Katherine Mareck

Kindergarten

BACHELOR’S OF SCIENCE IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION

Prescott College

Ms. Mareck came to Flagstaff in 1998 so that her three children could attend Pine Forest School. Before that, Ms. Mareck  and her family were living off-the-grid in the alpine mountains outside of Las Vegas, Nevada, where she home-schooled using Waldorf methods. In 1990 she joined an anthroposophical study group in Las Vegas. After two years of study, the group founded the Blue Skies Waldorf  Kindergarten (for children ages 3-6) in Boulder City, Nevada.

The group initiated a distance-learning Waldorf Teacher training, workingwith Uta Taylor-Weaver, Nancy Jewel-Poer, and other senior teachers of Highland Hall Waldorf School in Los Angeles, California, in order to build a group of teachers for their new school. For six years, Ms. Mareck was a student in the teacher training and an assistant in the Blue Skies kindergarten, until moving to Flagstaff. Ms. Mareck is also certified in Elementary Education and in Structured English Immersion.

In Flagstaff, Ms. Mareck started a Waldorf preschool in her home, from 2001 to 2003, with Georgia Taylor as her mentor.  In 2003 she began working at Pine Forest as Ms. Taylor’s assistant in the kindergarten and as the Kindergarten Care Director. In 2006 she established a preschool at Pine Forest, leading that class until 2013. At various times throughout those years, she served as a long-term substitute in 3rd and 8th grades, and was a Team Teacher in 2nd grade. In 2013 she Team Taught with Kelly Smith in 1st grade.

When Ms. Taylor retired from Pine Forest in 2014, Ms. Mareck became a lead teacher in the Kindergarten. It was an honor to take the kindergarten forward after the many years that Ms. Taylor spent developing and strengthening the early childhood programs, but Ms. Mareck’s dream had always been to be a grades teacher and at last, in 2017, she was given a first grade! She is pleased and gratified, and daily challenged in new and exciting ways, in her work with her class, now moving to 2nd grade in 2018.

Along with a deep, abiding appreciation for the benefits of Waldorf education for children, Ms. Mareck has over 44 years of experience in healing with whole foods, herbs, and other non-allopathic treatments. She loves gardening, but not as much as her husband does. So he grows and she cooks, dries, ferments, or freezes whatever he brings in. On their vast, .17(point one seven) acre estate, Four Oaks, they get 80% of their produce!

Ms. Mareck sings and plays guitar in the musical trio Isosceles and is delving into the art of Bonsai.