Press release from Olivette Riverside Community and Farm:
Whether to send kids back to school or keep them home for online studies is one of the biggest dilemmas parents face today. Outdoor classes are part of creative solutions some schools are pursuing nationwide. In Western North Carolina, Asheville Waldorf School (AWS) has just opened an outdoor class at Olivette Riverside Community and Farm.
How Outdoor Classes Can Keep Kids Learning In-Person
Olivette, a 346-acre planned community 6.7 miles north of downtown Asheville, is Western North Carolina’s first and only agrihood built around a working organic farm. Residents enjoy access to farm-fresh organic produce plus trails, forests, streams, and other natural amenities.
Olivette and AWS leaders have been discussing the idea of offering educational opportunities to children there for three years. Then “unexpectedly, the COVID-19 pandemic created the first opportunity to match all of our needs to allow for the possibility to become a reality,” said Arica Haro, Chief Lifestyle Director at Olivette.
“Asheville Waldorf School has long wanted to have a primarily outdoor-based location, as learning through and with nature is a key component of their education,” Haro says. “For the season of 2020/2021, they will be setting up a complete temporary outdoor school at Olivette with all necessary facilities that include three classrooms.
“Olivette community member Kate Davis helped arrange this collaboration, and we are very happy to be welcoming Asheville Waldorf School to Olivette,” she adds.
Davis says she is grateful her son can ride his bicycle to his fourth-grade class and attend school close to home.
“His class is outside, all weather, all year, with just six kids and his devoted teacher,” she says. “I could not imagine a better school outcome for this crazy time we are in.”
AWS opened the Olivette classroom as part of a transition that shifted all of its grade-school classes outdoors in response to the pandemic, while early childhood classes continue to meet at its West Asheville campus. “Study after study has shown that time spent outdoors plays an essential role in better learning and overall health, well-being, and brain functioning for children of all ages,” the school’s website notes.
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