It was there that she became familiar with the multiple principles of the Rudolf Steiner such as anthroposophy, pedagogy and biodynamic farming. She realized that she had found the education and community for her son that she wholeheartedly would have loved to have had for herself as a young child.

In 2000, she began working as a teacher at Youth Initiative High School, a private Waldorf-inspired secondary school, where she discovered her love of teaching and working with the youth. She began her training in Waldorf Education and in 2001, she accepted a position as a 1st Grade classroom teacher at Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School while simultaneously teaching a variety of block and path classes at the high school such as Art History, Life Skills: Teen Issues, Dance, Fiber Arts, Jam Band, and Italian 101 Independent Study over the course of 13 years. Pursuing a longtime dream to live in California, she moved to Nevada County in 2014 to work at Yuba River Charter School where she was employed as a rotating middle school teacher until shifting roles into her current position as the Pedagogical Administrator and Home Study Specialist for Grades 4-8. Joyfully and courageously, she has had classroom teaching experience in Grades 1 – 12 as well as specialty classes such as theatre arts, chorus, ancient movement and dance, and human fertility/rites of passage.

Throughout her career in education, she has served on boards, hiring committees and faculty councils, taught workshops, provided mentoring and held leadership roles for various festivals. Over the decades, she has attended various trainings, workshops and lectures with Kim John Payne, Dennis Klocek, Jamie York, Leo Klein, George Hoffecker, Betty Staley, Eugene Schwartz, Mikko and Antje Borjarsky, Torin Finser, David Barham, and other Waldorf greats.

For rejuvenation, she spends time organic gardening and farming, cooking, hiking, learning languages, traveling, spending time with family and friends, writing and performing music, dance and theatre.

“Throughout my experience in the classroom, I see the children shifting rapidly with our fast-changing world, presenting new situations and challenges. I feel it important to foster imaginative, innovative ways as well as draw on the roots of Waldorf Education to build resiliency and adaptability amidst the teachers, parents, and children to meet our future in a creative and conscious way. From contact with alumni students to seeing my own son and bonus daughter flourish, I know Waldorf works!” ~ Jacquelynn