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by Jim O'Donnell
In New York, more than ten thousand young people spend a month of their
summer vacation in a special camping program to help them retain what
they learned during the school year.
In Arkansas, a local camp works with school districts to provide an alternative
classroom experience for elementary school students who haven't succeeded
in a traditional setting.
In St. Louis, more than six thousand students from fifty-three schools
study environmental education at camp between September and May.
In Maine, the local United Way administers a grant that guarantees every
elementary school child in three separate towns an opportunity to attend
summer camp because of its value to the overall learning process.
No longer viewed simply as places for children to have fun during the
summer, camps across America are embracing a new paradigm. They are accepting
a greater role in year-round education and youth development, recognizing
that the same activities and programs they have traditionally offered
can be packaged as highly effective alternative learning models. As education
officials search for solutions to summer learning loss and ways to provide
character education and social development, camps are uniquely positioned
to fill the gaps with proven, effective programming.
"There's a lot of overlap between what's happening in education
and in camping today," notes Fred Miller of The Chatham Group, Inc.,
a Massachusetts consulting organization.
"Camp-school partnerships represent a tremendous opportunity for
camps to re-establish themselves as an integral part of America's educational
reform movement," notes ACA Executive Director Peg Smith in an introduction
to the recently published American Camping Association's Creating Camp-School
Partnerships: A Guidebook to Success. " As camp leaders, we owe it
to ourselves and to the families we serve to embrace this new and exciting
direction for our organizations."
An Investment in Camps' Future
When camps first began to offer school programs, most were simply seeking
ways to extend their revenue opportunities into the "shoulder seasons."
For some camps, the extra cash flow was essential to get them through
the winter.
Today, educational partnerships are much more than an alternate strategy
for increasing camp revenues. The role of camps in education and youth
development has changed. Camps across America have embraced the critical
role they play in helping young people learn and grow. They are developing
innovative programs that help reduce summer learning loss, bolster academic
enrichment and student socialization, provide opportunities for leadership
development, and ensure that our young people achieve their full potential.
The investment camps have made in these partnerships appears to be paying
off.
- New York City's Break-Aways program receives funding from the state
and private sources to send ten thousand students to one hundred camps
each summer.
- Florida Sheriff's Ranches have expanded their alternate classroom
program to twenty-two counties across the state.
- In Arizona, school camp has driven increases in summer attendance,
with 43 percent of students from one school district returning in summer.
- Indiana's Camp Tecumseh serves 13,000 students during the school year,
more than three times the number that attend summer camp there.
The driving force behind these programs is often self-preservation. As
extended school years, year-round school, and mandatory summer schools
become the norm in more areas, the ability of camps to fill their beds
throughout the summer is threatened. Rather than lose their "customers"
to other summer priorities, camps are positioning themselves as "summer
school options" where young people can find opportunities for learning
to come alive. They are tailoring programs to match the academic standards
of local school districts and demonstrating how experiential "outdoor"
education can be a powerful addition to a school's curriculum. They continue
to provide opportunities for leadership development, socialization, and
self-esteem building, while translating those efforts into development
assets that allow children to perform better in the classroom.
Camps that will be successful in the future will be those that view their
programs as viable options in a child's educational and social development.
They will work with schools to offer programs and activities that not
only complement the school-year curriculum, but also extend the learning
process year-round.
Getting Started
Camp directors who have successfully worked with schools report that
these partnerships don't require significant changes in camp operations.
"Don't remake your camp to be something you aren't," says Cori
Welbes of the Florida Sheriff's Ranches. "You need to be true to
your mission."
Many camps have found that they can repackage much of what they have
always done to align their activities with a school's educational requirements.
"Camps need a re-centering of what they offer and a commitment to
study and apply the current literature on youth development," explains
Miller. "The question camps need to ask is, 'how can we help schools
achieve their goals and performance standards in an environment that is
stressing test scores?'"
