Whidbey Island Waldorf School Celebrates 40 Years With Freeland Gala

Four decades after Anne Zontine and a group of like-minded parents brought Waldorf education to south Whidbey Island, Zontine stood as a keynote speaker Saturday at Freeland Hall, watching her grandchildren's school mark 40 years with a gala fundraiser titled "40 Years of Stories."

The event ran from 4 to 7 p.m. and was catered by Front Street Grill of Coupeville. Zontine, one of the school's original founders, moved to Whidbey in 1978 and has seen her children and grandchildren pass through the same classrooms she helped establish. She recalled how the founders, committed to an education that cultivates academic learning alongside creativity, spirituality, and connection to the natural world, built the Whidbey Island Waldorf School from the ground up.

The evening's program brought together several threads of the school's community history. Musician and singer-songwriter Kevin Fristad led a sing-along; his wife Terri was among the participants in the school's early days. School parent Ru Mahoney, founder of Project Impact, screened a documentary he produced tracing the institution's history. The auction included a private flight and a sailboat tour among its items. Ticket sales had closed March 11.

The Whidbey Island Waldorf School, known as WIWS, serves students from pre-kindergarten through middle school at a campus described as situated in the midst of a 100-acre forest preserve, roughly an hour north of Seattle and ten minutes from Langley. The school has operated on south Whidbey Island since 1985, offering what it describes as a whole-person, arts-integrated curriculum rooted in holistic learning.

The gala was one of several anniversary observances planned across the year. A Festival of Flowers is scheduled for May 10 from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the South Whidbey Community Center's back field, open to the broader community. In May, Grades Pedagogical Director Angela Lindstrom, who is Ojibwe on her mother's side and part Eastern Band Cherokee on her father's side, will lead an indigenous-inspired Coast Salish Cultural Sharing campout for the school's fourth graders.

WIWS is currently enrolling for the coming autumn in both its grades and early childhood programs, and will offer 12 summer camp and school programs, all led by Waldorf teachers. More information is available at wiws.org.