Berkshire Waldorf High School

Greetings from Orientation at YMCA Camp Hi-Rock. What a great first day of school.

THANK YOU to the more than 30 students, parents, and teachers who spent 3 hours cleaning the school yesterday to get it ready for opening next Wednesday, September 4!

Many many thanks to Rowan Good and Matthew Folmer, Class of 2027, for loads of help cleaning the school’s storage locker—probably for the last time (next year we’ll be in our own home!).

Rear of our new building under construction. New trusses, new roof on the back, new sill, new framing. And they were painting on a Saturday!

Feifei Wu, Class of 2025, at work on her surveying project last May.

Janos Bánóczi-Ruof, Class of 2022, after his sophomore year at RIT, where he’s studying engineering and extracurricular rocketry, with his mother, an early childhood teacher at BWS.

Laura Coe, Class of 2018 (Harvard 2023) is dancing--go see her! She says, "We will be spending two weeks engaging with local communities and organizations in Columbia and Berkshire county with an interactive performance at the intersection of digital technology, music, and dance. Join us as we continue to expand the potential of the MMM to explore common ground as a model for interaction and a medium for collaboration."

Soka Vanegas Ferrara, Class of 2022, currently attending the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, is conducting independent pollination research based on indigenous interior Alaskan knowledge of raspberries and how they’re being affected by climate change in order to better understand how to build resilience in sustenance practices in a changing climate. The research, to be published in the coming year, is sponsored by the International Arctic Research Center (https://uaf-iarc.org/). Visit our website at berkshirewaldorf.com to learn more about our school.

Graduation 2024! Ceremony begins at 25 minutes.

Berkshire Waldorf High School graduation - June 9

Congratulations, Class of 2024!

Congratulations to the Class of 2024!

What a great evening! The Class of 2024 presented travel, projects, and internships--cello solo, 3-D modeling, farming, welding, ceramics, photography, podcasting, art history, printmaking, painting, Argentina, Germany... what a group of talented, poised, prepared, interesting young persons. Congratulations!

Toward the end of each year, teachers dress up (this year: punk), write questions based on every course taught during the year, and host a 90- minute, year-in-review, “Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned at Berkshire Waldorf High School Quiz Show.” If you want to test your knowledge, ten questions from this year’s quiz are below, followed by answers.

QUESTIONS:
1. Which philosopher believes “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence”?
2. What is the Law of Sines?
3. What is the name of the main character in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe?
4. What invention has been manufactured in the greatest number of all things ever invented?
5. Which European city is the only one know to have had four defenestrations?
6. The USSR and the USA took over administration of Korea in 1945 replacing which former war-time occupier?
7. In Dante’s Inferno, from what is the frozen lake at the lowest point of Hell created?
8. What is the slope of the line tangent to the parabola y = x squared and passing through the point (2,4)?
9. How long did Henry David Thoreau live in the woods?
10. Name a sex-linked trait.

ANSWERS:
1. William Clifford
2. a/sin A = b/sin B = c/sin C
3. Okonkwo
4. The transistor
5. Prague
6. Japan
7. Satan’s tears
8. 4
9. Two years, two months, two days
10. Color-blindness, hemophilia, others possible

Ninth Grade boys' hike on the Appalachian Trail in mid-May. Thank you, Greenagers, for leading, and thank you, Joe Lesch for the photos!

Congratulations to Daisy Ribero, Class of 2026, on her 2nd Place award for her short story, “Phantom of Childhood,” in the 2024 Spencertown Young Writers’ Contest. Fiction was judged by Emily A McCully and Elaine Khosrova. Emily A McCully is the author of an O Henry prize story, two adult novels and many children's books. Elaine Khosrova is the author of Butter, A Rich History and has worked as an editor at various magazines. Here is a description of Daisy’s story: “In this first-person narrative, the writer begins by recalling the pure innocence and shared affection of a childhood friendship—and the tree that comes to symbolize the friends' mutual bond. This lovingly detailed reminiscence, however, takes on a poignant quality when the story shifts to the present moment—teen years for the friends—and we learn that hardship and dysfunction in one of the families has made the friends unintentionally, but inevitably, drift apart. The story gains real momentum when the narrator decides to make a holiday visit to the estranged friend. Both joy and tragedy result. The writer has created a well-paced, engaging story by weaving together cinematic scenes, emotional fallout, and sympathetic characters. It is a fiction that has the feel of truth.” You can read about the rest of the winners and their stories on the website of the Spencertown Academy.

Berkshire Waldorf High School secures $4 million donation toward renovation of Stockbridge Old Town Hall.

