Educator Spotlight: Mrs. McCarthy and Maple Village Waldorf School

Lisa McCarthy is the Head of School and one of the founders of Maple Village Waldorf School in Long Beach, California. Waldorf education is a holistic approach to learning that was developed by Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner in the early 20th century. Waldorf pedagogy focuses on the development of the whole child—intellectually, emotionally, and physically or as Lisa explains, the head, heart, and hands. It is based on the belief that education should foster a lifelong love of learning by meeting the child where they are – whether they are audio, visual, or kinesthetic learners. Waldorf pedagogy is largely focused on natured based learning and building a deep connection to the natural world. 

Lisa’s journey into education didn’t just begin with founding Maple Village Waldorf School. In fact, it started in the Long Beach public school system, where her three boys were students back in 2007. At that time, there was not yet a big green movement in public schools that we see today. Whether it was plastic, food scraps, or recyclables, all waste was being thrown into a single bin: the trash. This simple observation propelled Lisa into action. She met with the school principal with a proposal to bring recycling bins to campus with the caveat that she would lead the implementation, education, and separation of waste herself. After getting the go ahead, she connected with the local recycling center, secured recycling bins from the city, and rallied a group of like-minded parents to join her cause. Together, they formed a green team with the support of the student council, training both students and educators on proper waste separation. Lisa fondly refers to this initiative as a “happy beast” due to the significant effort it required, but in the end, it was a resounding success. 

The Green Team grew from just 10 students to over 100, with schedules, trainings, and after-school meetings. Their efforts expanded to include a campus garden, which Lisa and her husband designed together. Her efforts helped her children’s school receive Green Ribbon certification, which is awarded by the U.S. Department of Education that recognizes schools, school districts, and Institutes of Higher Education for excellence in resource efficiency, health and wellness, and environmental and sustainability education. 

It was during this time that Lisa was helping to co-found Maple Village Waldorf School. Knowing how much of a learning curve it was to change school policies to incorporate sustainability efforts into her own sons’ school, Lisa made it her mission to make sustainability a key principle at her new school from its inception. This was a natural starting off point considering Waldorf’s philosophy champions cultivating a real reverence for life and the natural world to help them be stewards of the land and the space they inhabit. 

In the early years, Maple Village started with early childhood and grew from there. They started out with 20 students and now the school boasts over 215 students across all Pre-K to 8th grades. It’s easier to start small, so from the beginning students brought their lunch in reusable containers, compost was collected in each classroom, and there was very little waste. As they grew and more families joined the school, it was harder to do this. They had to consider that not all families had the same economic ability, free time, or resources to switch entirely to packing their children’s lunches daily and in all reusables. With that in mind, they switched this policy from being required to making it requested. However, for meals that are provided on campus, like warm communal meals each day for early childhood classes, the school only offers reusables bowls, plates, and cutlery. Plus, every child across all grades brings a mug/water bottle to school with their name on it to reuse. Today, Maple Village has a reusable water bottle fountain, so Lisa says it is very rare to see any single-use plastic bottles – if at all. Reuse is not just encouraged for meals and drinks on campus, but in all aspects of their operations including the use of reusable small hand towels for the students and faculty to use. These are washed and returned daily by a committee of faculty/staff members. This simple switch has drastically reduced their paper towel waste in their bathrooms and hand washing stations. 

Sustainability is not just taught to the students either. Every Friday, Lisa sends out a bulletin to the families that updates parents on the student’s environmental efforts in school, shares tips on how to reduce waste in their homes, and updates parents on new initiatives on campus coming down the line. Although Lisa admits that the students themselves are really the ones who do most of this education in their families. She has found that by educating the students first, they influence their family members to become more aware of waste and environmental issues as a whole. 

“From the very beginning, I saw that the change happens like this: you educate the child, you get them into a habit, you get them passionate about it, they bring it home. I have many stories of families jokingly telling me that it’s because of me that their whole family had to adopt sustainable practices in their homes because their child became so passionate and inspired after learning about these solutions at school. While it sounds cliche, it really does all begin with the child.”

