SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs has announced the rebranding of its school and mission to serve children in preschool through grade 8. This milestone is a major move for the Waldorf School in its mission to inspire creative thought, discourse, human connections, and experiential learning. 

This news comes in the wake of many recent initiatives and accomplishments of the Waldorf School, including: 

• Closing the High School Program: After much deliberation, the Board of Directors decided to close the Waldorf High School program at the end of this school year. Low enrollment over a number of years and a need to refocus energies on developing other programming precipitated this move.

• Expanding Early Childhood Programs: For the 2023-2024 school year the Waldorf School will provide full-day and half-day Mixed-Age Kindergarten classes, Preschool classes, and Caregiver-Child Playgroups at two locations: Forest Campus on Kaydeross Avenue West and Early Childhood Center on Lake Avenue. 

• Lower School Program Expansion: The Waldorf School is undergoing revisions to strengthen programming and build upon the artistic and academic rigor the school is known for including Pre and Early Literacy renewal, enhanced Middle School Curriculum, and Afterschool Program development. Regents tests will be offered to 8th grade students to help prepare them for the Advanced Regents diploma in high school, should they choose to take that route. 

• Rebranding: The Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs is rebranding itself as a PreK-Grade 8 institution that will continue to grow and expand in its new form, prepare for a changing world, and the next decade of Waldorf Education in Saratoga Springs. 

“The Waldorf School has been a hallmark of the Saratoga Springs community for over four decades. Rebranding our school and refocusing our mission will ensure that we are able to provide Waldorf education to the region for decades to come,” said Astrea Ravenstar, Administrator at the Waldorf School. “The interest and enthusiasm for our Early Childhood and Grade School programs at this time is astounding, and while the closing of the high school is very emotional for many of us, it is balanced by the strength and growth of our other programs.” 

Board President, Richard Frank, reflects, “As has always been in our school’s 43-year history, our community — with its deep passion, commitment, and vision — will be the true source of the strength of our school as we move together into the future. We are grateful for the commitment, care, and dedication of our community of friends, colleagues, and students that allows us to continue to bring Waldorf education to families in Saratoga Springs.”

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Saratoga Bridges’ 11th annual Autism Expo and Art Exhibit will be held April 23 from 12 to 3 p.m. in the Saratoga Springs City Center, offering a wide variety of resources for individuals and families with autism.

The event first began in 2012 at Skidmore College, and has continued to grow each year. Over 900 attendees are expected at this year’s Expo, said Saratoga Bridges assistant director of communications Pamela Polacsek.

The Expo also allows attendants to connect with each other, and share experiences and resources.

“I think that’s where you’ll get a lot of solid parental input,” said Mariah Hahn. “It helps you feel part of a community. You don’t have to be desperate, we’re going to figure this out.”

Hahn, who attended last year’s Expo, knows this well. She and her husband Juergen are the parents of Lucas, an 11-year old boy with profound non-speaking autism. The Hahns say that Lucas’ condition has been challenging due to a variety of factors, including a lack of research and treatments for profound autism.

“There are areas that we felt weren’t being explored,” Mariah Hahn said.

“The reality of a lot of medical research, including on autism, is they focus more on people who are actually least-affected by it,” said Juergen Hahn. “It’s much easier to deal with. If you have somebody who is nonverbal, you can’t really ask them the question, ‘How do you feel?’”

Both Mariah and Juergen Hahn are faculty members at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, studying biomedical engineering. They attempted standard therapies and treatments for Lucas, including applied behavior analysis, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech therapy. They also looked into supplements and medication for ADHD and mood dysregulation.

“Unfortunately, those have been non-beneficial, in fact sometimes have even been harmful,” Mariah Hahn said.

But a new method has given the Hahns hope. Called Spelling 2 Communicate or the rapid prompting method, it utilizes a letterboard to allow a person with non-speaking autism to communicate by pointing to letters on the board.

The Hahns say it is often assumed that because Lucas and other children with profound autism are non-speaking, their intelligence is also impaired. But the Hahns don’t necessarily believe that to be the case.

Many communication devices restrict speech to simple phrases, and Mariah Hahn is questioning if this is truly the highest level of communication possible, or simply a confine of the communication method.

“They really confine your speech. Like, he can say, ‘I want more fish,’” said Mariah Hahn. “Right now, they’re like, ‘Well that’s the level he can communicate at.’ Is it? That’s where we have to stop. We have to ask, is it? Or is it a confine of the situation?

“We never question, is the type of communication or the modality in which it’s delivered, combined with their own deficits, or their own struggles, preventing them from saying more? And, if they are present, is this really what they would want to be confined to?”

But the S2C/RPM method has also seen some resistance, with a lack of scientific evidence surrounding the method. Juergen Hahn even admitted he was a bit skeptical at first, before seeing Lucas utilize the method with
a practitioner.

“I can tell you, I was very skeptical myself,” said Juergen Hahn. “But I’ve seen my son work with this, with a skilled practitioner. I have no doubt that these are the things he wrote. And he wrote some fantastic things.”

“There is a lot of resistance to these methods, because the children show, on average, such high level of ability compared to what they’re believed,” Mariah Hahn said.

Since beginning the S2C/RPM method with Lucas, the Hahns are hopeful that word will spread and it will become more widely used. Mariah Hahn said she is “so excited” about a new documentary called, ‘Spellers,’ following the journey of eight nonverbal people who have learned to use the letterboard method to communicate.

