Development Team

Organizational Chart

The Credo High School development is led by a team of over 50 educators and professionals, many of whom are either teachers or parents in the region’s six Waldorf-inspired K-8 charter schools. This Development Team is divided into 12 content areas and is managed by Lead Content Developer Chip Romer.

 

 

CONTENT DEVELOPMENT

 

chip romer Chip Romer is a Waldorf parent who has been actively involved with the Waldorf-inspired charter school movement since 1998. He was a founder and the lead developer of the K-8 Waldorf-inspired Woodland Star Charter School, founded in Sonoma in 2000. In the same year he was a founding member of the Stone Bridge School in Napa. Chip served as administrator of Woodland Star from 2002 until 2008, during which time Woodland Star became the first WASC-accredited Waldorf-inspired charter school in California. He is a founder of and currently serves on the board of the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education. Chip served on the Member Council of the California Charter Schools Association and for over ten years has served on the boards of private and public Waldorf schools. Prior to his involvement with Waldorf education, Chip worked as a writer and editor, business entrepreneur and government economist. He earned his BA in Economics from the University of Notre Dame.

 

PROCESS DEVELOPMENT

 

teri aspenWith a strong belief that process (how we work and learn effectively together) is as important as content (what we learn) in the development of a school community, the initiative has placed Terri Ellis, a professional organizational development consultant, in the role of Lead Process Developer.

 Terri Ellis is an Organizational Development professional with over fifteen years experience in consulting to corporations, nonprofits and schools. Her work includes personal and executive coaching, training design and delivery, culture measure and analysis, facilitation of complex issues, change management and strategy clarification and implementation. Terri has worked extensively with education, healthcare, executive and leadership teams, manufacturing and financial services organizations. She earned her BA in Psychology from Prescott College, her MA in Psychology from the Institute for Imaginal Studies and is completing her Ph.D. in Psychology from Meridian University.

 

 

development team yin yang

Respectively, Mr. Romer and Ms. Ellis lead the what and the how of the school’s development.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Development Team

Organizationally, the school development is divided into twelve content areas. A volunteer professional with expertise in each area leads a team of volunteers recruited from the parents and community members of the North Bay’s six Waldorf-inspired K-8 schools. The twelve leaders are known as the Development Team; these team leaders meet monthly as a group, and Mr. Romer and Ms. Ellis support their work.

Development Team Areas

Program

The Credo program is based on the Waldorf high school curriculum. The school year is organized into concentrated Main Lesson Blocks, where students are led in an in-depth, three–week, 5-day-a-week study of particular content areas. Other subjects, such as math and foreign language, are taught as track classes throughout the year. The program is college prep and follows the University of California’s A-G admission standards. Where possible, classes will offer students a choice of a theoretical or a practical approach to content. The school will offer a full range of visual and performing arts. Music will include chorus, orchestra, folk and world music. Drama will include class plays and school-wide productions. There will be athletics for boys and girls as well as clubs and organizations. Sustainable agricultural programs will concentrate on biodynamic farming. College and career counseling and Special Education services will be offered.

Sustainability

Care for the planet and our impact on it are a primary concern for our youth. A focused study of environmental and agricultural sustainability will meet student passion, prepare students to be effective stewards of the Earth and address science curriculum in a hands-on way. The core value of sustainability will be demonstrated in our campus garden and farm. Located in the agriculturally based Sonoma County, it is a natural match that the school will include a study of sustainable practices. Students who are not college bound will have the opportunity to specialize in a vocational track focused on agricultural sustainability.

Student Contributions

State funding of approximately $6000 per student will not be adequate to pay for the extensive depth of the Waldorf high school curriculum. Our vision is to design financial sustainability into the school and to have students work on the school's behalf. We have many successful models to study. One model scenario is that Credo would partner with an employment agency, finding part-time work for its students. The agency's fees for student earning would support the school’s budget; students would be taught in an economics class how to invest their personal earnings in a socially responsible way and would graduate with a nest egg for college. Students would learn real-world job skills and gain clarity about their personal and professional interests in how they might contribute to the world, and they would share responsibility for the financial strength of their high school.

