Camp Achieve has traditionally provided summer academic enrichment for elementary students to reduce summer learning loss. Over the past seven years, through private donations and grants including recent support from the Meyer Memorial Trust, the focus has been building reading and math skills, while ensuring students are ready for school in the fall.
This year, those traditions merged with support from an Oregon Department of Education Summer Enrichment Program Grant and Beaverton school staff built Camp Achieve 2.0 – serving an estimated 2,200+ students in grades 1-5. Students are gearing up for a return to school buildings and working with peers, after the challenges of learning at home for the last 18 months. The following is a reflection on Camp Achieve from one Beaverton parent.
Parenting during the height of the pandemic was one of the hardest things I’ve done. Dealing with four large personalities, dipping in and out of depressed states, while we mourned the life we once had. Figuring out a new normal, only to have that shift from week to week – hello distance learning! As students went back to school in the spring, our family made the tough choice to not be a part of hybrid learning. Our kids had social interaction with neighbors and through sports teams, so we decided it would be less disruptive to finish the year the way we started, online.
In preparation for returning to the classroom this fall, I enrolled the girls in Camp Achieve at Rock Creek Elementary. Day camp, focused on fun activities, seemed like the perfect way to get used to being back in the classroom. As the first day approached, however, we were all nervous to return to the place that once felt like home.
Those nerves quickly dissolved. I was shocked with the sheer exhilaration my kids had after their first day. Better yet, they were excited to return the next day. The only thing they weren’t over the moon about was eating food that wasn’t personally curated by them. I was reminded once again; picky eaters do not love school lunch. Some things never change.
During the last year, I tried my best to check all the boxes for my kids: stay connected to academics and our school community, make space for peer interaction, allow each child room to learn in their own way. What I didn’t recognize was, none of this is truly accessible, at least for my girls, while constricted to the confines of home. We can’t learn new things when we are surrounded by sameness everywhere we turn.
For example, at camp my daughter learned that what she thought was sushi and was terrified to try, was actually a turkey pinwheel sandwich in her school lunch. She also figured out she can take the things she doesn’t like off her sandwich. While important in dining situations, these realizations taught her lessons that will be helpful her whole life: things aren’t always what they seem; and, if you don’t like the situation you are in, you have the power to make it better for yourself.
I will be forever grateful for the work our educators have done over the eighteen months to engage our students, but now I also have a renewed and stronger sense of gratitude for the work they have done all along. Thank you to everyone that has made Camp Achieve happen including Beaverton Education Foundation and the dedicated staff at the Beaverton School District.