STOCKBRIDGE, MA — Berkshire Waldorf High School is pleased to announce that it has received $4 million from an anonymous donor toward renovation of Procter Hall, the Old Town Hall at 6 Main Street.

The school has completed the architectural phase of the project design and construction is now underway. Pamela Sandler, AIA, is the lead architect on the project, and Marois Construction is on-site doing the actual renovation. The project includes remediation of asbestos and lead paint, the addition of an elevator and sprinkler system, a redesign of the interior, and preservation of the upstairs meeting room and other historical features.

Berkshire Waldorf High School Executive Director Stephen Sagarin is thrilled and grateful for the generous gift, saying that that capital campaign donations earmarked to fund the renovation will enable the school “to double our current square footage, including creation of more and larger classrooms and science labs, while allowing us to remain in Stockbridge within walking distance of the town center. The construction should be complete by summer 2025.”

“The Town of Stockbridge is well on its way of realizing its two–decades-old dream of finding a permanent use for this early 19th century historic structure,” added Teresa O’Brient, Chair of the Board of Trustees of Berkshire Waldorf High School, a longtime Stockbridge resident, and owner of the Stockbridge Country Store. “The community really stepped up to help us realize this dream.”

The First Congregational Church, UCC, Stockbridge, voted last year to sell the building to Berkshire Waldorf High School. The Town of Stockbridge Selectboard and Planning Board approved the zoning variances this past winter. The sale closed in February 2024 and the school has been working closely with both the Church and the Stockbridge Golf Club to ensure that all parties’ parking needs are met during construction.

Berkshire Waldorf High School CFO Patrick White observed that with this donation, funding for more than 80% of the anticipated construction budget is now in place. “We’ve already seen a significant need to tap into contingency funds, specifically related to availability of electrical services and the need to reinforce beams in both the front and the back of the building. We are confident the community will support this capital campaign and get us over the finish line.”

White referenced plans to keep in place the jail from Old Town Hall, made famous by the brief incarceration of Arlo Guthrie and Rick Robbins memorialized in Arlo’s Alice’s Restaurant song and film. “This location has so much history, spanning the Mohican era, the central role in the Indian Town experiment, and its place in modern Berkshire lore,” White observed. “We plan to honor history as we embrace this new era for the school and the community.”

Berkshire Waldorf High School is currently located in rented space on Pine Street in Stockbridge. The school is 22 years old and next month will graduate its 18th senior class. The school’s tagline, “Small school, big world,” conveys its commitment to the community and beyond.

About Berkshire Waldorf High School

Berkshire Waldorf High School provides an education for adolescents that seeks truth, develops imagination, nurtures growth, fosters responsibility, and honors inner freedom in an atmosphere of academic excellence, artistic fulfillment, openness, and mutual respect. It offers Honors-level, college preparatory academics and is integrated into the larger community, including renowned artists’ studios, labs, libraries, gyms, Shakespeare & Company’s Fall Festival, field trips to events and museums in the Northeast, and international travel, including to Germany, South and Central America, and France.

Congratulations to Ella Rydingsword, Class of 2024, on admission to Cornell!

Congratulations to the Great Class of 2024, graduating June 6, 2024!

Congratulations to Ava Young, Class of 2025, on her first book of poetry, now available on Amazon!

Each spring, 11th and 12th graders at our school complete a project or internship. This was Ava's.

the bones collection the bones collection

More from German travel.

German language students in Berlin, Dresden, and now Munich, returning April 19. Thank you for your support, !

Update from Buenos Aires! We arrived here on Thursday afternoon and have been enjoying the beautiful scenery and food. Yesterday we walked around a park/zoo in the center of the city and then went out to a pizzeria for dinner. More updates to come!

Most of the group of German language students on their way to Munich. Gute Reise! And see you on April 19!

Snowden Wright was writer-in-residence at our school in 2015. His new novel, The Queen City Detective Agency, will be published this summer. In the meanwhile, here's his advice on un-telling details:

The Orange-Peel Garnish: How Un-Telling Details Bring Characters to Life About halfway into The Fugitive (1993), a team of US Marshals discovers the apartment where the titular fugitive, Richard Kimble, has been hiding out and, they soon learn, scheming to prove his inn…

Photos from the Red, White, and Black Semi-Formal dance with guests from Hawthorne Valley on Friday, February 16, by photographer Feifei Wu, Class of 2025.

9th grade measures the height of our building in intro to trigonometry today.

Red, White, and Black semi-formal Spanish travel fundraiser at Berkshire South with DJ Carlton Davis.

Basketball 2024. Undefeated!