Mentoring

A single caring adult can make all the difference in the life of a youth. It is our intention that all Credo students have a mentor to care for them and support them throughout their high school career. Mentors may offer academic support and nurture career or artistic interests in their student mentees, or they may be a caring grandparent figure who offers stability and emotional support. School parents and perhaps even twelfth graders will be strongly encouraged to participate in the life of the school by serving as mentors.

Partnerships

Credo intends to be an active participant and resource to its broader North Bay community. We intend to form partnerships with existing organizations for mutual benefit. Partnerships with higher educational institutions such as Sonoma State, Santa Rosa Junior College, Napa Valley College and the College of Marin will allow for motivated Credo juniors and seniors to take college-level courses for dual high school and college credit. Partnerships with organic and biodynamic farmers will benefit the student and the farm. Partnerships with organizations such as One Planet Communities and Sonoma Mountain Village will support the Credo value of sustainability. Partnerships with Sonoma State and Meridian University will provide benefits to Credo and provide graduate students with research studies. Partnerships with Rudolf Steiner College, Sonoma State and Dominican University will provide Credo with student teachers and inspire more teachers to pursue training in Waldorf education. Partnerships with existing nonprofits such as Peace Jam, which pairs groups of students with Nobel Peace Prize Laureates to create peacemaking projects, will benefit students and connect them to the wider world.

Adventure Learning

As an intentional learning community, Credo will offer students experiences that meet their developmental needs and their curiosity for the larger world.  Spending time outside of the classroom with a diverse group of people—in nature, in our community, in other communities—will build capacities and interests beyond the rich on-campus curriculum.  Beginning with ninth grade orientation, students will experience projects, travel, challenge courses and overnight field trips that enrich the curriculum and build a respectful, knowledgeable and empathetic student body. In tenth grade, students will begin to consider participating in possible exchange student and summer abroad programs to build language skills and insight into other cultures.  Service learning in Central or South America or Africa, building a school or a hospital, teaching or sharing knowledge of biodynamic agriculture will help give our students an early sense of their place in the world. An optional Fifth Year (gap year) program of service learning opportunities in developing countries will help our graduates align their interests and abilities with the needs of the greater world. Credo will partner with existing organizations to design the Fifth Year program; while graduates will no longer be enrolled in Credo during their Fifth Year term, the school will continue to hold a keen interest in them. Long-term relationships between Credo and specific regions in the developing world will strengthen students’ identities as world citizens and provide significant ongoing help to developing communities.

Outreach, Marketing and PR

How Credo presents itself to the community will be critical to our success. A comprehensive survey of potential families clarified their needs and expectations in relationship to the high school. This data has informed charter development and decisions about location. We will work diligently to build the Credo “brand,” establishing our identity throughout the North Bay as an intentional learning community. Our marketing team writes newsletters and web content, and leads outreach events to our various constituents.

Fundraising and Development

While Credo is publicly funded, the current level of state funding is inadequate to support the wide range of courses offered in the Waldorf curriculum. Additionally, due to the way charter facilities laws are written, Credo will likely have to bear the majority of its facility costs. Fundraising makes an important contribution toward balancing our annual operating budgets. We will also undertake a capital campaign to support the acquisition and building of our dream campus. Of immediate priority is fundraising to meet the expenses of the initial development phase.

Facilities

Credo is working to secure a temporary, rented facility while we build enrollment during the first five years of operation. Concurrently are working toward the acquisition and development of our dream, green, farm campus. In the development of this campus, all care will be given to developing a “closed system” that is environmentally sustainable and uses only sustainable materials, and features solar power, on-site waste treatment and recycling, and organic food production. In addition to classrooms, our model campus will include science and computer labs, arts studios, artist-in residence and farmer housing, a library, gallery space, theater, meeting hall, café, farm stand, playing fields, gym, and possibly an on-campus pre-school and elder activity center.