The ACA Guidebook suggests camp leaders ask themselves six questions
before pursuing any camp-school partnership.
Why are you doing this?
Is it to boost summer camp attendance or to generate cash flow during
the off season? Or, is it to play a larger role in local education and
youth development efforts? Only when you convince educational partners
of your commitment to worthy learning objectives will you be successful.
Is the proposed partnership consistent with your
mission?
Too often, what may seem to be another "great idea" can become
a distraction or even a drain on resources. Camps that remain true to
their mission usually find that there is a market for their services,
especially since they can more easily develop a reputation for quality
and consistency when they remained focused.
How will this impact your other programs?
Before starting, be sure to analyze how school partnerships will impact
your overall program. Do you have the capacity to do this? Will this require
significant program changes? Will it require more staff? Will you still
have time to plan, recruit for, and market your other programs?
How well do you know your potential partners?
Take the time to get to know your potential partners. Are they right for
you? Do they understand your role in the educational process? What are
their objectives and priorities? A common mistake is to assume that a
potential school partner is just like you. "Dig deep for hidden agendas,"
suggests Cori Welbes. "The more you know about each other, the stronger
the partnership will be."
How well do you know yourself?
Do you understand your camp's strengths and weaknesses? Understanding
what you have to offer potential partners is an essential part of your
preparation for creating camp-school partnerships. Take a good look at
your facilities, location, curriculum, and staff. Ask yourself how potential
partners will view them. Then consider your own management style. Will
it work in a partnership relationship? Do you have the time it will take
to manage this partnership and are you personally committed to making
this work?
Are you committed to this for the long-term?
"It's just as hard to plan a school camp for a week as it is to plan
for three months of summer," notes Dave Hilliard, president of the
Wyman Center in St. Louis. If you plan to invest in school camp partnerships,
it's best to consider it a long-term investment, one that is more likely
to pay off down the road.
You'll Need to Learn Educator-ese
One of the biggest problems camps face is that they speak a different
language than do schools. "Camps are already 90 percent of what they
need to do, but they call it by different names," explains Adam Weiss,
one of the founders of New York's Break-Aways program.
Camps talk about activities, while schools speak of curriculum. The terms
may be synonymous, yet teachers often look on "activities" as
something less than what they themselves offer. Similarly, camps may tend
to talk about "fun" experiences and building self-esteem, while
schools are more concerned with developing academic skills and outcomes.
Even though your activities may contribute to improved student performance,
unless you explain them in terms the school understands, your ability
to "sell" your program will be much harder. The challenge, therefore,
is to get both sides speaking the same language, so that communication
and partnership will flow more easily.
Curriculum Issues
One of the other challenges camps faces in developing school partnerships
is knowing how to structure a camp curriculum that is consistent with
the school's standards and expectations. The good news is that you may
not have to make as many changes as you might imagine.
"Half of what camps regularly do can foster literary skills,"
notes Weiss. "Singing songs, writing journals or the camp newspaper,
and performing skits are all examples of how camps can help young people
strengthen their literacy skills."
Other camp activities also lend themselves to academic learning. Upstate
New York's Camp Fiver is working to weave both improved literacy and math
skill into its programs. Prior to playing soccer, for instance, the campers
are required to measure the length and width of the field and calculate
its square footage. The camp has also developed a learning library with
hundreds of books and a computer lab with ten computers. Learning center
activities typically include learning about the components of a story,
writing a story or book, research on the Internet, and playing educational
computer games.
Among the criteria to be considered in developing an effective program
are:
- Ensuring that your program links to and supports the state's standards
of learning that are used to measure schools' performance.
- Providing teachers with a flexible menu of activities and options
that allow them to choose particular activities based on their own interests,
where their students are at, or to cover their own weak spots.
- Incorporating literacy components throughout the program in fun and
innovative ways.
- Varying the length of your program to accommodate different school
schedules, budgets, and student needs.
