Where There's a Will

In the spring of 2020, summer camps across America faced a gut-wrenching decision about reopening amidst a global pandemic vs. remaining shuttered for the season.

Of course, it really was never a binary choice. Some, if not most, camps chose a middle path, offering for its campers and their families a modified program or perhaps a virtual one.

The success of those approaches is reflected in the experiences of camps operating in 2020 and the precautionary practices they put in place, as well as the commentary of directors committed to promoting their camp’s value proposition – or purpose.

Take Camp Sewataro in Sudbury, Massachusetts, which hosts day programs for boys and girls in preschool to eighth grade. It reports a successful 40 days of camp, serving 350 kids for two-week sessions for eight weeks with zero cases of COVID-19. Sewataro’s secret sauce? The usual: Daily mask wearing; cleaning and disinfecting; and daily symptom and temperature checks, according to a report from Boston’s WCVB-TV (Wayman, 2020).

Prior to opening, Sewataro also posed and answered a series of COVID-19 “Frequently Asked Questions,” including the following.

How will grouping work? Camp families (ten campers and two counselors) will stay together throughout the day and will not be allowed to come within six feet of other camp families. Campers in individual camp families will not have social distancing restrictions, but will wear masks whenever six feet of distance cannot be maintained.

I’m trying to get a sense of how much of the day will be spent in masks. Our plan is for campers and counselors to be in masks whenever a six-foot distance isn’t maintained in a controlled way, even within groups. This means they would be in masks during many activities, but it does depend on the activity itself. For example, masks will be on during a soccer game when close contact is expected. Masks will be off during a soccer drill where campers are passing back and forth at least six feet apart. There are also plenty of opportunities for mask removal during other parts of the day, like at lunch (campers will eat six feet apart), swimming, activity introductions and debriefs, or when the group transitions or stops to rest.

Will there still be whole-camp opening and closing meetings? There will still be … but they will look different. Campers and counselors will remain in their groups and sit together, and we’ll use a wider area so that groups can be spaced out from one another. Campers and counselors will wear masks during these times.

What will lunch look like? Groups will be separated from other groups at all times, but beyond that, lunch will largely be the same. Campers will wash their hands or use hand sanitizer before and after lunch (as well as before and after each activity). There is no sharing of food and mats will be spaced apart … campers will need to bring lunches each day.

Other answers tacked questions related to special Friday activities, rainy days, transportation, and daily health and staff screenings,

Meanwhile, SPORTIME Kings Park 2020 Summer Day Camps in New York hosted hundreds of campers and staff for ten weeks, also 100% COVID-free. Its end of the summer message said, “We wore our masks, we washed our hands (and then some), and most of all we were caring, kind and patient humans. IT CAN BE DONE.”

It can – and was. So schools now have a road map to follow.

Indeed, schools are benefiting from camps in important ways. According to the ABC News article “What schools can learn from 4 summer camps that kept COVID-19 at bay,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified four sleepaway camps and their measures to prevent spread of the virus from June to August among more than 1,000 staff and campers. The key takeaways? Groups became “camper neighborhoods” or “families” and “layers of mitigation,” including, of course, “mandatory 14-day quarantine prior to the start of camp, frequent cleaning of camp facilities, mandatory mask protocols and maximizing outdoor space” (Sanders and Fama Halsey, 2020).

The article also quotes Dr. Laura Blaisdell, a Maine pediatrician and the lead author of this CDC study, saying, “Camps and schools are not the same … But what this study adds is that if one is diligent about multi-layering, public health interventions, COVID-19 and the spread of COVID-19 can be mitigated.”

By turn, National Geographic writer Michael Greshko, in his piece “Want to reopen schools? Summer camps show how complicated it’ll be,” draws on the successes and failures of the 2020 season. Specifically, it cites the experience of a Georgia overnight camp where 44% of those at camp – 260 of the 597 staff and campers – tested positive for COVID-19. Greshko shares, “With the Georgia outbreak, the CDC notes that the staff didn’t require cloth face masks for campers, nor did it open windows and doors for increased ventilation. ‘The multiple measures adopted by the camp were not sufficient to prevent an outbreak in the context of substantial community transmission,’ the report’s authors write” (Greshko, 2020).

One way or another, it is clear that schools – in addition to camps – are seeking new ways of delivering high-quality learning and growing experiences for youth.

Of the new models, Michael Niehoff, author of the article “Pandemic Spawns ‘New’ in Education – New Resources, Models, Rules and Voices,” says, “Most school districts are currently mapping out plans for the fall. Suggestions include a mix of in-person attendance alongside distance learning at home, as well as cohorting students to lower overall numbers in a class or on a campus at any given time. However, a few educational pioneers are seizing on this moment to create something entirely new” (Niehoff, 2020).

As an example of a pioneering approach, Niehoff introduces readers to the WorldOver International School, which “intends to bring together the best of online learning, project-based pedagogy and social-emotional learning for its first cohorts of grades 6-8 this fall. They plan to focus on what they’re calling the four P’s of learning: project-based, problem-based, place-based and personalized.”

Regardless of the application, a key ingredient in most any successful camp-related venture will be that social-emotional learning, an area in which experiential educators excel.

Looking at the nexus between home and school, psychologist Adam Parker, in his piece “What’s Most Important Upon a Return to School? Social and Emotional Learning,” writes, “Job loss, fear, illness, closed borders, anxiety, and death are the words that have been surrounding our lives for the last four months,” positing that they affect children just as negatively as … adults. It’s important to understand who can help, how to help, and what can be done at both school and home” (Parker, 2020).