Finance

Our Finance team oversees all forecasting, budget planning and fiscal management for the start up and initial operations phases of the school. This team tracks and applies for all relevant state and federal funding, including grants, and interfaces with district and county finance officers with regard to authorization and financial oversight. The Finance team work closely with Program and Facilities to identify projected expenses and with Fundraising to share information about needs.

Legal

Our Legal team provides support to all aspects of the development process, particularly interfacing with Administration in developing legal governing structures and the chartering process and with Facilities in the site development, reviewing documents, negotiating, drafting and reviewing contracts.

Administration

Our Administration team oversee the design of our governance, the design and writing of our business plan and charter document, including all policies and procedures, and will work to determine the best authorizing agency for the school. This team works closely with all other facets of the Development Team to integrate their work into the greater vision of the school, as expressed in our charter document. This team is responsible for developing and securing relationships with authorizers; for securing charter approval; for MOU negotiation; for contract negotiations, including Special Education services; for staffing and human resource management including hiring, credentialing and training requirements; and planning all aspects of the daily operation of the school.

 

Development Team
Terri Aspen

Terri Aspen is an Organizational Development professional with over fifteen years experience in consulting to corporations, nonprofits and schools. Her work includes personal and executive coaching, training design and delivery, culture measure and analysis, facilitation of complex issues, change management and strategy clarification and implementation. Terri has worked extensively with education, healthcare, executive and leadership teams, manufacturing and financial services organizations. She earned her BA in Psychology from Prescott College, her MA in Psychology from the Institute for Imaginal Studies and is completing her Ph.D. in Psychology from Meridian University.
Alysson Baker

Alysson Baker earned her BA in Architecture from Yale University and is the owner of Baker Pre-Construction Company, an estimating consulting business specializing in educational and community facilities, historical renovations and high-end residences. Alysson is also a general contractor, board president of the Sebastopol Independent Charter School, and a student of Waldorf Education, currently in her third year of teacher training at the Center for Educational Renewal. She is an effective project manager with twenty years of professional administrative experience. Alysson is the mother of two Waldorf students.
Steve Bossio

Steve Bossio is a financial consultant with over ten years of financial consulting to charter schools. He served as CFO of Woodland Star Charter School from 2004-2009, responsible for budget development and forecasting, fiscal management, including annual audits, and reporting to local, county and state agencies. Steve served on the Woodland Star board from 2000-2009, including a term as President, Chair of the Finance Committee and as Lead Developer in the school’s 2003 authorizer transition. He earned his BS in Business Administration from Cal Poly San Luis Obisbo.
Maria Bragoiner

Maria Bragoiner, Credo English and Theater teacher, holds a BA in English and Theater, an MS in Educational Administration, and is currently working on an MA in Human Development. She also holds California single subject and administrative credentials. She has taught at both public and private high schools in the past.  Maria earned her Waldorf teaching certificate at the Center for Educational Renewal. She is the mother of two Waldorf students.
Lisa Modica

Lisa Modica attended Shining Mountain Waldorf School in Boulder, Colorado from kindergarten through twelfth grade. As a member Shining Mountain’s first high school graduating class, Lisa has a first hand experience of high school start-ups. Lisa attended Oberlin College, was granted a biology internship with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the island of Kauai, Hawaii, where she worked to propagate rare, native plants, and institute an education program for the local wildlife refuges, and graduated in Environmental Studies from the University of Colorado. Lisa worked for The Nature Conservancy of Colorado’s science department, evaluating biologically significant landscapes, and organizing programs to conserve them. Presently, Lisa is a candidate for an MBA in Sustainable Enterprise at Dominican University of California, with a focus on sustainability in education and bringing communities together to realize sustainability and purpose-filled vision. She lives in Petaluma with her husband and two young children who are future Waldorf students.
Tiffany Roberts

