About Us
Shade Canyon is a tuition-free public charter school in Kelseyville that is inspired by the principles of Public Waldorf education while meeting California state standards. This unique school community is engaging and sustaining for families and learners of all types and backgrounds.
In the 2023-2024 school year, Shade Canyon opened for students in transitional kindergarten through second grade, and will expand by one grade each year through eighth grade. Any Lake County resident may apply to this tuition-free, public charter school in Kelseyville with admission determined by lottery.
Mission
To cultivate inspired learners
Vision
We believe that by honoring simplicity, we will nurture the spark of the individual and nourish a thriving community.
What Makes Shade Canyon Unique?
The Gift of Childhood
Shade Canyon’s kindergarten is play-based, teaching a strong groundwork of vocabulary and social skills through imagination, story, song, and seasonal activities.
Relationship With Nature
Through integrated outdoor lessons, gardening, field trips, and imaginative play, students learn to love and honor nature. Nature continues inside our classrooms with vibrant walls, wooden furniture, watercolor paintings, natural fiber toys, and the scent of modeling beeswax.
Rhythms of Time
Our school days are structured on rhythms that include routines of gathering and transitioning with song and a balance of types of engagement like movement, story, and art. In the grades, mornings are devoted to the more rigorous academic work.
Rhythms of the Child
We match teaching to development – including a child’s inner life as well as cognitive, physical, and social growth. This means we recognize and acknowledge individual learning strategies. We follow our own pacing in the application of state standards, especially in the early grades.
Parent Involvement
This style of education attracts and nurtures families who are connected to the community and eager to participate, supporting the child’s education and the life of our school in a wide variety of ways.
Integrated Subjects
Shade Canyon weaves storytelling, arts, music, movement, and hands-on activity into academic lessons as tools of teaching. All types of learners can thrive in this model, and it yields excellent academic results.
Unique Tools
Students spend more time creating their own books than reading textbooks, with learning solidified as they write and illustrate each morning’s Main Lesson. Dedication to inner motivation allows a reduced emphasis on competitive testing and grades-oriented incentives.
Media Moderation
Shade Canyon’s early-grades classrooms are screen-free, filled with vibrant hands-on, artistic, and social experiences. We encourage parents to support their children’s learning by giving them abundant screen-free time at home. In later grades, students learn to use technology as a tool to enhance learning.
Strong Relationships
Beginning in first grade, teachers often stay with the same group of students for multiple years, allowing time to know children and families deeply and to help students unfold their specific gifts. With these deep relationships, students build confidence, take educational risks, and enter fully into the social and intellectual life of the class. We delay the introduction of homework until fourth grade, allowing the children the time to continue to develop through the important “work” of play, imagination, and social interaction.
History
Local parents and visionaries Morgan Chinnock and Savannah Mitchell began the rigorous foundational work in 2018 to bring a school based in Public Waldorf philosophy to Lake County, where no such option was available to families. They spread the idea and gathered interested families and community members by hosting outdoor bi-weekly playgroups for young children and their families, coordinating other educational and fundraising events, and conducting surveys.
Vast hours of background labor and enormous amounts of courage and heart went into meetings, research, collaborations, and the development of a 230-page charter petition. Shade Canyon School was authorized to become a public charter school by the Kelseyville Unified School District on August 17, 2021. In 2023, the founding board signed a long-term lease with the Kelseyville Lions Club to develop the Shade Canyon campus on their 1.2-acre property.
Future
Shade Canyon is participating in the multi-year process for new schools to become a member of the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education. The Waldorf model is a worldwide tradition built on the educational ideas of philosopher, writer, and director Rudolf Steiner, which provide the core principles guiding Shade Canyon’s philosophy, pedagogy, and community.
Shade Canyon is continually growing and responding to its environment: as additional classes are added through 8th grade, as traditions develop and celebrations are held, as qualified local teachers are recruited to lead classrooms and teach enrichment classes, and as students make their impact as healthy, contributing members of society.
The Roots of Our Name
Long ago, high on dry and brush-covered Mount Konocti, a saddle canyon created a haven of shade. There, a grove of canyon oaks grew up together. Their thick trunks now spiral up a hundred feet, into a canopy that refreshes any traveler that passes by.
We want to be a shade canyon, too, where inspired learners can sink their roots deep and reach for the sky.
