Pasadena Waldorf School Welcomes Class of 2027 with Rose Ceremony

On Wednesday, September 9, Pasadena Waldorf School marked the beginning of its 36th year with its annual tradition, the Rose Ceremony. The event celebrates the entrance of the 1st graders from the class of 2027 into the grades. With the entire student body in attendance in front of the historic Scripps Hall on the school’s Mariposa Street campus in Altadena, the new students and their class teacher, Dennis Demanett, received roses from the high school senior class. In previous years, the students have been welcomed into the grades with roses from the 8th grade class. With the opening of the high school in 2012, this year is significant in Pasadena Waldorf School’s history as for the first time, each student in the class of 2016, presented roses to the 1st grade children.

In addition to receiving a rose from the high school, the school continues the tradition of pairing a 1st grade student with an 8th grade buddy. Throughout the course of the school year, the 1st and 8th graders will participate in many activities together, including lunches, recess time, and special celebrations. This year’s 8th grade class also received a rose from the 12th grade students, a white rose, to recognize the start of their final year of middle school.

The ceremony completes its full circle when the 1st graders return this gesture in the spring. At the end of the school year in June 2016, it will be first graders’ turn to offer a rose to the high school seniors as they graduate and move on to the next chapter in their lives.

Pasadena Waldorf School, founded in 1979, is a non-profit independent school serving students from Early Childhood through High School. Waldorf teachers practice the art of education, consciously meeting each developmental stage of the child with a curriculum that has relevance and meaning. The aim is to inspire life-long learning in each student and enable them to fully develop their own unique capacities. Working with the heart, the head, and the hands, students receive an experiential education through an academic curriculum that has breadth and depth, and fully integrates the arts into the learning experience. As part of a worldwide educational movement founded by Rudolf Steiner in 1919, Pasadena Waldorf School offers an inspired education that draws from over 90 years of experience.