Credo High School draws students from across North Bay, including Sonoma Valley

When the bell rings at Credo High School, students spill out into the hallways and open space areas with a clamor typical of teenagers. The way they are learning, however is not typical at this Waldorf-inspired tuition-free school.

Located about 20 miles from downtown Sonoma in SOMO Village in Rohnert Park, Credo is drawing students from across the North Bay, including 26 from Sonoma Valley, in spite of the commute.

“We have kids who have come as far as the East Bay… and commuters from Napa,” said Chip Romer, executive director of Credo, and a Sonoma resident himself.

Most of the students are coming from K-8 Waldorf schools, such as Woodland Star Charter School in Sonoma, seeking to continue their education in a program that stresses academic achievement, college preparation, and developing the whole being through alternative teaching methods, in-depth subject matter classes and an emphasis on the arts.

Satchel Sevenau, 16, whose family is multi-generational Sonoman, said he chose Credo over public schools and other private or alternative schools because he liked the “college prep and academic possibilities.”

“I like how in-depth they go into subjects,” he said, adding that they teach in ways that aren’t just from textbooks. It was a bonus for this basketball player and lover that sports teams are burgeoning at the school – the girls JV team went to state championships and the boys won regionals.

Students’ days start at 8:40 a.m. with a 100-minute long “Morning Lesson” period where they take a “deep dive into a subject,” Romer said, typically heavier subjects such as world revolutions, to catch the students while their minds are fresh.

Classes are taught in month-long blocks with subjects such as thermodynamics, climate change, history through art, history through music, history through architecture, poetics, Russian literature, Parzival (a medieval romance dated to sometime in the 13th century), Shakespeare, organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, and embryology.

Another Sonoma resident, Molly Bingham, 16, pats her “flour babies” – two sacks of all-purpose flour – twins she has named Sadie and Kaylin, assigned to her in embryology class taught by Tiffany Roberts.

“Some people really get into it,” she said. Students will take home the flour baby and introduce their parents to their “grandchild.”

Molly is the only one of her classmates with twins. Other students lugging around flour babies put their babies in knit caps or wrap them up in scarves or small blankets, but Molly said her twins, because they are not the same size, are difficult to wrap up and haul around. The flour-baby concept includes recruiting your own babysitter – they are only allowed a two-hour break – and they must keep a baby log of activities with the babies.

In addition to be a “pregnancy deterrent,” Romer said students learn the responsibility of caring for the “babies.”

“You have to protect them from brothers and cats and that sort of thing,” adds Molly.

Because Roberts hates to waste anything at the end of the flour baby exercise, students are asked to bake something with the flour – Molly plans on baking a cake.

In Roberts’ classroom students learn about the development of embryos in a sort of hands-on way. On a given day they manipulate gray-colored clay wads into zygote shapes, as Roberts explains how the brain of a baby in the womb develops and at what stage it begins. Reforming the now peanut-shaped clay, Roberts talks about the next stage of baby development while moving about the room looking at the students’ clay babies.

It’s the Credo way to include creativity like this at every step in the teaching and learning process, Romer explains. Credo’s graduation requirements are stringent, exceeding the State of California’s high school graduation requirements and designed to meet or beat UC/CSU graduation requirements. About 70 percent of last year’s Credo grads went “directly to a four-year college,” Romer said, with “most of the rest” going to a junior college for mostly economic reasons.

For example, the state and UC/CSU colleges require two years of laboratory science. Credo requires four years. One year of a language other than English is required by California, two years by the universities, while Credo – which offers Spanish and Mandarin and will include Arabic next year – requires three years of the same language, recommending four years.

Physical education requirements by the state are two years – UC/CSU have no demands – but at Credo it’s four years and that is achieved through such classes as modern dance, aikido and fencing.

Other classes that might not be found at traditional schools include metalsmithing, transcendentalism and adventure learning – where for a week in the fall students, led by professional wilderness guides and Credo cohorts, go backpacking in the Sierras, sea kayaking in Monterey, hiking the Pacific Crest Trail or go on a yoga retreat.

In 10th and 12th grade, students must put on a class play taking part in any way. Some build sets, some make costumes, some act, and some do the lighting, for example. The idea is that they all work together to make one another look good, Romer said.

Molly, the theater lover, is going a step beyond and directing and producing a school play, “Clue on Stage,” with performances April 10 to 12. “It’s totally student driven,” Romer said.

Music and art play a big role in Credo’s teachings, too. There are pianos scattered throughout – most donated – and the music room’s walls are lined with guitars. It looks like a recording studio with large rugs on the floor, a raised platform with a drum set, loads of other musical instruments, and amplifiers.

Music classes include teachings on jazz, American folk, blues, and rock and roll. There is a school orchestra, choir, American music ensemble and world percussion ensemble.

Four teachers and a guitarist from outside the school make up the band, Phil Lawrence and the I-Believers. The band is named, in part, after the school. Credo, in Latin, means “believe.” Mandolin player Lawrence is a teacher at the school and is joined by Richard Loheyde on violin, Eddie Guthman on bass, and Kim Atkinson on percussion.

During their four years of art, students learn how to work in such media as black and white drawing, printmaking, sculpture (they create a bust of themselves), photography and media art.

It’s through the media art classes that senior and Sonoma resident Maia Reilly is considering studying product design at University of Oregon.

“The school has taught me artistic learning, and I definitely crave that when in a learning atmosphere,” she said.

She used an adventure learning experience for her senior project this year and took a 24-hour “solo experience” in the desert.

“We fasted and we spent our time out there kind of reflecting,” Maia said. “Prior to going out we set an intention for our time out there. My intention had a lot to do with empowerment, kind of finding myself. For my senior project I decided to bring that experience back to our community.”

She worked with freshmen girls and did a nature day walk, a mini-experience of sorts, and they met during lunch. They conducted council circles and prompts and talked about things like a time when they felt powerless, or maybe a time when they felt powerful, and reflected on those moments.

“I wanted them to walk away with knowing themselves just a little bit better,” she said.

This mindfulness is part of the foundation of the Waldorf school model, which was first conceived in post World War I Germany by Emil Molt who wanted to provide a free education to the children of his employees at his cigarette factory. He hired Rudolf Steiner, a philosopher and social reformer who also taught Molt, to develop the school. The principle was to teach the whole child, including emotional and social sustainability, at a time when violence from World War I permeated society. Molt felt that if there was ever to be a time of peace, it must start with educating children differently and give them the skills to resolve conflict without violence.

Credo students “don’t know they’re different,” Romer said. There is an “ethic of kindness and caring” and there’s “never been a fight, knock on wood,” he said.

Making eye contact, being articulate and mature are traits adults comment on when talking about Credo students.

“It’s a Waldorf trait,” Romer said. Typically when he asks people how they learned about Waldorf education, people will say they “met a young person who’s really different, they look me in the eye, they can talk about any number of subjects.”

Founded in 2011, Credo opened with 42 ninth grade students and now has close to 400 students in ninth, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade. As those first ninth graders moved up a grade a new grade below them was added. The first graduating class was in 2015.

The school, an independent charter school, moved to the SOMO Village campus because it is a good fit for the program’s environmental beliefs. It takes part in the One Planet philosophy, which is also a class at the school, which meets sustainability standards including reducing its carbon footprint and using less energy through solar panels and zero waste.

There’s a 2-acre farm where students can get their hands dirty while learning about soil chemistry, water and air quality, as well as growing lettuce and tomatoes.

Romer is overseeing a physical expansion of the school that includes the addition of more classrooms, offices and a small theater.

Email Anne at anne.ernst@sonomanews.com.