Mountain Sage Community School

Mountain Sage Community School offers a Waldorf-inspired, arts-integrated education, fully incorporating sustainable living practices into student learning.  Each child is empowered to cultivate meaningful connections to their intellectual, physical, emotional, social, and creative capacities in healthy, safe, and beautiful learning environments.  Through a supportive community of peers, parents, and teachers, each child will become a confident, self-directed and engaged learner, invested in their own education.  Mountain Sage is a Waldorf-inspired public charter school in Fort Collins, Colorado.  This is its fifth year in operation.  It is a K-8 school, serving 270 children and their families.  An integral part of the school's curriculum is its gardening program.  With the garden site starting as a gravel parking lot, we now have an established garden and a gardening team comprised of two lead teachers and an assistant.  Outdoor gardens are thriving and a Growing Spaces growing dome was recently added to expand the program and make year-round gardening a possiblity.  The entire school and school community benefits from a robust composting and vermicomposting program as well as a full garden.  School festivals are tied to the garden.  Harvest Festival boasts a 500 person soup prepared by the middle school children, while Winter Faire items include salves, succulents, and teas all made from the garden.  May Faire is accompanied by a student run plant-start sale.  The garden grows items for natural dyes used by the Practical Arts teacher and complements other areas of education within the school.  

By integrating traditional Waldorf methods and curriculum into the Colorado Academic Standards, children leave Mountain Sage with a life-long passion for learning, well prepared for the transition into other academic programs.

Mountain Sage embraces the key aspects of the local sustainability movement, providing students and their families with an increased connection to their local environment.  By utilizing the rich community resources of Fort Collins and through ongoing cultivation and development of the school's land with edible gardens, all children deepen their connection with the earth, self, and community.