Some camps are evolving in ways to best use camp resources and facilities beyond the summer season. For example, Marcia Ellett, editor-in-chief of the American Camp Association’s Camping Magazine, shares, “With three-fourths of parents of elementary-school-aged children and half of parents of high-school-aged children admitting they need adult help to do virtual learning, camps may be in a position to help parents by providing online learning sites and supervision during and after regular school hours” (Ellett, 2020).

In Wisconsin, North Star Camp for Boys, one of the sleepaway camps that opened this past summer and ran a successful two-month program, is extending its influence to help shore up remote schooling by providing a six-week “Fall Camp.” According to North Star owner and director Andy Shlensky, “‘The idea is, rather than getting stuck in your basement, doing remote schooling and having the option to go from your Google classroom to your Netflix to your Fortnite, we will provide a space so that when you’re on breaks, you can do camp ... We’re going to hold these guys accountable to their school schedules. But as soon as they’re complete, they can go climbing and waterskiing and shoot hoops’” (Fies, 2020).

Brewster Day Camp (BDC) in Massachusetts, which did not open for the 2020 season (but offered some online programming to campers), is now reaching out to camp families to assess their interests and needs. Prefacing an online survey for parents, BDC stated in an email, “We missed you this summer! While the last few months have been quite unique, we are using this time as an opportunity to continue to grow BDC and expand the exciting opportunities that we offer, during both the summer and during our traditional ‘off-season.’ In order to create the best programming for your family, we would love to know what you might be interested in.”

The questionnaire seeks guidance from both summer and year-round residents of BDC’s resort community on Cape Cod and addresses interest in school-time and out-of school-time experiences.

The bottom line? For those camps that dare to lead and teach, to work hard to actualize a stated purpose (which can boost resilience), the aforementioned exhortation “IT CAN BE DONE” is a good placeholder for those efforts.

Or, as a well-known proverb offers, “Where There’s a Will There’s a Way.”

Stephen Gray Wallace, M.S. Ed., is a long-time camp director, an associate research professor, and serves as president and director of the Center for Adolescent Research and Education (CARE), a national collaborative of institutions and organizations committed to increasing favorable youth outcomes and reducing risk. He is a member of the professional development faculty at the American Academy of Family Physicians and American Camp Association and a parenting expert at kidsinthehouse.com, NBC News Learn, RANE and WebMD. In addition, he is an award-winning writer and author of the books Reality Gap and IMPACT. Stephen was also national chairman and chief executive officer at SADD for more than 15 years. Additional information about his work can be found at StephenGrayWallace.com.

(c) Summit Communications Management Corporation 2020. All Rights Reserved.

REFERENCES

Brewster Day Camp. (2020). Nurturing & challenging children & their families on Cape Cod since 1981. https://www.brewsterdaycamp.com/ (27 Sept. 2020).

Ellett, M. (2020). Can your camp fill the education gap in your community? American Camp Association. September 1, 2020. https://www.acacamps.org/news-publications/blogs/camp-connection/can-your-camp-fill-education-gap-your-community#:~:text=In%20some%20cases%2C%20camp%20programs,%2C%20virtual%2C%20or%20online%20schoolwork (27 Sept. 2020).

Fies, A. (2020). Wisconsin summer camp that held off COVID-19 opens fall school camp. ABC News. September 5, 2020. https://abcnews.go.com/US/wisconsin-summer-camp-held-off-covid-19-opens/story?id=72821566 (27 Sept. 2020).

Greshko, M. (2020). Want to reopen schools? Summer camps show how complicated it’ll be. National Geographic. August 27, 2020. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/07/coronavirus-want-reopen-schools-summer-camps-show-how-complicated-will-be-cvd/ (27 Sept. 2020).

Niehoff, M. (2020). Pandemic spawns “new” in education—new resources, models, rules and voices. EdSurge. July 15, 2020. https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-07-15-pandemic-spawns-new-in-education-new-resources-models-rules-and-voices (27 Sept. 2020).

Parker, A. (2020). What’s most important upon a return to school? Social and emotional learning. Medium. August 7, 2020. https://medium.com/inspired-ideas-prek-12/whats-most-important-upon-a-return-to-school-social-and-emotional-learning-ac074ab0d8a2 (27 Sept. 2020).

Sanders, S. and J. Fama Halsey. (2020). What schools can learn from 4 summer camps that kept COVID-19 at bay. Good Morning America. https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/wellness/story/schools-learn-summer-camps-covid-19-bay-72676724 (27 Sept. 2020).

Sewataro. (2020). Discover Camp Sewataro. https://www.sewataro.com/ (27 Sept. 2020).

Taylor, S. (2017). Building your resilience and understanding your purpose. SmartCompany. October 9, 2017. https://www.smartcompany.com.au/people-human-resources/wellbeing/building-resilience-understanding-purpose/#:~:text=While%20some%20people%20get%20knocked,%2C%20stability%2C%20confidence%20and%20determination (27 Sept. 2020).

Wayman, T. (2020). This Mass. summer camp completed season with no COVID-19 cases. WCVB-TV. August 21, 2020. https://www.wcvb.com/article/this-mass-summer-camp-completed-season-with-no-covid-19-cases/33672230# (27 Sept. 2020).