Baba has been a professional speaker since 1994 and is one of the few recognized U.S. born practitioners of the ancient West African storytelling craft known as Jaliyaa. He has received numerous awards over the years for his work as a folklorist, traditional harpist, storyteller, community activist and volunteer. Baba has presented in thousands of schools and other institutions all across the world, including Waldorf schools and conferences. He presents deep truths about being human and our ask as educators through engaged and engaging storytelling.

https://babathestoryteller.com/home/about-baba/

For over 20 years, Anjum Mir has supported parents in establishing healthy home rhythms as a parent and child teacher and educational consultant. Her teaching experience has taken her from public and private schools to Waldorf Education, which she discovered while looking for an educational system that honored the development and spiritual well-being of her first child. A mother of four, she is currently School Co- coordinator at Westside Waldorf School in Los Angeles. She is on the board of WECAN and several other education-focused organizations and is involved in teacher education and training. She has worked intimately with over 500 families helping them facilitate space for children to unfold in their development. Anjum draws from her work with Pikler, Waldorf methods, meditation, non-violent communication, Positive Discipline, and her own spiritual path to support families and teachers.

https://waldorfearlychildhood.org/about-wecan/about-us/

Ashley Radzat

Ashley Radzat is a seasoned educator and mentor who blends deep expertise with a warm, personable touch. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Family Studies and is a credentialed California multi-subject teacher. With over 20 years in education, Ashley spent 12 years as a Waldorf classroom teacher and later served as a Social-Emotional Coordinator, supporting students, families, and faculty in building resilient and connected school communities.

Through Radzat Consulting, Ashley partners with schools as a mentor, instructional consultant, and parent educator—helping teachers strengthen classroom culture, elevate social-emotional literacy, and implement restorative practices with confidence and compassion.

Ashley is also an M.C.L.C. (Master Certified Life Coach) and a California Wellness Coach, working directly with parents of teens and with teens themselves. She offers practical, developmentally grounded tools that strengthen communication, rebuild connection, and help families thrive during the adolescent years.

She holds advanced certifications in Waldorf Education, Kim John Payne’s Three Streams, the Neufeld Institute, and Restorative Justice, bringing a rich, integrated perspective to every family and school she serves.

Learn more at www.radzatconsulting.com.

Jacquelynn Kolenko

Jacquelynn began her Waldorf journey first as a mother in a homeschool cooperative. She has since served as a Waldorf elementary and high school teacher, as well as a Waldorf Pedagogical Administrator and mentor. 

Doing her best to maintain a healthy work-life balance, she loves plant alchemy through gardening, cooking and medicine-making. She spends lots of time in nature, especially frequent escapades to the ocean. Artistic expression through dance, drawing and playing music is a must! Laughter and connection with her friends and family feeds her soul. She is the proud mother of a highly creative 28-year old Waldorf alumni and bonus mom to a bright, spunky 9th Grade girl who is l likewise a Waldorf alumni

Shivani Burrows-Goodwill, Ed.D.

‘Dr. Shivani’ discovered Waldorf education as a young mother in rural Northern California in 1979, where she apprenticed and trained with master teachers in both Early Childhood and Grades. After pioneering a rural imitative K-1, she took her family in 1985 to help ‘grow’ the young Shining Mountain Waldorf school, to a fully fledged K-12 school, while carrying a class 1 to 8, before returning to kindergarten teaching. Her passion for extending Waldorf to a multicultural community led her to San Diego and Waldorf-inspired charter school work in 1998 at the Harriet Tubman Charter school. Inspired by her work with the National Writing Project, Shivani focused her doctoral inquiry on the hidden assets of marginal immigrant children. (Ed.D. UCSD, 2009).

She enjoys enlivening the curriculum with a focus on meeting her students in their context, most recently completing a 5-year span with a class at an urban Waldorf inspired charter school class in La Mesa. Born and educated in the UK, (B.A. Cambridge, M.A. London), she remains a lifelong learner, currently striving to upgrade her Spanish to support her cross-border work with the Semillero Waldorf initiative in Tijuana.

Teresa Woods

Teresa discovered the gem of Waldorf education in 1983 while working for Oak Meadow School, and throughout her career, has woven together her callings in both education and natural science. Her teaching experience spans the elementary, secondary, undergraduate, and graduate levels, and she has earned award recognition for teaching as well as research and curriculum development. Through significant grant awards, Teresa has initiated and led several innovative educational programs focused on equity in science education, teacher licensure, and social-emotional learning. Waldorf pedagogy and phenomenological science form the core of her practice, and she’s been fortunate to integrate these approaches both inside and outside the Waldorf movement.