- Assisting school partners in developing lesson plans they can use
to help their students prepare for the activities they will do at camp.
- Providing optional teacher training classes and classroom visits to
ensure a smooth transition from the indoor classroom to the outdoors.
- Building post-camp lesson plans into your curriculum design to help
teachers tie the camp experience back into the class work.
A Guidebook to Success
The Guidebook also provides detailed insights into a wide range of issues,
including program monitoring and evaluation techniques, funding options,
liability and safety issues, marketing and relationships building, and
communications strategies. A resource guide is also provided to help camp
leaders access further information they can use to develop successful
partnerships.
“We believe school partnerships represent one of the best ways camps
can reinvigorate their businesses and strategically position themselves
for the future," notes Smith. "For the first time, we have an
easy-to-use, easy-to-follow guide that can help camps take their first
steps with confidence."
Camp-School Partnerships
From the Simple . . .
The Amphitheater School District in Tucson, Arizona, began sending students
to school camps at the Triangle YMCA Ranch in 1980. Today, fourteen different
elementary schools participate in the program, sending 120 to 200 students
per school for three-day programs. The school camp programs have proven
beneficial to the Triangle Ranch in several ways. Summer recruitment efforts
have been bolstered as many students who attend school camp choose to
return for summer programs. Attendance in summer programs from the nearby
Amphitheater schools has risen from only 12 percent in 1980 to 43 percent
of Triangle's summer enrollment today. In addition, the school programs
keep the Ranch's facilities in use, generating much-needed income in the
camp's "off season."
Many camp directors believe that this type of partnership, popularly
known as "three hots and a cot," is the easiest way to get started
working with schools. The schools handle all aspects of the camping curriculum,
including developing and teaching the activities, providing transportation,
nurses, and food service, and lining up parents to be counselors. Camp
personnel are responsible for facility maintenance, housekeeping, and
overall safety (camp staff also supervise the high ropes course during
leadership programs). The program is typically done on a shoestring basis,
with parent and student groups raising the necessary funds through bake
sales and car washes throughout the year.
Camp staff report that safety and liability are two of the most important
issues involved in the partnership arrangements. The camp provides a safety
manual and workshop for all teachers and volunteers before each school
year and insists that the schools provide a written contract and proof
of insurance coverage.
To the Sophisticated . . .
Begun in the summer of 1998 with twenty camps and 1,500 children, the
Break-Aways Partnerships for Year-Round Learning program in New York City
quickly became a model for school-camp partnerships focused on educational
reform. Within four years, the program had grown to include more than
10,000 students attending 100 camps throughout the New York region.
Break-Aways was conceived by the former chancellor of public schools
in New York City, who wanted to reduce the summer learning loss that students
experience during summer vacations. Remembering the positive experiences
he had at camp as a child, the chancellor organized an effort to send
at-risk kids to summer camp, funded by private donations raised by the
board of education and administered by ACA-New York Section. Participating
camps were selected through a competitive process and were given three-year
contracts to work with individual schools throughout the city.
The Break-Aways model requires students to attend camp for twenty-one
to twenty-eight days during the summer. A minimum of twenty students and
one teacher attend from each participating school. Each day's activities
include an equivalent of three hours of literacy education integrated
into the camp program. Most camps also work with the schools to incorporate
some school-year programs, including after-school activities, winter vacation
programs, or school camps. As a result, participating students maintain
regular and consistent approaches to learning that have been shown to
increase retention and improve test scores.
Although more research needs to be done to measure the outcomes of the
Break-Aways program, early indications are that participating children
appear to score higher on standardized tests than those who did not attend
camp. Campers also tend to demonstrate higher levels of emotional and
social development and leadership skills. In addition, teachers who have
participated in Break-Aways programs have been able to apply many of the
experiential education techniques they learned at camp to their classrooms.
Originally published in the 2002 January/February
issue of Camping Magazine. |
