After close to 20 years of operation, Tacoma’s Waldorf School is making room for expansion.

The small, independent school with classes taught in the expressive, art and relationship-centric Waldorf style, has moved to a new location in time for the 2010-11 school year.

Started in the basement of Glory Dei Lutheran Church 19 years ago, Tacoma Waldorf School has been searching for a new location to accommodate the growing needs of its expanding student base.

“The grade school has grown tremendously,” said Sandra Roulette, grade school leader. “There has been a sense of stability that has come.”

The small, eight-person faculty is busy setting up their colorful, serene classrooms for the school year that begins Sept. 2. The Waldorf feel is beginning to come through in its new location. Teachers have painted the once stark, white walls of the classrooms in Mason United Methodist Church in Proctor District with soft, soothing colors and adorned the windows with flowing curtains. Chalk boards on the walls display colorful messages of welcoming. Wooden tables and chairs are empty in anticipation of the young learners to come.

“The beginning of the school year is so fun because we just pick up where we left off,” Roulette said.

Waldorf teachers stick with their class from grade one on, which means they work with students year after year once they leave kindergarten.

Roulette noted that because of that format, she can design her lessons and delivery of material perfectly tailored to her small group of students, most of whom she has taught since first grade. “There is a lot of room for fine-tuning. Nothing has been prescribed.”

Children can begin attending the Waldorf school with their parents for weekly sessions as early as 3 months old. Early education and kindergarten, which accommodates children ages 3 through 5 on a daily basis, are taught to prepare students for success in grade school. Over the past few years, Waldorf faculty have seen an increase of students continuing further into the grade school years, creating a more stable class, and more room to grow the school size.

Currently, Tacoma offers classes through grade four. They are looking to expand into the fifth grade for 2011-12, and eventually, offer Waldorf programming in Tacoma through middle school.

Waldorf schools, which are prevalent with more than 2,000 across the world, often carry through the high-school years.

The teachers deliver the lessons directly to the students. The students create their own learning books and acquire knowledge through art, music, movement and social interactions.

Specialty teachers come in weekly to teach music, hand work, Spanish and Japanese.

“It’s not so much about what is taught - because children have to learn what they have to learn - but it’s in the pacing, the attitude and the relationships that makes Waldorf education different,” Roulette said.

For parent Kathleen Brooks, who has had her two younger children at Tacoma Waldorf School, it is the heavy emphasis on artistic development that drew her to the curriculum.

“I know that is something that is disappearing more and more from the (public school) curriculum,” she said. “There is something for every kind of learner here. Visual, audio and physical.”

“Waldorf education takes learning off the page. When students graduate from a Waldorf school, they become supple, lifelong learners,” Roulette said.

Of graduates from schools part of the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America, 83 percent go on to graduate from a college or university.

Since 1992, more than 500 students have been educated through Tacoma’s Waldorf program.

“Waldorf educates the whole human being, not just to be an employable human being,” Brooks said.

Developed by Rudolph Steiner in 1919, Waldorf Schools were created with the intent to meet society’s needs in a new way by fostering healthy, whole, truly free learners. Waldorf methodology emphasizes a developmental curriculum that is taught artistically, integrating movement, drawing, music, storytelling and rhythm throughout.

Tacoma Waldorf’s new location has five classrooms, with one room for parent-child classes for infants and toddlers. Kindergarten classrooms are located in a separate location on South 19th Street.

“With our new site, in this particular area (of Tacoma), we have a renewed energy. We have a goal to grow our classes even more, and extend school through the fifth grade,” Roulette said.

The school has eight full-time faculty and about 60 students enrolled, with a handful of openings in each grade for the 2010-11 school year. With the added classroom space this move brings, Tacoma Waldorf School anticipates reaching an ultimate goal of extending each program through eighth grade.

The public can find out more about Tacoma Waldorf School and welcome the school to its new neighborhood at an open house and pancake event from 9:30 a.m. to noon Aug. 21. A story-telling session will also be performed by Waldorf teachers.

Tacoma Waldorf School is located 2710 N. Madison St. Visit www.tacomawaldorf.org or call (253) 383-8711 for more information.