Board of Trustees

Our Board safeguards the mission of the school by focusing on strategic initiatives that ensure long-term health and sustainability.

Responsible for setting strategic goals, establishing policies and plans that reinforce our mission, and ensuring the fiscal, legal, and structural health of the school, our Board of Trustees is made up of leaders with diverse expertise and experiences that strengthen our school values and community. Board members give so much to our school: participating in regular meetings, serving on committees, and collaborating with members of our entire community through events and daily interactions. We are deeply grateful to the Board for their work to shape our school’s future and keep SF Waldorf connected to San Francisco and Bay Area families and innovators.

Welcome from the Board Chair 

Dear Families and Community Members,

It is my privilege to serve as the Chair of the Board of Trustees of San Francisco Waldorf School and to welcome you to our wonderful, strongly supportive community. My husband and I have been a part of SF Waldorf for over 15 years and have been sending our children to a Waldorf school for nearly two decades. We have three children - one who just matriculated into college, and two others who are in Tenth Grade and Seventh Grade. Our children's interests run the full range of subjects and extracurriculars: math, basketball, soccer, singing, multiple instruments, modern physics, poetry, civics, and drawing! Each of their interests have been deeply cultivated and nurtured at SF Waldorf, all the way from their early years to high school. This past summer, we attended an incredible production of Into the Woods at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, where my Seventh Grader performed alongside professional actors. Our Tenth Grader spent eight hours a day at the UCLA Summer Art Institutes this year, drawing portraits of her younger sister, using different techniques and media. My son was bursting with excitement last year, in Twelfth Grade, explaining to me how one can measure the radius of a black hole. Waldorf education is an education for life, cultivating the ability to go out into the complete unknown and take a step with energy and enthusiasm.

A San Francisco Waldorf School education develops resilience, nurtures curiosity, and teaches young people how to build relationships. Our Kindergartners can walk four miles on hiking day, climbing trees and ambitiously digging on the beach in their pursuit to dam the entire ocean. Our First to Third Graders penetrate all four arithmetic processes from every possible perspective, understanding division, subtraction, and the incredibly brilliant system of place value. Our middle schoolers are kind, navigating those exciting yet tumultuous years in a way that inspires hope. When I was a parent of three very young children, I hired Seventh and Eighth Graders from our school to babysit. These young teens rescued me and brought me respite, allowing me to stop and enjoy my time as a young mother. When my own children reached Eighth Grade, I was profoundly moved to see how they did the same for other parents. 

Our High Schoolers are engaged in ambitious activities of their own: out of excited interest, they support each other in reaching higher academic pursuits together. Some students attend rigorous math camps including the Ross Mathematics Program and PROMYS; others intern at law firms; some work with SETI to explore the cosmos; and one student recently painted such a beautiful wall-sized work of art that she was awarded a generous college scholarship as a result. All of them talk animatedly about the long hours they spend on their interests and how much they love the relationships they form during their work. Everywhere you look in our school, you see healthy achievement, sprung from a genuine interest in the world and in others.

Safeguarding the mission of Waldorf education is the foremost responsibility of the Board of Trustees. A focus on human connection is what we need more than ever in the world today, and the cornerstone of our education is a deep understanding of the human being. This foundation offers tremendous support to parents in building lasting relationships with their children and with each other, which sustains our community.

The Board of Trustees is responsible for the financial health of the school, and in collaboration with faculty and staff, we are focused on the strategic direction of the school and ensuring a vibrant future. We’re absolutely committed to this wonderful education, and Board members have a tremendous amount of love and gratitude for our teachers, who guide the transformation of our children into adults who are ready to lead and contribute. 

The Board is also a place where many viewpoints are brought with heart and vigor, and where I feel we truly speak and are listened to. In my seven years on the Board, and as I complete my first year as Board Chair, people have been generous in expressing gratitude for how much Board members give in time and energy and care to the school. A former head of an east coast Waldorf School said to me once, "I gave so much to our school. And yet everything I gave, it was a drop compared to what my children got in return". I agree completely.

Madhulika Chambers, Board Chair, SF Waldorf School

Board Committees

• Advancement
• Ambassadors
• DEI
• Executive
• Finance
• Governance
• Investment
• Nominations
• Retention
• Risk

Interested in joining the Board?

Composition of the Board: Goals

San Francisco Waldorf School seeks Trustees who share its mission, and demonstrate a love of San Francisco Waldorf School and a commitment to Waldorf education. Most importantly, we aim to have a Board which generally reflects the entire San Francisco Waldorf School community, the greater San Francisco community, and the San Francisco Bay Area at large.

The work of the Board is conducted by committees to which Trustees are assigned and/or recruited, depending upon their strengths, experience, and interests. Trustees regularly attend committee meetings, as well as six (6) three-hour Board meetings over the course of the school year, as well as other school functions and events. Board members typically spend a minimum of 50 hours annually on the work of the Board and committees.

Trustee Qualities and Qualifications

San Francisco Waldorf School looks for individuals who bring a diversity of skill-sets, professional experience, life experience, and identity, including gender, race, ethnicity, and age. We seek individuals who can provide a variety of points of view and expertise to the work of the Board, and who will work collegially across diverse groups of stakeholders. We recruit individuals with proven leadership skills, strategic management ability, community presence, participation, reputation, and the time to commit to a working Board.

The Nominations Committee, in its pre-nomination work, will endeavor to maintain this diversity by seeking and then nominating those individuals who best complement and/or add to the Board’s composition, mission, and goals.  

Contact Us

Community members are encouraged to reach out to boardchair@sfwaldorf.org or email the full Board at board@sfwaldorf.org at any time.

Board Roster and Titles
Community Members:
Jake Anderson-Bialis
Deniz Bahar, Co-Chair of Board Ambassadors Committee
Madhulika Chambers, Board Chair
Pete Comerford, Board Treasurer and Chair of Board Finance Committee
German Gil, Co-Chair of Board Ambassadors Committee
Laura Hudgens, Board Secretary and Chair of Board Retention Committee
Jason Lohr
Seth Madison
Jason Ouellette, Chair of Board DEI and Risk Committees
Katrina Rhoads, Board Vice President and Chair of Board Nominations Committee
Egen Tsai, Chair of Board Marketing & Enrollment Committee
Kimberly Williams

Ex-officio members:
Emily Hilldore, SFWS Director of Finance & Operations, Chair of Investment Committee
Erin Kemp, Grade School faculty member
Kelly Lacy, High School faculty member
Lauren Smith, SFWS Executive Director
Yoriko Yamamoto, High School faculty member