Professional Development for 

Trustees, School Leaders, & Emerging Leaders

2025-26 School Year

Online offerings for Waldorf school board members,

school leaders, administrators, and lead teachers

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Prepared to Serve 

The Art of Working on a Waldorf Board

 Foundational training for Waldorf School board members, including:

Join colleagues from schools across the continent for Leading with Spirit’s board basic training course. Already some 50 schools and 300 participants have completed this basic training. The course, accompanied by LWS’s resource Guidebook for Waldorf Boards, offers everything a new or experienced trustee needs to know to be a successful member of their board.

Jan 23, 24 (Fri 4:00-6:00 pm)

(Sat 9:00 am–1:00 pm)

Led by Connie Stokes, Michael Soule

Connie Stokes and Michael Soule have led Waldorf schools as administrators and board members for 40 years, and contributed to the movement as AWSNA leaders and school advisors.

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The courses below are open to all and are designed for those 

who have completed the Foundational Board Training

Strategic Finance/Budgeting

The Art of Building Financial Sustainability

Fiscal oversight and practices leading to financial health are at the heart of the Board work. This course outlines board financial duties, explores the social foundations of financial oversight, examines core values that guide financial decision making, defines the purposes and uses of key financial documents, offers insights into interpreting financial documents, and outlines the budgeting cycle. Bring your questions!

Jan 27, Feb 3, 10 

(Tues 4:00 pm-6:00 pm)

Led by Jody Spanglet, Michael Soule

Engaged and Effective Board Officers 

Cultivating inspired leadership on the Board

You’ve been elected an officer of your school’s Board of Trustees. Now what? Join other board officers in examining and discussing topics such as: exploring officer roles and duties, guiding fiscal and legal oversight, developing effective practices for planning and leading meetings, employing the framework of a board calendar, approaches to communication, developing and implementing strategic objectives, board recruitment, board review, and guiding generative conversations. Bring your questions!

Jan 30,31 

(Fri 4:00-6:00 pm) (Sat 9:00 am-1:00 pm)

Led by Lisa Mahar, Christine Laird-Scherding

Building a Dynamic Board

The art of cultivation and recruitment for the board

Feb 24, 26, 26 

(Tues-Thurs) 8:00 am-9:30 am

Led by Rebecca Soloway, Connie Stokes

Inspiring Philanthropy 

Transforming your community’s relationship to giving and fundraising

Inspired by board leaders to nurture the capacity to create and sustain a healthy culture and practice of philanthropy for the school. For board members who have completed the board training, including: The fundamentals of financial strength, building board, community, and friend’s capacity for supporting the school through giving.  

Mar 11, 18, 25 

(Wed 4:00 pm-6:00pm)

Led by Valerie Colis, Connie Stokes

Strategic Institutional Guidance

The art of conscious development into the future through strategic Planning

Mar 13, 14 

(Fri 4:00 pm-6 pm) (Sat 9am–1pm)

Led by Christine Laird-Scherding, Michael Soule

The Art of Facilitation 

Creating and leading inspired meetings and

encouraging participatory decision making

The art of preparing and leading healthy meetings *Practices leading to sound decisions *The soul and spiritual aspects of group work • Developing balanced agendas • Key facilitation skills • Asking good questions *Nurturing engaged listening • Leading effective participatory decision making • Creating mutually supportive agreements • Reflective practice for continuous improvement. 

Apr 10, 11 

(Fri 4:00 pm-6:00pm) (Sat 9:00 am-1:00 pm)

Led by Lisa Mahar, Jody Spanglet

All courses by Zoom and timeslots shown in Pacific Time

Fee: $350 ($300 additional participants from the same school)

For more information visit: https://www.leadingwithspirit.org/

or contact Connie Stokes constancedstokes@gmail.com

  Also check out our training courses for Administrators on our website

Leadingwithspirit.org

Click here to register

Click here inter 

For more information visit Leadingwithspirit.org or contact Connie Stokes constancedstokes@gmail.com

Prepared to Serve is a program ofLeading with Spirit sponsored by Sound Circle Center for Arts and Anthroposophy, a full member institute of AWSNA. Visit www.leadingwithspirit.org to learn more about our Art of Administration training and school advisory services.

Reflections from participants in past courses

The board training gave me more confidence in my role as a board leader and Lisa and Michael are lovely to work with.

A solid introductory board training led by deeply experienced and dedicated facilitators. Highly recommended for new board members (as part of their board orientation) as well as veteran board members (to reconnect with and remember the big picture as well as the details).

I see this training as a potential seed of a rich and dynamic network of those serving on Waldorf boards, which could potentially make a big difference in the Waldorf movement.

For new and more experienced board members, this workshop provides valuable tools and ideas to help us all serve with more compassion and creativity.

I highly recommend that all Board members take this training, even if you have a lot of experience being on a Waldorf School Board. The content is comprehensive but not overwhelming and the discussion was extremely helpful and inspiring. It was hugely valuable to meet with Board members from schools across the country. I also came out of the training with a greater sense of connection to the whole and that there is a much larger support system out there that can be tapped into.