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Potomac Crescent Waldorf school is devoted to educating children according Rudolf Steiner's insights and pedagogy. We educate the whole child: head, heart, and hands. The individual child is at the center of all we do. In the pre-school we prepare the child for schoolwork by encouraging healthy play. In the grade school, our teachers aim to allow each child to grow gradually and naturally into the subjects they study, because then they will love what they learn. Committed to serve and reflect our locality of Northern Virginia near the District of Columbia, the faculty work together as colleagues to allow the Waldorf approach to provide each child with a future-oriented education, in which lasting capacities and skills will serve the student for life.

Cottonwood Preschool is a non-profit corporation, founded in 1981 by a group of dedicated parents who identified a need for a pre-school program that was different than others in the Littleton area. These parents imagined a preschool where their cooperative efforts could create a stimulating and exciting learning environment for their children. They created a school where parents could play a direct role in their child's education. Today, Cottonwood Preschool is one of a handful of parent cooperative preschools in the Denver area. We continue to have a very dedicated group of parents who are committed to carrying on the tradition of excellence at Cottonwood. Cottonwood embraces a developmental, play based philosophy of learning, which supports and respects the child as he/she is. Cottonwood supports the knowledge that children learn best through play and hands-on experiences. Through the guidance of carefully selected teachers, the child will have the opportunity to explore and enrich his/her world socially, emotionally, physically and intellectually toward optimal growth.

Raising A Reader MA partners with regional organizations to help parents with young children to develop, practice and maintain shared reading habits, which foster vocabulary and language skills essential to reading readiness. Raising A Reader MA is an evidence-based early literacy program that helps families of young children (birth through age six) develop, practice, and maintain habits of reading together at home. Our core program model, which both increases access to books and offers support for strengthening the culture of reading at home, is driven by more than 25 years of research that show the most significant factor impacting a child’s academic success is being regularly read to by a parent or other primary adult caregiver before starting kindergarten. Our vision is to equip all parents and caregivers to become agents of change, as their child’s first teachers, to eliminate the opportunity gap that impacts success in school and beyond.

Inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s Waldorf education system, the mission of Desert Marigold School is to provide an educational context that emphasizes not only intellectual achievement, but also the imaginative, artistic, and moral growth of its students. By addressing their heads, hands and hearts, the school will encourage students to be life-long learners and independent thinkers as well as self motivated, self-disciplined, creative, adaptable and responsible individuals. We seek to establish and maintain a school that provides an individualized, nurturing approach to educating its students, preparing them not only for higher education, but for the rest of their lives. We will require and use an active partnership of teachers, families and the community, as well as a continued affiliation with the world-wide Waldorf movement to achieve the following goals: 1. To ensure each child’s excellence in core academic skills by providing a curriculum enlivened with the arts of painting, music, drama, movement, singing, sculpture and hand work. 2. To educate according to age and development, so that learning and growth are united. 3. To present the curriculum in multiple and integrated ways, so students have many different opportunities to learn concepts, as well as see the relationship to the larger whole. 4. To nourish the spirit of curiosity so that students continue to learn long after the end of formal training. 5. To encourage fundamental values and life skills, including responsibility, perseverance, integrity, self-discipline, trustworthiness, craftsmanship, friendship and compassion. 6. To make available this quality of education for all ethnic and socioeconomic sectors in our community.

At Shalom School, the warmth and rapport between teachers and children create classrooms of curious learners. They are developing critical thinking skills, socially appropriate interactions, Jewish pride and love for living a Jewish life.

Their mission is to provide quality education and childcare that follows the philosophy and training of Maria Montessori and Association Montessori Internationale. Their program is holistic: nurturing and developing the mind, body, and spirit of each child. They are committed to providing trained staff and certified teachers, working with families to foster independence in their child and meet each child’s individual needs, and operating in an ecologically conscious way.

Skytown Parent Cooperative Preschool has been offering early childhood education in a nurturing environment for over 40 years.Our professional teachers and director offer a program that allows children to develop at their own pace and provides them with opportunities to grow socially, emotionally, physically and academically. During the 2014-2015 school year, Skytown served 45 children and their families.

The Eastern Ridge School was founded by a group of parents and teachers who are passionate about encouraging self expression, independence and a lifelong love of learning. The Eastern Ridge School is managed by the board of directors, and the program director reports directly to the board. We believe that a strong community is vital to our mission. Parents are highly involved with our school, and we host frequent community gatherings, arrange hikes and go on weekend camping trips.