– Lisa McCarthy 

In the early years, education was largely focused on recycling at Maple Village. As more information came out about the viability of recycling, specifically the low recycling rates of plastics, Lisa and her colleagues have moved away from recycling to champion reuse as the most effective way to decrease their school’s environmental footprint. In addition, Maple Village has a number of initiatives on campus to address food waste. Lisa uses the old trail adage “pack it in, pack it out”, which means students bring home any food that they did not eat each day, so parents can see if they are overpacking food. This simple initiative has helped decrease the amount of food waste from lunches.  

Furthermore, Maple Village practices vermicomposting which is the use of earthworms to convert organic waste into fertilizer to be used in their school garden beds. For classes that cook (early childhood, third, and fifth grades), they vermicompost all food scraps. The fourth-grade class oversees picking up food scrap bins across campus to add it to the vermicomposting bin. Fourth-grade curriculum includes gardening lessons, so assigning the responsibility to one class who is aware of how composting works ensures only food scraps are being thrown into the bin. Fourth graders have been primed for this responsibility since the previous year, they went through their farming unit where they learned how to propagate seeds, grow crops, work on shelter building, and build nutrient rich soil using compost. Fast forward to today, Maple Village is a part of Long Beach’s food waste pilot program, so food scraps that are not vermiposted at school go into a central food waste bin in the kitchen and then are picked up weekly for the city organics/compost pickup. In addition, Maple Village recently received a Whole Foods Foundation Garden Grant to further support the growth of their educational edible gardens! 

It’s not until middle school that Maple Village students are introduced to heavier environmental issues, like marine plastic pollution and its subsequent health and environmental effects. This is intentional so as not to overwhelm students with such heavy topics before they have cultivated the skills to handle such strong emotions. Instead, the school waits until the older grades to educate students about the issue while focusing heavily on the solutions and actions students can take to be a part of the solution.  

This is where the Algalita team first got introduced to Lisa – when she was an educator attending Algalita’s Plastic Ocean Pollution Summit (POPS). This annual three-day event brought together over 100 students from across the world to address the global issue of plastic pollution in our oceans. To participate, each student group needed to apply for a specific project.  Lisa had many of her students participate over the years. For one project, students merged art and advocacy by writing a song about plastic pollution. Lisa connected with her friend who works in the music industry and her students took a field trip to a recording studio to record their final song. They ended up performing this song at the POPS summit later that year. 

Another project they worked on was inspired by the students’ experiences volunteering at the local food bank. They observed that all of the food was being given to families in plastic bags. In response, students began sewing their own reusable bags to donate to the food bank. Realizing this was a lot of work and the need was too high, they started reaching out to businesses asking for them to donate their “seconds” – those reusable bags that weren’t stitched right or the embroidery was wrong – and this spurred their project “A Second Chance”. The project was named as such because these bags had a second chance and folks who were experiencing homelessness were receiving a second chance as well. This project inspired an Action in the Student Hub, Host a Better Bag workshop, where students from other schools can get inspired to make this sustainable switch too!  

Projects like these fall right in line with Waldorf’s philosophy of hands-on learning. Like Lisa says, “The remedy for upset is empowerment” and projects like these can funnel student’s passion and focus onto the solutions. For students, doing something tangible empowers them and helps them see that they can make a difference. Another way Lisa supports her students is by reminding them that this work isn’t solely for them to do and that the adults are holding space for them too. The adults are doing work on a bigger level, so the students can keep doing their work. One job of adults is to inspire hope and resilience in students by being role-models. 

Lisa clearly leads by example and has helped build an incredible school that integrates sustainability and stewardship into everything they do. In 2018, she was honored to receive the Green Ribbon Award, which she initially had no idea was possible because they are a private school. While it is predominately a public-school award program, one private school in the State of California can be awarded each year. In 2018, that school was Maple Village Waldorf School. She traveled to Washington D.C. to accept the award – coming full circle 11 years after she first helped her son’s public school receive the award.

Mrs. McCarthy accepting the US Department of Education Green Ribbon recognition in Washington DC

Mrs. McCarthy and students in Maple Village Waldorf School Garden