Teresa has served Waldorf schools in many capacities, as office staff, class teacher, board member, mentor, teacher educator, professional development specialist, and school leader. She’s been especially dedicated to help grow and support the public Waldorf movement. She was a STEM program coordinator at K-State, then Assistant Professor at Fort Hays State University, before moving to Colorado Springs to become school leader at Mountain Song Community School, a public Waldorf-inspired K-8 charter school. She served Mountain Song for six years before retiring in 2024, and continues to consult with the school to ensure completion of the major capital renovation and expansion project she initiated. Teresa earned her B.A. (environmental education) at Prescott College; Waldorf certification at Emerson College in England; M.S. (biology - plant ecology) and Ph.D. (curriculum and instruction– science education), both at Kansas State University.

Cassandra Bridge 

 Cassandra Bridge works on the Student Services and Labor/Employment Teams, emphasizing practice areas, including assisting clients in compliance with Title IX, special education, policy development, Section 504, student discipline, hiring, discipline/termination, and labor relations. Before joining YM&C in 2022, Cassandra spent over 25 years in education as a teacher, professor, and administrator up to the postsecondary level. While living in Japan, Cassandra was the Education Program Director for the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet. Based on her varied years of professional experience, she is well-versed in operations, human resources, student discipline, finances, compliance, and special education.

Providing support and guidance in these essential areas aligns with Cassandra’s passionate belief that an educated populace is the foundation of a free society. Cassandra is an active board member of the Read to Me Project. Its mission is to help under-served children achieve kindergarten readiness by empowering older siblings to read to their young siblings. She also volunteers as the Board President for the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education, a nationwide organization supporting Waldorf education in the public sector.

The Rubanos

Patricia and Joseph Rubano have been working together offering workshops of various kinds for over 25 years.

Patricia, a 'once upon a time' Waldorf Early Childhood educator is still involved with Waldorf schools by bringing workshops to school communities through the Awakening Connections; Creating Community Program for the Center for Biography and Social Art.  She also offers mentoring and does site visits and evaluations.  She has been formally working with Biography and Social Art since 1997 as faculty and then director of the Certificate Training Program through the CBSA.

Joseph is a Biographical Counselor, retreat leader, poet as well as a faculty member of the Biography & Social Art Program. 

He has been offering the True Heart True Mind Enlightenment Intensive and the Desert Solo Vision Quest Experience twice a year in the San Diego area since 2008. His recently published book of poetry, This Crazy Love Life, is available on Amazon.

Rainbow Rosenbloom

Rainbow Rosenbloom received his Waldorf certification from Emerson College, Forest Row, England. After teaching in every grade from 1st to 12th in private Waldorf schools, he attended Harvard Graduate School of Education, studying multiple intelligence theory with Howard Gardner. He received an Ed.M and was hired as Director of Alternative Education for a small school district on the central California coast.

Rainbow helped to craft a resource center for homeschoolers, bringing Waldorf classes and parent education opportunities to families from 21 different public school districts. Soon after the charter law passed, Rainbow helped innovate a public Waldorf charter school in Monterey, CA and became its administrator. During that time, recognizing the need to support homeschoolers with Waldorf materials, he developed Live Education! with colleague Bruce Bischof in 1997.

Live Education! has served over 5,000 families internationally, as well as teachers in over 125 Waldorf schools. Imagining the strong potential for explosive growth in the public sphere, he helped to found the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education in 2005 and continues to serve on the Executive Committee as vice president. Rainbow continues to consult with both private and public Waldorf schools, convinced that the cultural revolution will be fueled by creative and inspired thinkers, many of whom will come out of the Waldorf movement.

Karina Haedo

Karina Haedo is a lifelong Waldorf educator and graduate, having attended a Waldorf school from second through twelfth grade. She studied at Oberlin College and earned her Bachelor’s Degree, Magna Cum Laude, from Purchase College. She holds a California Multiple Subjects Credential through Dominican University of California and an Administrative Credential through the North Coast School of Education. Her Waldorf Elementary Teacher Training and Master’s Degree in Waldorf Remedial Education were completed at Sunbridge College in New York. She is currently the Director of SunRidge School in Sebastopol, California.

Originally from Argentina, Karina is a native Spanish speaker and proud of her Latinx heritage. She works with intentionality in the realm of diversity, equity, and inclusion, weaving these values throughout her leadership.

