Dear Tucson Waldorf Community,
On behalf of the TWEA Board of Trustees, welcome back to 3605 E. River Road for another adventurous school year! As your incoming Board President, I extend a warm welcome to everyone in our interconnected community. To our brand new alumni families from the class of 2024, we miss you already, come back and visit us soon! No matter how you are connected to Tucson Waldorf School, this year’s Board cannot wait to share in all the joyful moments you will experience this year.
the role of the board
The role of the Board of Trustees is to provide our school with sound governance as part of a leadership system that operates through consensus decision making with The College of Teachers and the school’s Administration. (View our organizational visual here). While the Board’s primary responsibility is to provide fiduciary and strategic oversight, it also shares responsibility for the direction our school is taking now and in the future. The Board is accountable to our school community to make sure that our school’s mission is being served to the fullest extent. Board meetings are usually held on the last Monday of every month and are open to adult members of the school community. If matters of governance and administration are your jam, come check us out!
Something I look forward to every year are times when the Board collectively shares moments of reflection and inspiration with teachers and staff members. As volunteers who are parents, alumni, and community members, these interactions are an opportunity for Board members to listen to school leadership and understand more about all the facets of our school. One thing that I have learned is that in a Waldorf school, everyone is a leader in their own way and that the school moves forward through shared agreements about matters of pedagogy, social life, and administration.
inservice and outservice
Part of our school year rhythm is to end the year with an outservice for teachers and begin the new school year with an inservice. At both outservice in May and inservice in August, the Board was honored to host an activity that included all staff. We wanted to celebrate and recognize the successes blooming within our community and brainstorm seeds of inspiration to plant for the future. (View the Blooms and Seeds visual here.) The framework for our exercise was based around our current five year strategic plan.
At outservice, faculty, administration, and Board members revisited the school’s strategic plan. Together, we crafted beautiful flowers out of colorful paper and placed our flower by the part of the strategic plan that most strongly spoke to us. Then, we each anonymously contributed a “seed” for the future which represented a hope or dream for the future of the school.
At inservice, the Board presented the faculty and staff with a wreath made from the flowers we crafted in May and invited the group to participate in a Web of Connection exercise during which we tossed a ball of yarn to create threads between each other. As achievements from the 2023-2024 school year were read from our “blooms” sheet, those who were part of each successful project stood up and caught the ball of yarn as it was tossed to them. Each time the ball of yarn was tossed, the person who caught it would hold onto part of the yarn creating a thread between the thrower and the catcher. It did not take long before the entire room was connected by our skein of yarn and we could see the beautiful, interconnected web that holds our community together. We noticed that some people were holding several threads and we noticed that no one was empty handed. Our school is truly held by the work of many hands, hearts, and minds.
the secret is you
I want to let you in on a secret that not many people know. That secret is: you are the school. Whether through the Parent Council or one of our many committees like the Campus Planning Committee or Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice Committee, there is a place for you to learn and grow as well as teach and share. The work of your hands and heart can be shared through Craft Circle or the Harvest Festival Committee. You can be part of the foundation of our school by joining campus work parties and contributing to the annual fund campaign. You can have fun and laugh with friends new and old at our fresh! fundraising event this spring. You can enrich the lives of your students by being fully engaged in parent meetings and field trips. There is room for your voice! Your contributions both big and small are what makes the world of Tucson Waldorf School go ‘round.
The Board closes each meeting with a cherished verse from Rudolph Steiner: “The healthy social life is found when, in the mirror of each human soul, the whole community finds its reflection, and when, in the community, the virtue of each one is living.” I invite you to share with us in upholding our school’s mission so that we can truly be a reflection of one another.
Warmly,
Parent of 8th Grader, Merik Jarasviroj Brown
TWEA Board President
Member of DEIJ Committee
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