If you would like to read some of the articles that the Board and faculty have read about looping as they have explored the many options for the school's looping policy, please use the links below.

Three of the links previously listed are no longer good.

The Looping Handbook

www.alliance.brown.edu/pubs/ic/looping/looping.pdf

http://ceep.crc.uiuc.edu/eecearchive/digests/1997/burke97.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99sep/9909waldorf3.htm The Atlantic Monthly article has much more information than used for our purposes, but we have provided the link, nonetheless. Below is the portion that applies to looping.

NE
of the unusual aspects of Waldorf education is a system called looping,
whereby a homeroom teacher stays with a class for more than a year --
in Waldorf's case, from first through eighth grade. The practice has an
intriguing combination of pros and cons, and is attracting growing
attention in other education circles both private and public.

Although Waldorf students work with other teachers each day in
subjects such as music, foreign languages, and physical education, the
main lessons are taught for eight years by the same teacher. The
purpose of this is to build solid, long-term relationships and to teach
students how to do that themselves. "If you get in an argument with
someone, you have to work it out," says Karen Rivers, a Waldorf
educator and consultant in California. (This is a fair point of pride
-- by all accounts Waldorf teachers do spend considerable amounts of
time talking with students and their parents.) For students, looping
offers a base of support. "I can't tell you how wonderful it is to have
a second mom," Ivi Esguerra, a recent graduate, told the audience at
the Steiner School open house. "The caring went beyond the academics."

The downside of looping, however, is substantial. Although the
task of preparing new lessons each day keeps material fresh for the
teachers and students, it also restricts the teacher's ability to
perfect given lessons with repetition. And conflict between teachers
and students isn't always overcome; even when it is, tension can
remain. "Our teacher was great," Ben Klocek, the recent Sacramento
senior, told me. "But it was way too much. By the eighth grade you're
completely sick of each other." Perhaps most important, the holes in a
given instructor's teaching aren't always readily filled later. Scott
Embrey-Stine, a Waldorf high school teacher in Sacramento, has spent
most of his career in public schools, and has been impressed by the
rare skills that Waldorf develops in students. Still, after two years
at Waldorf, he says, he could identify the strengths and weaknesses in
the lower-school teachers by the distinct character of each class. "You
see the imprint of the class teacher," he says.