Over the past twenty-eight years, Karina has dedicated her career to education—first as a classroom teacher in grades one through eight, and later as a remedial teacher at the Otto Specht School in Chestnut Ridge, NY. Since 2020, she has served in educational administration, beginning as a Student Services Coordinator and subsequently as a Director. She is currently the Director of SunRidge Charter School, a public Waldorf school in Sebastopol, California.

Karina is the mother of four children, ages 12 through 28, and a grandmother. She enjoys hiking, backpacking, cooking, reading, crafting, and spending time with family and friends.

Kimberly Telfer-Radzat

Kimberly Telfer-Radzat, PhD, believes that all children deserve access to engaging, developmentally appropriate curriculum and that they are only limited by the perceptions adults have of them. She found herself in the classroom for the first time working as an aide at The Prentice School, a school for students with dyslexia. This inspired her first return to school for her California Multiple Subject credential. She discovered Waldorf education when her oldest daughter was in kindergarten and enrolled her at the Waldorf School of Orange County for first grade with the hope that what was being offered would live up to her expectations. It did, and she found herself employed there as an as an Extra Lesson™ teacher and supported students who needed extra help at WSOC for six years. In 2007, she took on her first grades class and took them through 8 th grade graduation in 2016. It was during her sabbatical year that she was approached to join a group of homeschool parents who were attempting to open a public Waldorf school in Orange County – Sycamore Creek Community Charter School in Cerritos. At the same time, she trained as an Educational Therapist at UC Riverside, developing a deeper understanding of teaching and learning. She has since followed up on her education, going back to school in an attempt to understand more deeply how and why Waldorf education works. She has several publications as a result of this enterprise.

Kimberly holds a B.A. in Fabric Design as a Wearable Art from UC San Diego and a PhD in Educational Policy and Social Context from UC Irvine, and an educational therapist certificate from UC Riverside. Her husband and two children have been ever so supportive of all her work. In the six minutes she has leftover in any week, she enjoys gardening, sewing, reading, and puzzles.

Haley Zanze

 Striving to work at the crossroads of education and social change, Haley Zanze's love of Waldorf education, rooted in a lifetime of immersion in Waldorf schools, guides her passion for doing the work to deepen our schools' and communities' commitment to justice. She has taught in early childhood and lower grades in three public Waldorf schools, as well as through collaboration in various settings in Kenya and Ethiopia.  

Elizabeth Seward, PhD (Education) 

Elizabeth has been teaching handwork for 40+ years in private, public, and homeschool settings, and teaching teachers. She published “Teaching Through Stories: Jane and Jeremy Learn to Knit"  learn more as she discovered the best way to teach practical arts is always through stories and open-ended imagination, especially, but not only, in the early grades. As a class teacher, she delighted in the metamorphosis of the story-telling curriculum through the grades.

After offering annual in-person summer retreats for handwork teachers, in 2021 she founded an online international handwork teacher training program. Waldorf Handwork Educators (www.WaldorfHandwork.org) now also offers three annual international online conferences, professional development, skills classes, and other resources. The 7th two-year 'live' online handwork teacher training cohort will begin in the Fall of 2026, and we will hold our 3rd year of All-Subjects conferences in the Spring and Summer of 2026. Subject teachers hold a unique role in every school, and we serve the children best if all teachers work together. Stories are at the heart of all we do! 

Author, Teaching Through Stories: Jane and Jeremy Learn to Knit https://books.friesenpress.com/store/title/119734000016540041/Elizabeth-Seward-Teaching-Through-Stories 

Founding Director, Waldorf Handwork Educators  https://www.waldorfhandwork.org/ 

Mary Ruud

Mary Ruud has more than 30 years working in Waldorf Education. She has degrees in Eurythmy from Spring Valley Eurythmy School and the Eurythmy School in Nurnberg, Germany. Mary has a  Masters in Liberal Studies from the 21st Century Studies Department at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Mary taught for many years at the first public Waldorf School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is on the core faculty of the Great Lakes Teacher Institute and has also taught teachers through Transformational Teaching, Kenthaten Teacher Training, Louisville Kentucky, Lifeways Early Childhood Teacher Training in Milwaukee and Alaska, and Arcturus Teacher Training in Chicago. She has adult grandchildren in the military and in social work. Mary is a certified Therapeutic Horsemanship instructor. 

Mindy Upton

Mindy Upton lives in Colorado where she owned, directed, and taught kindergarten for the 35 years at Blue Sky Kindergarten. Mindy is devoted to the beauty and wonderof crafts , storytelling and puppetry that she now teaches at her new studio Blue Sky Craft School. She presently teaches at Boulder Valley Waldorf School and Lifeways as well as serving on the board of the World Association of Puppetry and Storytelling Arts (WAPASA). Mindy is happy to share the art of puppetry in the Power of Story Alliance Conference.