Tiffany Roberts, Credo science and PE teacher, has been teaching high school science since 1997 in mainstream public schools, in charter schools and in a Waldorf high school. Tiffany earned her BS in Biology with an emphasis in Education from San Diego State and her teaching credentials from Chapman University. She has taught biology, chemistry, earth science, environmental science, farming and PE, and she has coached softball and volleyball. Tiffany has studied biomimicry and has a particular interest in applying it to the high school curriculum. She has also designed and led student travel in other cultures and has served for two years as Adventure Learning Manager on Credo’s Development Team.
Chip Romer

Chip Romer is a Waldorf parent who has been actively involved with the Waldorf-inspired charter school movement since 1998. He was a founder and the lead developer of the K-8 Waldorf-inspired Woodland Star Charter School, founded in Sonoma in 2000. In the same year he was a founding member of the Stone Bridge School in Napa. Chip served as administrator of Woodland Star from 2002 until 2008, during which time Woodland Star became the first WASC-accredited Waldorf-inspired charter school in California. He is a founder of and currently serves on the board of the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education. Chip served on the Member Council of the California Charter Schools Association and for over ten years has served on the boards of private and public Waldorf schools. Prior to his involvement with Waldorf education, Chip worked as a writer and editor, business entrepreneur and government economist. He earned his BA in Economics from the University of Notre Dame.
Pamela Sachs

Pamela Sachs recently retired to Sonoma after 35 years as a counselor and public high school counselor in Colorado, working with unique, talented and underachieving students. She has a Master’s degree in Counseling Education, a Counseling Credential from the state of Colorado and a California Community College Teaching credential. During her career, Pamela developed pioneering programs, such as the “Roads Scholars” program in partnership with Colorado State University, which developed an interdisciplinary 12-week program that took 20-40 students per year on the road for service learning in The Navajo Nation in Arizona, Patagonia, Chile and San Lucas Toliman, Guatemala. Pamela enjoys learning through mentorship and has years of experience mentoring and being mentored in the public school arena. Pamela is the mother of a Waldorf high school graduate.
Trina Saldana

Trina Saldana is a law student who works as an assistant advocate for client rights at Disability Rights California. Previously, Trina worked as a tax preparer, business entrepreneur and web designer. Her English/Spanish bilingual skills have granted her many opportunities. Trina earned her BS in Computer Science from Sonoma State and is the mother of a Waldorf student. Our team is represented by Paul Minney, partner in Middleton, Young & Minney, LLP, California’s most experienced, knowledgeable 
and respected firm working in the area of charter school law.
Kirsty Shelton

Kirsty Shelton is Senior Planner for the County of Napa. She earned her BA in Environmental Studies and Planning from Sonoma State, and her Masters in Regional Planning from Massey University in New Zealand, where her thesis focused on sustainable redevelopment in the Pacific Islands. She is a LEED Accredited Professional, and has earned certificates in Real Estate Development and Small Wind Energy Systems from U.C. Davis. Prior to her position with Napa County, Kirsty was a principal in Planning for Sustainable Development, Planning and Development Manager for Healthy Buildings USA, Inc. and Assistant Planner for the Town of Yountville. She is a member of the United States Green Building Council and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Kirsty is the mother of a fifth grader at Stone Bridge School.
Victoria Temple

For much of her career, Victoria Temple has worked as Development Director for Waldorf schools and non-profits, including Willow Wood Waldorf School, The Center for Creative Art Therapies and, currently, Live Oak Charter School. Victoria has experience with all aspects of development work and also has expertise as a graphic artist. She earned her BA in art and education and her teaching credential from the University of Washington; and she studied Management and Community Development at Tufts University and MIT. Victoria’s four children attended Waldorf schools, and Victoria is the grandmother of a Waldorf student.
Sam Turner

Sam Turner is a licensed General Contractor and President of Gracie Construction, Inc. Sam earned his BS in Business and Marketing from Skidmore College and has worked toward an International Business MBA at St. Mary’s College. He has been the manager of many prestigious building projects, including The Presentation School in Sonoma, Nicholson Ranch Winery and the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art. Sam is experienced in all aspects of commercial and residential construction. For two years he has served as Facilities Manager on Credo's Development Team. Sam is the father of three—a toddler and two Waldorf students.