly removed via a series of false treaties and hostile actions undertaken by white settlers.  

WSA acknowledges this tragedy and the uncomfortable fact that the forced removal of the Muskogee Creek 200 years ago is the reason we are able to occupy this land now. We wish to honor the indigenous people who preceded us here. This wish is tempered by awareness that we must avoid cultural appropriation and token gestures. Our intention is to search out meaningful actions and words to express both our regret for what happened here and our respect for the existence of all the indigenous people who preceded us and their descendants.

The following actions are in alignment with this intention:

• We strive to be good stewards of the land. We tend the land in a sustainable manner, restoring native plants that feed pollinators and provide habitat for forest creatures small and not-so-small. We avoid using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides that can be harmful to the ecosystem. 

• Our gardening program gives students experience using principles of biodynamic farming, replenishing nutrients in the soil season after season. This instills respect for the work required to grow and harvest our food. This food feeds the students on Friday feast days in the garden, and it endows them with knowledge they can share within their own communities.

• Our faculty recognizes the importance of teaching our students the truth about Georgia’s forced removal of the Muskogee Creek. Equally important, we are beginning to learn more as a faculty about how to incorporate stories about Georgia’s indigenous people, their beliefs, storytelling traditions, and ways of life.

Blessings on this work.