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Annual Report Photo Credits: Message Table of Tom Pepe and What’s in a Michael Oliveira from the Contents President Name? 03 17 30 Camphill Special School has a 55-year history. Message from the Spreading the Light Living Together With That history is full of stories of transformation: President 18 Technology students who could not speak telling their parents 04 Intention and Meaning 32 “I love you”; non-ambulatory students able to traverse our hills; students who couldn’t recognize To Breathe In and to 20 2017 – 2018 letters learning to read. Now, as a school we are Breathe Out A Year in Community Financial Report undergoing a transformation of our own. We have 06 33 22 officially changed our name to The Camphill School. In the Sun One Simple Answer Our Donors 08 25 What’s in a name? That We realize that we are in a new time where Our Unexpected Home Pietzner Legacy Society which we call a rose perceived segregated settings and “special schools” are not what people want, nor are they 10 26 By any other name what they need. People with intellectual and The Biggest Community All Roads Lead Home of All would smell as sweet. developmental disabilities should not be apart from 28 their community, but a part of it. Our students are 14 So Romeo would, were The Class of 2018 valued participants in all aspects of our community, Transition Program he not Romeo called, Graduates Retain that dear both on-campus and off. Changing our name reflects society’s and our priorities. perfection which he owes While we have taken the word “Special” out of Without that title. our name, we are no less special. We still maintain our founding principles and mission. We continue —William Shakespeare to strive to be a school and community where students make progress in their emotional, educational, and physical development among people who know, understand, and care for them. As Juliet says, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” The Camphill School is committed to “[retaining] that dear perfection which [we] owe” our students, their families, and our dedicated supporters. Jennifer Nilsen Jennifer Nilsen President, Board of Directors 2 The Camphill School / Annual Report / 2017-2018 camphillschool.org 3 By Ginny Thimme, To Breathe 7th grade teacher In and to Breathe Out 1 When I first came dessert after lunch on Ginny has been a teacher to Beaver Run in Sundays! and community member at September 1989, we had The Camphill School for no school on Thursdays; In 1995, this weekly nearly thirty years. instead, we had school rhythm changed to on Saturday mornings! accommodate the day On Thursdays the students, and school 1 children slept in, rested, began to happen in a had pancakes, and went conventional Monday sleep at night and stay which helps them to feel on her face because she on walks, and, then on to Friday rhythm. Many awake and alert during secure. Even if a student knows that her birthday is Saturday mornings, all new rhythms have the day. A strong weekly can’t read, remember, coming! the children went to been established since rhythm helps the students follow a schedule, tell the school, and the houses then, but everyone focus and work hard on time, recite the days of You see, one thing about were “spring cleaned” still (pretty much) has school days and relax the week, remember the rhythm is it repeats itself and special bread rolls lunch at one and supper and enjoy themselves on sequence of the months, endlessly. Rhythms, were made for supper. at six, and everyone the weekends. A strong or name the seasons, however, are not just On Saturday afternoons, still breathes out on yearly rhythm, where they are not lost for long, cyclical, they are also after the children had all Thursdays, except now seasons and festivals because once they have forgiving, and that is a had their baths, dressed the breathing out isn’t are celebrated, helps the been here for a while, their wonderful thing for all of up in their festive sleep-ins and pancakes, students feel connected body starts to remember us here at The Camphill clothes, and attended it’s the weekly concert in to the world of nature and connect to the School. It means that their special story the Blue Room. around them and the rhythms that live here. if you don’t manage to groups, there was a breathing of the earth as come in from recess special weekly delivery. Establishing a healthy it moves around the sun. In my class, we made a when you are called on Someone drove to daily, weekly, and yearly birthday calendar in third Monday, you can try again Simpson’s store in Eagle, rhythm has always Rhythm gives us all grade. Since then when on Tuesday; if you don’t picked up one carton been important at The (adults, children, and February comes around, manage Handwork class of ice cream for each Camphill School, and teenagers alike) a sense everyone knows that it on Wednesday, you can house, and dropped it that is because one that life has meaning is Stephanie’s birthday try again next week; and off at the freezer outside of our main tasks as and purpose. If events month. When we celebrate if you bite into your apple Ember. Then everyone educators is to teach unfold in a predictable Candlemas Day, start when you are walking walked (or raced!) to the students to breathe way, then the students to sing our Valentine’s into the Advent Garden the freezer to pick up in and to breathe out. here know, anticipate, songs, and go out to hunt one year, well you can try their ice cream and we A strong daily rhythm and get ready for what for the first snowdrops, again next year. all had ice cream for helps the students is going to happen next, Stephanie has a little smile 4 The Camphill School / Annual Report / 2017–2018 camphillschool.org 5 2 By Diane M. Frantz- In the Sun Miller, Sensing the time is from God I run up the stairs from our backyard Matthew’s to find the old, cardboard camera to catch the sun’s light Mom Now coming across your face and shining brightly on soft baby skin your eyes raised up to the heavens Wearing your blue, footie pajamas you sit alone, in the corner, against the white picket fence where the ground is sunken and damp with a big, old soccer ball between your crossed legs you tap it Just like a regular boy Like 1 any second now Matthew, winter 2018, age 11, you might jump up and kick it around the backyard often looks up at the large giving it your full attention trees on campus. He likes to watch the long tree branches And now squealing moving in the wind with arms raised up to catch the ball 2 Matthew, 5, in Kindergarten As if to say, at Beaver Run. He is joyful “I fooled you Mommy, of course I can catch this ball.” looking up at the sun. My first born beautiful boy almost five-years-old and still not a word But who needs you to tell me when I can bear witness to you, like this radiating on a mild winter afternoon with full warm sun to your face. 6 The Camphill School / Annual Report / 2017–2018 camphillschool.org 7 By Karuna parents who call Camphill. Even if Camphill is not the broken parts while Kasturi Our I say curious because part of their plan, it is unmasking the raging there is something truly amazing to see how beauty growing inside, extraordinary about the quickly the hope turns wanting to come out. Unexpected array of emotions that into encouragement. Of It’s the tears, tantrums, are conveyed in each course, some stories and trauma that live in story. Bundles of fear, have a stronger sense of us all that lead to the Home guilt, confusion, and pain, yet those are the empathy and compassion sadness are hugged exceptional stories. Why? of understanding one within the arms of hope Because it is they who another. Sometimes all it 1 When we think of home, imagined. I suppose it’s and devotion. There’s a travel farthest in their takes is someone giving A burgeoning spring day on there’s a subconscious in those beliefs that we part of me that just wants unanticipated journey, us a moment to take a campus is truly magical. familiarity tying us to find life’s most valuable to express to them that and their shadow of deep breath, handing the word. We’ve come lessons: Not everything even though we won’t ache turns into a deep us something sweet, Editor’s Note: to internalize the way it works out exactly the know how or when, reverence for their child, and letting us slowly Since this writing, Karuna has looks and feels, and we way we imagine it. something will work out, themselves, and for come to terms with our left the school to pursue her even wear the aroma just never stop trying. Camphill. unexpected home. dreams of becoming a writer of a certain batch of I came to Camphill first Many of the phone calls and photographer. She is favorite cookies as a as a volunteer in the lead to visits, and with One truth I have Camphill was never the living on Camphill Soltane’s blanket, snuggling into woodshop, something their arrival a sense of experienced here is path I planned for and campus and is participating its warm sweetness.

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