Schools

MIS Parents to Protest Outdoor Ed Changes

A group of parents are concerned about Mokena School District 159's plans to replace the three-day overnight trip to Wisconsin with two day trips to an Olympia Fields park district center.

Parent Lisa Snyder said a note sent home in the Jan. 27 Friday Folder was the first notice her family got that her son's fifth-grade class would be the first in years not to attend the yearly three-day overnight trip to Camp Timber-lee.

Instead of the three-day, two-night trip to the Wisconsin camp, the students will be taking two consecutive day trips to in Olympia Fields.

"They've waited since kindergarten," Snyder said. "They've been hearing about it for years."

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The district decided to replace the program because of a combination of factors, mostly cost and the time it would take out of the school year. The three-day overnight trip cost just short of $200. The two day trips where students come home every night will cost $65.

"We took a look at it, what the students got out of it versus the cost," MIS Principal Nancy Chibe said. "We decided doing the two day trips will accomplish the same goals and have more students take advantage of."

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Snyder said the $200 would be worth it for her fifth-grade son and was worth it when her daughter, now at , went.

"The kids go there and they come back a changed child," Snyder said. "They come back with the biggest smiles and they mature so much faster in those days because they've got to take care of things themselves."

A group of parents, including the mother of an MIS student who has been collecting signatures on a petition to reinstate the overnight trip, will attend tonight's school board meeting to state their case.

Snyder said her son was hurt he didn't get to take the trip his older sister did a few years ago.

"He just said, 'Why can't we do this too? Why don't they like us? I don't even want to go any more,'" Snyder said. "The kids don't understand; they take it personally."

One issue for the district is the impending move to the state standards of the common core curriculum, Chibe said. The common core curriculum is a set of new math and English language arts standards designed to keep Illinois students more competitive than when the last set of standards were adopted in 1997.

The three-day program, Chibe said, would take too much time away from the classroom work that will help student meet the impending new standards.

"As we're going to the common core, the outdoor program is more of a supplimental program," Chibe said.

Chibe said the two-day program at Irons Oaks teaches the students many of the same lessons without taking as much time away from the classroom.

"(The students) should expect to participate in hands-on activities and small group team-building activities related to outdoor education," Chibe said.

Snyder said she feels the overnight nature of the outdoor program enhances the lessons the district is trying to teach.

"I think it enhanced everything. I think the kids gained more mentally and physically because they had to learn how to be independent," she said. "They didn't have anybody breathing down their neck."

Students Snyder has talked to, even students currently in college, all remember the Camp Timber-lee program fondly, she said.

"Everytime you ask them, they have smiles on their face," Snyder said.


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