The purpose of this section is to get to know how attending Mt Baldy School, however long ago, impacted former students. We select various age ranges for an assortment of perspectives and stories. Enjoy.
The aspect of my time at Mt Baldy School that has stayed with me through the years is the freedom. Not the freedom to run around unsupervised, but the freedom to learning anything I desired to learn. This is owed both to the faculty as well as the incredible location of the school. Each teacher that I had for my tenure at Baldy, a few of whom are still there, was able to guide me through my particular interests. This often ranged from book choices or research topics, but my favorite memories are of Water Day. this was an event on the last day of school for kindergarten through third grade. We essentially go to spend hours digging troughs, valleys, and little waterway features before getting hoses out and watching the water flow. It was an amazing way to combine fun with a tangible learning experience, and is quite representative of my special times at Baldy School.
William Sirski - Senior Mechanical Engineering student, Cal Poly San Luis Obisbo - 8th grader in 2010
Having attended Mt. Baldy School from Kindergarten through 8th grade during the 1990’s, I have many memories that bring me joy as an adult looking back; walks through the village on snow days to see the different snow accumulations between the school and the post office, having consistency in teacher expectations across several years of school and (because I had the same great teachers for multiple years), being given the trust and freedom to choose my own novels to read, and designing my own culminating activity to show my understanding of the meaning of those novels, having buddies in the Kindergarten class when I was in the jr. high class - we carved pumpkins with our buddies every year, among other sweet ways to connect the “big kids” to the little ones. The flexibility, love of nature, and empathy I learned at MBS were part of what ultimately led me to become an educator.
Among all of these snippets of memories, the most treasured part of attending MBS for me is the relationships and friendships that grew out of my time there. I grew up with the same core group of friends from MBS, with many of us attending the same high school. After beginning my career as a teacher and starting my own family, I was lucky enough to be able to move back to Mt. Baldy after a few years off the mountain. The same friends I grew up with at Mt. Baldy School are the friends I can now call neighbors - many of my closest friends from my Mt. Baldy childhood have come back to live in Mt Baldy as adults to start their own families.
I feel such gratitude to have grown up in a community like Mt. Baldy, and to be able to raise my own kids here, right alongside my lifetime friends and their families. My sons will have a built-in network of supportive adults working and volunteering at MBS whom they have known since birth - I can’t imagine a more supportive learning community.
Elizabeth Flores - Master Teacher, Ontario-Montclair School District - 8th grader in 1997
The best part of going to Mt Baldy School was the size of the school. Having only around 100 kids allowed the teachers to spend more time with students. Also, it seemed that learning was better because the we weren’t just taught about science and nature, we got to experience it by going outside. When it came to Biology and Science everything was right there and often times we got to see it firsthand.
My favorite memory of the school was every year in the fall. Every fall we would cook stone soup. Pat Chapman, a teacher there at the time, would read us a book about stone soup and how a community would come together in hard times to take care of everyone. The story was about a man that caught the attention of his neighbors because he was boiling rocks. Everyone asked him what he was doing and he would mention that he was making stone soup. The neighbors would mention that maybe if they added some small vegetable or meat to the soup it would taste better. One by one the neighbors added more ingredients to the soup until they had a feast. We did the same thing, and all the kids brought something to add to our stone soup. It was awesome and we did that for years
The biggest lesson I learned at Mt Baldy School was how to treat others. When your class is so small and everyone there are your neighbors and friends, one learns that you have to get along. Not everyone was my best friend, but we learned how to appreciate one another’s differences and to respect each other. When push came to shove, we would back each other up.
I grew up with everyone at the school. I am still friends with many of them. Even though we have moved to several different parts of the world, it seems that when we run into each other we are able to pick up where we last left our conversations.
It always seemed that we got to experience more at Mt Baldy than other schools did. Lessons weren’t just learned, they were experienced.
Bob Reichmann - Accountant & Financial Advisor - 8th grader in 1983