Karen Fenswick

Karen Fenswick has been teaching for 19 years, and in the world of Public Waldorf Education for ten. She is a class teacher and musical resource educator at Ocean Charter School in Los Angeles, California. Karen is practiced in community choir leadership, and is a graduate of the Community Choir Leadership program through the Ubuntu Choirs Network--a global network of non-auditioned choirs dedicated to choral singing as a community practice.  

Stephanie Becker

Stephanie has been a Waldorf educator for 14 years, in both public and private settings. As a grades teacher at Ocean Charter School, she found a passion for using art as a tool to bring her lessons to life. She found that the more time and love she gave to creating beautiful drawings in her classroom, the more inspired her students became to bring the same love and energy to their own work. Stephanie currently shares her love of art and storytelling with the little ones in her care at the Hidden Garden, a small home-based preschool she started for her young daughter. 

Deborah has been in Waldorf Education for over three decades.  She  has taught Early Childhood through High School in Waldorf schools in Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina and online. She has also taught in the public and charter school sector. Deborah also has many years of experience in school leadership as a

consultant, mentor, facilitator, administrator, pedagogical director and faculty chair.  

Deborah holds a Master’s Degree in Waldorf Education from Antioch New England Graduate School. She has completed the Waldorf curative education course with the Association for Healing Education and the Leadership program through Center for Anthroposophy. She currently serves as an instructor for the Center for Anthroposophy, working in both the Explorations and Building Bridges program.

Deborah enjoys homemaking, puppetry, crafting, nature, travel and living in a life-sharing community.

Kristi Kilcollins 

Kristi grew up in Northern California, down the road from the Sacramento Waldorf School and Rudolf Steiner College where she would later attend training and receive her Waldorf teaching certificate and MEd with Waldorf Emphasis.  In college, she studied English and wrote for UC Santa Barbara's award winning Daily Nexus.  She has published fiction as well as written for the Waldorf magazine Renewal. While pursuing her Waldorf certificate, she taught traditionally underserved students in San Diego. She has worked in independent and public charter Waldorf schools in both the grades and high school. Additionally, she spent two years in the Seminary of the Christian Community of North America deepening her study of Rudolf Steiner's teachings. This is her 21st year as an educator. 

Michele Conyers

Michele Conyers graduated from California State University, Long Beach with a BFA in dance and from the Waldorf Institute of Southern California with a certificate in Waldorf education. She then completed an 8-year journey with a class at Journey School, a Waldorf-inspired charter school, and concurrently earned her California Teaching Credential. She continued her academic strivings and earned a Master’s Degree in Waldorf Education from Touro University through Bonnie Rivers, Dr. William Bento and Eugene Schwartz and is currently completing her certificate in Remedial Education. Michele joined Stone Bridge in 2010 and has worked with students as a lead teacher, recorder/choir teacher, and Music Director. 

Jordan Weagly 

Jordan Weagly earned his Master’s degree in English from Kutztown University, where he also earned a Bachelor’s degree in Professional Writing. Jordan began tutoring as an undergraduate, then continued as a graduate assistant managing the university’s writing lab. These were formative years for his career, and Jordan moved on to work in and supervise a tutoring lab at Lehigh Carbon Community College. The priceless one-on-one skills developed as a tutor—which also helped when Jordan taught first year writing classes at LCCC and Reading Area Community College—would be honed over several years before he joined the staff at COS.

Meanwhile, ever-growing home gardening experiences and a chance encounter at a local renewable energy fair had planted the seeds of an eventually deep-rooted reverence for the mission of Circle of Seasons and Waldorf pedagogy. Today, Jordan combines his personal passions and professional experiences as he strives to help children develop a connection to the natural world as the school’s garden teacher. Jordan has an exuberant passion for gardening and can usually be found pulling radishes in spring, plucking tomatoes in summer, and harvesting greens into late fall—in between walks with his German shepherd dog, Charlie. 

Tomasa Mendoza 

Tomasa Mendoza is an experienced class teacher with over 17 years of working with children and families in public Waldorf schools. She holds a Waldorf Teaching Certificate from the Rudolf Steiner Teacher Training Program and has taught multiple grade levels, looping with classes from fourth through eighth grade. Tomasa also serves as a mentor teacher, supporting new educators as they begin their journeys in public Waldorf education. Outside of school, she loves enjoying the sunshine and spending time with her daughter.