Sharon Polchies is the Academic Director at the Waldorf School of Baltimore and the First Delegate for the Southeastern Region of the Association of Waldorf Schools in North America, AWSNA. She has a Bachelor’s of Psychology from Towson University, Magna Cum Laude. Sharon has been a part of Waldorf Education since 2005, when she began extensive teacher training, PreK – 5th grade, with Enki Education, Inc., a multicultural immersion program, while homeschooling three of her children and running a community Waldorf-inspired homeschool coop. She went on to complete another five-year training and received her Waldorf Class Teacher Certification from the NOVA Institute in Bethesda, MD, and Anthroposophical Foundations Studies Certification from the Center for Anthroposophy in Keene, NH. She also has Orton-Gillingham Certification from IMSE in MI, and Brain & Sensory Integration Certification from Move, Play, Thrive. She is currently part of a two year intensive in Administration, Leadership, and School Development at Leading with Spirit, sponsored by Sound Circle Center for Arts and Anthroposophy. Sharon joined the Waldorf School of Baltimore in 2012 and has had many roles, including the Interim Admissions Manager, a Children’s Garden Assistant Teacher, a Class Teacher for 9 years, and most recently, the Academic Director. She has three children who graduated from our school. Sharon had a very successful 15 year career as an IT Manager, 3 years with the federal government and 13 years with NASA on the Hubble Space Telescope Project, at both Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University, beginning in the mid-1980s! She and her husband, Bert, have homes in both Baltimore and on the Penobscot Indian Island Reservation in Maine.