What Is The Best School In Prescott Arizona?

What is the best school in Prescott Arizona?

In addition to the wonderful 4-season climate, low crime rate, low taxes and friendly people, Prescott Arizona has a wealth of excellent schools from which to pick the best fit for your children. As we discovered when it was time to choose a school for our son (now 12), there are public, private and charter schools available.  Unbeknownst to us, there was a hidden gem among the choices, Mountain Oak Charter School. Most Waldorf schools are private and tuition can range from $10,000 to $20,000 per year. However Mountain Oak is a charter school and therefore is publicly funded.

The Waldorf approach to education began in 1919 in Germany, when the owner of the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory asked esoteric philosopher Rudolf Steiner to start a school for the workers' children. Today, there are a thousand Waldorf schools in 91 countries, including 159 in the United States, where Waldorf's growth has been particularly vigorous.

Traditional Waldorf schools are private, but the number of public schools inspired by Steiner's methods is growing, fueled in part by the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act and the charter school movement. In the United States, there are about 44 Waldorf-inspired public schools, most of them K-8 charter schools located in the West.

NCLB requirements mandate that students test at grade level in reading and math, which can result in schools reducing the amount of class time dedicated to art. But Waldorf methods, in sharp contrast to traditional public education, encourage a learning pace dictated by the students themselves and an integration of the arts into lessons.

As Waldorf methods have become more accessible and better understood, more teachers have joined charter schools specifically inspired by Waldorf methods or have adopted some of its approaches for their own classrooms within traditional public schools.

The Waldorf method suggests that teachers time their teaching to coincide with a child's readiness to learn. For instance, they teach writing before reading, which sometimes results in students starting to read as late as the third grade. "We hold back on intellectualizing the child until it's time," says sixth-grade teacher Chris Whetstone.

Teachers at two different high schools in Prescott have told me that they see a difference in children that have attended Mountain Oak Charter School.  They notice the kids are more  articulate and seem to be more present than children from other schools.

In the six years our two children have attended Mountain Oak we have been more than satisfied with the wonderful education they are receiving.

Dave Conners has two children at Mountain Oak Charter School in Prescott Arizona.