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 

What to expect in your Role as Waldorf Board Trustee

Foundation training for Waldorf School board members

In this course, Waldorf School board members and school leaders are invited to learn, share, and network.  The course begins with a review of the history and mission of Waldorf education.  From there, we will provide an overview of the trustee’s role including the 3 basic duties, the AWSNA principles and their relationship to board work, the 6 primary functions of a Waldorf board, role of Philanthropy, and Board Recruitment. Along the way we will offer keys to collaboration, financial practices, and effective meetings. You will also receive a comprehensive guidebook as a resource.

May 12, 13, 14, 15 (Tues-Fri 8:00-9:30 am) with the special offer of two additional one-hour sessions to follow.

Led by Christine Scherding, Connie Stokes

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

who have completed the Foundational Board Training

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

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

 Strategic Planning

Collaborative efforts amongst the school leaders: trustees, administration, teachers and parents.

As an essential Board responsibility, we endeavor to take the mystery out of Strategic planning.  You will leave with a clear outline of the process of effective planning.  Our guidance will touch on refining mission, vision and core values, assessing strengths, challenges, opportunities and threats and organizing priorities, goals, tasks for the future

New dates: April 24, 25  (Fri 4:00-6 pm) (Sat 9am–1pm)

Led by Christine Laird-Scherding, Michael Soule

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.