Mission & History 

Urban Prairie Waldorf School was born out of the dreams and hard work of many people. In 2006 a small group of preschool parents decided to start a new school. Their 3 and 4 year-olds were enrolled in local Waldorf-inspired Early Childhood programs, including the Sunflower Children’s Garden in Hyde Park. They saw how healthy Waldorf education was for their children, with its emphasis on outdoor free play during all seasons, daily and seasonal rhythm that their children brought home, rich storytelling, preparation of whole foods for shared mealtime, and a homelike atmosphere, complete with chores. The founders were joined by parents and faculty members from Chicago Waldorf School who wanted to help this new initiative thrive. Together they formed a Board of Directors, created a budget, hired a founding faculty, and set a start date.

Urban Prairie opened its doors to a 1st grade class of 12 students on September 9th, 2009, ninety years after the opening of the first Waldorf school in Stuttgart, Germany. Angela Kiefer was our founding teacher. We have grown significantly since opening our doors in a small storefront at 16th and South Halsted Street, increasing from 12 families to over 100 families. In 2013-14, Urban Prairie signed a five-year lease for the former school building at Our Lady of Pompei Shrine at Lexington and Racine. We spent five years in that space, undertaking a middle school strategic plan focused on high school and life readiness, building blacksmithing forges and beehives, and filling Arrigo Park across the street with the joyful play of our children at recess and the myriad games of our movement classes. There, we graduated our first class of 7 children, including 3 of the original students.

In 2017, with the strong support of our community, we purchased the 1310 S. Ashland building. We began the 2018-19 school year in our new facility, having grown in ten short years from a one-room school to a large building with a gym, woodworking facility, beautiful Early Childhood space, and classrooms to meet all of our programming plans and dreams. This thriving school now offers parent education, workshops in special interests, as well as social events and festivals for our community to gather together and celebrate.  

Through the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America, we have been mentored by the Chicago Waldorf School (10 years) and the Rudolf Steiner School of Ann Arbor (current).