Charter School

I have the opportunity to set up the music lab for a new charter school and am really excited about doing the research that will be required.  Since I am on the governance board for the new charter school, I'll have some control over what is included.   I would love input from anyone who has experience with this situation.

I have several contacts but one can never have too many suggestions.   It will be a wonderful opportunity to give a great experience to students who don't do well in the traditional classroom environment.

Sally Ritchie

Scoring

Points were given for each activity in our camp.  We had thought of using music money but my problem with that is that I did not want them equating their progress with money.  

We decided to use pony beads.   We gave them out throughout the camp........we actually didn't have any method for that other than the fact that everyone would get beads for each activity.  The winning team would get the most but each team got beads for trying.   The students really got into choosing their beads and stringing them on the necklaces that they wore during camp.   At the end, we gave ribbons to the top three bead-earners, but each camper got some small prizes.

Just a note here: next year I would have them leave their bead necklaces at the camp instead of taking them home to bring back the next day.  As I should have expected, two of the kids forgot their beads for the last day.  We did eventually get them back to use for next year.

And that brings me to a summary of camp.  Both Bradd and I were extremely pleased with the camp.  The students really were excited about it and we have had several requests to do it again next year.  Our administration was very supportive and would like it to be a regular part of the summer program  offered at school.  We have ideas for other camps and since now we will have their help to get the information to our students, we should have an even better turn out for next year.  It was probably best that we had this year with a smaller group (we had 24 campers) so we could see how it worked.  We will be doing a camp wrap up together to file our materials and thoughts as to what worked best and what didn't work as well as we would have liked.  We did many things that I haven't mentioned in the blog but anyone who would like to know more can contact us.

Sally Ritchie