A couple that paid more than $1.1 million to enroll their three girls to a fancy Upper East Side private school that boasts Jennifer Aniston as an alumnus was outraged when officials hired public school instructors — and is seeking a refund.
According to a lawsuit filed by parents Deighn and Ying Eliason, the Rudolf Steiner School made “multiple false promises” while enrolling their children at the East 79th Street school more than a decade ago — only to withdraw them because the specialized instruction they paid for was allegedly not given.
The $56,000-per-year school “knowingly hired public school teachers who had no Waldorf education certification or Waldorf education background, and never served as assistant teachers for the minimum two years as promised,” the pair said in their Manhattan Supreme Court case.
A Waldorf-style education stresses the arts, restricts the use of technology in earlier schools, and guarantees that the same teacher will teach children from primary to eighth grade.
According to the Sunbridge Institute, a facility in Chestnut Ridge, New York that helps credential Waldorf instructors, around 1,000 schools in 60 nations provide a Waldorf educational experience. Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian philosopher, founded the educational theory about a century ago.
The issue with non-Waldorf certified instructors at the Manhattan school was worse in nursery and kindergarten, when the school “knowingly hired its own students’ parents… to be lead teachers,” said the Eliasons, who seem to work in the fashion sector.
“This problem became so pervasive that on at least one occasion the School’s executive director had to intervene when it involved her own child’s class,” the Eliasons allege.
With one of their kids in the same class, the couple saw the departure of one non-Waldorf trained teacher, followed by the installation of another until the director ultimately replaced them with a Waldorf-certified educator, they said.
“By then, however, the students were extremely far behind,” the couple’s court documents said.
The pair was quick to clarify that they don’t “challenge any of these teachers’ abilities to teach generally.”
“However, the Eliasons agreed to pay the school over a million dollars based on specific representations about the credentials and qualifications of the girls’ teachers,” according to court filings.
They withdrew their children from Steiner before the 2023-2024 school year and wanted a refund, but the school refused and demanded a $64,000 payment, according to the parents.
“Out of respect for the legal process and the privacy of our students, families, faculty, and staff, we are unable to comment on the specifics of this case at this time,” the school stated in a press release. “We can share that we strongly disagree with the assertions made in the complaint and are fully committed to vigorously defending against these claims.”
