Keewaydin Informational Letter

      
Dear Parents/Guardians/Friends,
    Our next group of CAES students will attend the Keewaydin Environmental Education Center ( KEEC) the week of May 21st, and although May sounds like it is months away, it is really around the corner when considering our fund raising needs! Many parents who are new to our community may not know much about Keewaydin. This letter will hopefully give parents all the background information necessary to understand the intent of Keewaydin.
    Keewaydin started at Chester-Andover roughly 37 years ago when one of our science teachers decided that a week of learning at an environmental camp would be a wonderful experience for his sixth grade students. Although Bruce Johnson is no longer on our teaching staff, many groups of CAES students have since traveled to Keewaydin on Lake Dunmore to spend a week learning environmental science together. Perhaps you went as a child? As our school changed to multiage classrooms,  the Keewaydin experience also changed to encompass both our fifth and sixth graders. Consequently, for the past twelve years, both the fifth and sixth graders of CAES have attended KEEC together in May.
    The physical setting of Keewaydin on Lake Dunmore in Salisbury, Vermont, is simply gorgeous! Surrounded by the beauty of the natural world, KEEC’s program focus is building a community and demonstrating that all living things are interdependent. A crucial aspect of the program is for each child to understand his/her role in the successful functioning of their community. This is why the KEEC program is intentionally residential. The residential experience is critical to the lessons of interdependence the KEEC staff conveys all week. In order to maintain a sense of community, each child is responsible for contributing to the group dynamic. Students grow personally from the need to cooperate with others, while living and working harmoniously in a secure and caring environment. Our students will make new friends and see their teachers and classmates in a new light. Everyone at camp works, studies, eats, and sleeps together.
    Students live in summer cabins with wood stoves installed for spring and fall use. The cabins are safe and comfortable. There are several “female” and several “male” designated cabins. There are also flush toilets and showers available in nearby buildings! We are surely camping, but we are also not in tents!
    Children are under the direct supervision of adults at all times. The school’s teaching staff, because of their familiarity with the children, is responsible for social behaviors of the class. The KEEC staff is composed of skilled naturalists, teachers, and college students studying science. The environment is safe, yet filled with physical challenges for a broad range of learners.
    All students have a job assigned to them and it is a huge aspect of the residential program! Likewise all children are assigned to a study group, and a residential cabin. Each child will have three different groups that they interact with while at KEEC. There are ten different science investigations and children maintain a KEEC journal all week.
    There is a registered nurse available each morning and all KEEC staff have CPR and First Aid certifications. In addition there is a local physician on call for consultations and emergencies.  In the event of a serious illness or accident, a CAES staff member would contact a parent immediately. The Porter Medical Center, Middlebury is fifteen minutes away.
            JOIN US ON SEPTEMBER 29TH at 6:30
    We have about eleven thousand dollars left to raise- a lot of money! All parents need to participate in one or more of the various fund raising options in order us to meet our goal. Our initial Keewaydin meeting for all 5/6 parents will be on Thursday, September 29th at 6:30 in the CAES multipurpose room. Your attendance at this meeting is critical so that we can discuss various fund raising ideas and set a calendar of these events for the academic year.  We have some great fund raisers to put in place, but we are always looking for new ideas! PLEASE contribute in any way that you can! In the past it seems as if only a handful of the 5/6 students’ parents actively participated. This year’s fee to send one child is $ 225. We have 80 children to date. 11K is a considerable amount of cash that we need to come up with by May 1st. Please do your part! Bring your 5/6 student and join us for a discussion of Keewaydin on Thursday night!

-CHECK OUT THE KEEWAYDIN BLOG CREATED BY MR. KELLOWAY! YOU CAN FIND IT ON THE SCHOOL WEB PAGE. CHECK THERE FOR UPDATES, IMPORTANT DEADLINES, FUND RAISING IDEAS AND MORE. -

    If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to call me at school: 875-2108 ext 129- Gutierrez or any of the other 5/6 teachers. The busses will be loading on Monday, May 21st for another terrific week of environmental science education and personal growth.

    Thanks for your support! See you soon!

    Frank Kelley, Jeremy Kelloway, Toby Treu, and
    Patricia Weaver-Gutierrez, 2011-12 Coordinator