Year Round School & Benefits for Summer Camps

So I was thinking over the course of the last little while that whenever the idea of year round schooling comes up – summer camps expend a great amount of energy to defend why it is a bad idea.  Part of this, I believe, is because people don’t understand what year round schooling entails.

Year round schooling can be implemented in a variety of ways.  It is best to read up on it before we judge:

• Year Round Education – Pro’s & Con’s
• Year Round Schooling – Wikipedia
• The Case for Year Round Schooling – Toronto Star
• The Opening of the Largest Year Round School in Canada

For students – research shows it is a better way to learn.  People often get stuck with the idea of change.

Change is frightening.  Change is scary.  Change is good.

Without change, the world would not move forward.  Without change life grows stagnent.

Are we afraid of change because we as camp professionals don’t know how to adjust our business model to meet that change?

We need to look at all angles and understand that it would change this thing that we call summer camp.  We need to see that it offers us and opportunity to reinvent summer camp to be a year round adventure.  There are some camps that are more prepared for this, they already have year round facilities.  There are many camps that are not ready as well. 

Here are some articles about summer camp and year round schooling:

• Camp & Year Round School – Opportunity or Challenge ACA Article
• The Case for Camp – ACA’s Current Stand on Year Round Schooling
• Summer Camps, Parks Fight Against Year Round Schools
• Year Round Education Reform: Are Summer Camps Endangered? by @pathtorhythm
•  What does Year Round Schooling Mean for Summer Camp?

I’m not trying to say yay or nay to this issue.  I want to challenge us, as camp professionals, to truly think about the issues from the perpective of change.  Change is good.  Change can revitalize our entire industry.

I agree that camp plays an important role in learning and in the development of children – but there are millions of children across North America and around the world that can’t experience camp the way we have it now – due to cost, lack of cultural integration or other numerous issues.

My question would be:

What can we do to ensure that more children experience the magic of camp? 

Maybe year-round schooling and partnering with school boards, will lead to more campers experiencing the magic of camp.

I would love to hear your thoughts.