Culture
People in the local community are long known for being active, and progressive citizens: hosting rallies and protests, improving environmental conservation, and embracing diversity. Woodstock Day School shares these ideals and students are active participants, with mindful citizenship being a core value.
Students have their own opinions and are encouraged to speak out and communicate their thoughts and ideals.
Woodstock and its citizens have been long-time contributors to the arts, and our students have worked in conjunction with The Byrdcliffe Art Colony, Woodstock Film Fest, Woodstock Bookfest, Rock Academy, Woodstock Sound-Outs, New Genesis Productions (Shakespeare), O+ Festival, Mountain Jam Music Festival, and Woodstock School of Art. This allows our students to work with many experts in their fields, and to gain exposure to and make contacts far beyond our campus or immediate area.
A Typical Day
On the WDS campus, you can find all ages of students embracing their worlds: the first grade down by the pond studying ecology, high school students in the woods filming an original script, the middle school ensemble practicing a John Coltrane classic.
You might hear the sixth grade class running their Restorative Justice council while preschoolers sing one of our unofficial school songs, Tom Paxton’s This Pretty Planet, and fourth graders observe erosion patterns in stream trays.
On a Friday afternoon, you might find lower school students sharing poems at the Friday Gathering with parents proudly looking on, while upper schoolers jump on the WDS Wolves bus and head to an away basketball game.
Our Community
Our strategic plan identified specific aspects about WDS that we treasure, and foremost among these was the feeling of community. The small class sizes, multi-age activities and programs that promote inclusion and cooperation are what draw families here and make it a safe and nurturing place to grow.
The culture of the school both reflects and supports its mission.
Our teachers are dedicated and support students in their own classes and beyond. A sense of equity created by calling teachers by first name is a tradition going back to the founding of the school. Students and families here have varying interests, abilities and backgrounds and they find things that interest them through a variety of programming, differentiated instruction and special classes to embrace and share that variety.
WDS values the arts, as demonstrated in extra programming for all ages, and in the fact that many of our parents and grandparents are artists or musicians.
WDS students get exposure to a wealth of arts resources and experiences and it shows in our annual student art show, concerts, musicals as well as beyond our campus, where our high school bands have real gigs in the outside community.
The students who go to WDS come from households that value education and most often go on to college. Our academic program prepares them with a solid foundation and important critical thinking skills, confidence in their ability to communicate and a real belief that they can accomplish whatever they set their minds to.