“One gift that they can give Lucas and all those with profound autism is to go see it,” said Mariah Hahn. “I can’t tell you how excited these kids are about it.”

Local showings of the film will be held April 26 at 5:45 p.m at the Upstate NY Autism Alliance in Queensbury, April 29 at 1:45 p.m. at the Clifton Park Library, and April 30 at 2 p.m. at RPI.

Hahn said she knows of five other families in the area who are practicing the S2C/RPM method. She said she is hoping to start a homeschool group to teach children at grade level using the letterboard.

“What I’m trying to do is build a community where this is acceptable,” said Mariah Hahn. “There are other schools that have been started. There’s only three in the country, but they’ve been successful, and I’m hoping to start one here.”

This is where Saratoga Bridges’ Autism Expo factors in, allowing families such as the Hahns to meet, discuss ideas, and exchange valuable information. The Hahns said places like the Expo are valuable for finding services, support groups, medical and dental care, and more.

“There is a lot of collective knowledge among families who have children and adults with ASD, and it’s fantastic to tap into that knowledge,” Juergen Hahn said.

The expo will offer therapeutic opportunities, employment resources, recreational activities, academic programs, and more. This year’s Autism Expo features over 70 exhibitors and vendors, and will offer a children’s activity zone, a sensory room, an exhibit displaying works by artists with disabilities, and more. The Expo is free to attend.

“I’ve actually seen practitioners become inspired to do things, and open their practices to those with severe autism, profound autism, having attended this,” added Mariah Hahn. “In fact, one person in the area is actually being trained in S2C. … She’s now pursuing training in S2C because of what she saw when she attended the Autism Expo a year ago. It’s kind of an all-around community thing.”

BALLSTON SPA — Kindergarten and primary students at Saratoga Independent School released a group of juvenile rainbow trout into the Kayaderosseras Creek on Friday, capping off nearly six months of hands-on learning about water conservancy, life in water, Native American culture, and more.

The school took in nearly 100 rainbow trout eggs in October, and students watched and assisted as the fish hatched and grew in aquariums at the school. On Friday, the students finished their aquatic journey, releasing the fish into the wild.

Shauna Swiminer, a kindergarten teacher at Saratoga Independent School, said the project was “a perfect fit” for the school’s hands-on learning style.

“This year, we were studying both water, water conservancy, life in water, and Native American culture,” said Swiminer. “That idea of something so hands-on, that the kids can see, touch, and do, is really what we do at the Independent School.”

The eggs were provided by the Department of Environmental Conservation, and were part of the National Trout in the Classroom curriculum. Students met at Kelley Park in Ballston Spa to release the fish, which was preceded with words from Perry Ground, a member of the Onondaga Nation.

Ground spoke about indigenous culture, the importance of water and fish to the Haudenosaunee people, and led students through the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. The Thanksgiving Address was established as a way to give thanks to “everything in the world around us,” Ground said.

“Once those five tribes joined together, they shared lots of stuff. One of the things that we share is, whenever we join ourselves together, is something called the Thanksgiving Address,” said Ground. “Gratitude and appreciation for the things we have around us. … The Thanksgiving Address is something that we say to say thank you to everything in the world around us.”

Swiminer said her students were “so excited” when she returned to school with the fish in October.

“They were whispering like they were real babies,” said Swiminer. “Two days later, they all started to hatch out. So there was no real waiting time, which was really meaningful to the kids, to be able to get that immediate gratification.”

The students quickly grew attached to the fish, with SIS primary teacher Kathleen Johansson saying they wrote “trout poetry” and letters to the fish. She said working with hands-on projects such as this can make it “so much more real” to the students.

“I think it just makes it so much more real to them, when they’re thinking about these creatures that we’ve had and taken care of since October,” said Johansson. “They might think twice when they see some garbage floating down, and think, ‘Hey, I really don’t want my trout to get wrapped up in that.’”

But even though the fish have been released, the project has not stopped just yet. Johansson said the students will participate in a quilt exchange through the National Trout in the Classroom curriculum.

“We’re going to make individual little quilt squares with paintings on it, decorating, and we’re sending them all off, and we’ll get some in return,” said Johansson. “So we’ll have a giant quilt made from students all around who participated in the program as well.”

This year was the first time the school has participated in the Trout in the Classroom program, but Saratoga Independent School emphasizes many similar hands-on activities. Johansson said earlier this year, her class raised monarch larvae until they became butterflies.

“We did a butterfly garden last year in the spring, and we’ll start that again in a few weeks when it warms up,” Johansson said. “The kids love going out in the springtime. When they see that first monarch, they go, ‘That’s the great grandkids of the ones we let go.’ … Any of those projects where they see it happen in front of them, they just have a very different connection to it.”

Both teachers said they hope the project can help teach their students about different cultures, environmental conservation, showing compassion and empathy, and more.

“I think learning in general is best hands-on. It is important to create citizens that care about the world around them,” Swiminer said. “There were so many experiments about pollution, garbage, and watershed, just the general learning that the kids did. Those are human qualities. Those are things you want your kids to grow up and pass on.”

“I think these are the types of activities that will really stay with them,” added Johansson. “Any of them that are interested in the environment, or watershed, it makes them aware of why it’s important for all of us to care. That would be the biggest lesson, I think.”