Waldorf opponents lose in court decision

A federal judge ruled this week that a Nevada City-area school can continue to use Waldorf teaching methods, which had been challenged by some former school parents as a violation of their First Amendment rights.

U.S. District Court Judge Frank C. Damrell ruled Monday that the lawsuit by the People for Legal Nonsectarian Schools will not go before a jury. The case was filed against Twin Ridges Elementary School District and the Yuba River Charter School, which uses Waldorf teaching methods.

The Twin Ridges superintendent said the legal battle has cost the district more than $300,000 in legal fees.

"That's money that could have been spent on books, on teachers, on art supplies," Twin Ridges Superintendent Stan Miller said. "It was taken out of the mouths of children unnecessarily."

The suit was also filed against the Sacramento City Unified School District and its Oak Ridge Elementary School, a public magnet school using Waldorf methods.

Deby Snell, a founder of the Yuba River Charter School who filed the suit in 1998 against the Twin Ridges Elementary School District, said the group plans to appeal the ruling.

At issue, Snell said, is the school's methodology of training teachers in the study of anthroposophy and the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Waldorf methods who studied anthroposophy.

Anthroposophy is a religion based on mysticism, one that "embraces a spiritual view of the human being and the cosmos," according to the Anthroposophical Society of America. Its tenets in Waldorf instruction include "disciplined creativity, wonder and reverence and respect for nature and human existence," according to the society.

"They bill themselves as an art-based school," Snell said, "and it sounds wonderful and it is great. They don't tell you that it is steeped in one person's religion."

Superintendent Miller said he hoped the ruling would put an end to a costly fight.

"We're very relieved, and we're outraged at the amount of taxpayer dollars it's taken to defend this case that could have been spent on student programs."

Miller said the case against Twin Ridges and the charter school was dismissed in part because Snell's group could produce no witnesses or evidence that the public charter school was steeped in religious theory.

"We've never said it was a religious-based school; they did," Miller said.

The North San Juan-based Twin Ridges Elementary School District has two other Waldorf-based charter schools outside of Nevada County: Golden Valley Charter School in Citrus Heights and River Oak Charter School in Ukiah.

A final ruling by Damrell is expected in the coming weeks, Miller said.

What is the Waldorf method?

Waldorf education began in 1919 in Stuttgart, Germany. At least 30 publicly funded U.S. schools, such as the Yuba River Charter School in western Nevada County, are Waldorf-based. The system is focused in part on the spiritual development of a child. Academics such as reading play less of a role for younger children in Waldorf classes than in most schools, because Waldorf founder Rudolf Steiner believed children's spirits were still adapting to the world around them.

Sources: www.waldorfanswers.org, http://skepdic.com/steiner.html

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To contact staff writer David Mirhadi, e-mail davidm@the union.com or call 477-4229.