Camps still getting set up
SOCIAL DISTANCING: Summer programs adjusting or awaiting guidelines
As 8-year-old Alyssa Phatak tells it, there have been “a lot of big events” over the past month or so during daytime programs at the Weekley YMCA in Braeswood Place.
Her mother is a forensic pathologist and her dad is a doctor, both essential workers whose status earned Alyssa a spot at the day camp.
Along with the arts and crafts and sports, aspects of the day camp serve as reminders of the pandemic: Only nine students and one adult are allowed at a time in each of the Weekley branch’s five classrooms; everyone’s temperature is taken three times a day and logged; counselors wear masks and frequently remind students when they get too close, like when Alyssa’s friend Sylvia Drones walked over to talk.
“Are we staying our distance, ladies?” Youth Development Director
Terrie Eley asked as Sylvia, 9, walked back to her station. “That’s the hardest part all day, keeping them 6 feet apart, 6 feet apart, 6 feet apart.”
Few families have been able to get their children into official day programs while schools have remained closed. Now, as
Texas’ economy slowly reopens, parents being called back to work are reckoning with what to do with their children as the academic year ticks toward summer break.
Most summers, the easy answer is to put them in camps or other summer programs, but these days few things are that straightforward.
Organizations across Houston are still working through the logistics of opening in-person camps while maintaining physical distancing. Some, like local YMCAs, will have summer camps similar to their current day programs, limiting capacity to 25 to 33 percent of their normal size. Others will offer more virtual options.
Some, including the Houston Zoo, have canceled all summer camps out of an abundance of caution. Houston’s Parks and Recreation Department has not announced an opening date for its summer enrichment programs, which typically begin June 1, as it awaits more state guidance.
Gov. Greg Abbott is expected to announce more easing of coronavirus restrictions on gatherings and certain businesses on Monday, but it is unclear whether he will announce guidance for summer camps and what that could look like.
“There’s going to be a need for it,” said Kevin Hattery, CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Houston. “We’re going to see a surge in workforce reentry, with parents no longer telecommuting or teleworking if they have been, and they will be in need of this traditional summer care.”
In the meantime, groups are coming up with guidelines on their own.
Financial hit
Figuring out how to bring kids and teens back has been especially difficult for overnight camps, where campers eat, sleep and play in close contact with others. The Sea Star Base in Galveston and the Frontier Camp outside of Crockett, for example, started by offering full refunds for families unwilling to send their kids away.
Both also pushed back the start of their seasons by at least a couple of weeks to make sure they can train staff and make changes to comply with state or federal orders that are issued.
Suzi Hanks, marketing and community outreach manager for Sea Star Base in Galveston, said the time spent outdoors will be a welcome release for students who have been cooped up. The camp focuses on water activities, including sailing, paddle sports, fishing and learning more about the ocean. Most of those activities are small-group oriented, but Hanks said the staff is working to make sure those staying overnight will be safe in their dorm-style rooms.
“Do we take their temperature one time a day? A few times a day? Do parents just drop them off at the curb?” Hanks said. “There’s lots of logistics here.”
At Frontier, a Christian summer camp tucked in between Houston and Dallas near the Davy Crockett National Forest, Executive Director Matt Raines said rather than welcoming kids and parents with the traditional ceremony, drop-off will look more like the drive-thru lanes at Chick-fil-A. Parents will stagger their drop off times and say goodbye to their kids outside the cabins, each of which sleep about seven campers and one counselor. There will be fewer campers this year. Raines said registrations are down by about 40 percent.
Operating camp at that capacity will cost the camp financially, but Raines said it is worth it to maintain relationships with families, provide youth time outdoors and time to reflect on their faith.
“I think it’s going to be a significant summer. What a great opportunity with everything that’s going on,” Raines said. “Camp has even more to offer than ever before. That’s what gets me excited.”
Frontier also will convert one of its buildings — normally reserved for retreat rentals — as a space to quarantine any campers or staff who have a fever or start showing symptoms of COVID-19.
Going virtual
Day camps are adjusting their normal practices as well.
The Houston Museum of Natural Science will open its camps June 1 at 50 percent of normal capacity at it main campus and Sugar Land location, said Nicole Temple, the museum’s vice president of education. Staff will reserve access to the basement level of the main campus just for summer camp students, who will use tunnels typically reserved for staff to visit other parts of the museum, such as the planetarium.
HMNS also is creating weekly virtual camps, where museum staff mail kits to students who sign up. Those kids will tune into a daily hourlong video session in which counselors will demonstrate how to perform an activity, such as a magic trick or simple science experiment. Kids will spend more time practicing or doing projects on their own before they present their results at the end of the week.
For Temple, the camps are more than just child care or creating entertainment for students while their parents work.
“All these kids out of formal school for the last two months,” Temple said. “This gives them an opportunity to have concrete examples of what they have been or should have been learning. It helps them get a little further ahead for next school year.”
Hattery, with the Boys and Girls Clubs, said students who have been without regular instruction are facing more than just falling behind during the summer months. Research shows that during the summer months, students’ achievement scores decline by a month’s worth of school learning, according to the Brookings Institution.
Coupled with the COVID-19 closures, missing out on learning during the summer could cause some to fall off an academic “cliff,” Hattery said.
While the Boys and Girls Clubs’ after-school programs have been closed since most districts’ spring breaks, he said parents increasingly are asking when or if the group will offer programming over the summer. Like the YMCA and Houston Museum of Natural Science, the clubs will limit in-person camps to about 25 to 33 percent of their normal capacity.
Jean Crosby, an anesthetist who helps administer anesthesia for surgeries and COVID-19 intubations, still is not sure where she will send her 5-year-old twins, Sean and Keegan. She had planned to register them for the Jewish Community Center’s summer programs but has not yet heard whether it will offer any camps. She just knows the boys will have to go somewhere, and said she may enroll them at the YMCA, where they currently attend day camps.
“They have a ton of energy. My husband was trying to work from home and take care of them, but that just did not work,” Crosby said. “They need attention, especially from other kids. We don’t have family here to help us, so I really literally don’t know what we would do.”
“Do we take their temperature one time a day? A few times a day? Do parents just drop them off at the curb? There’s lots of logistics here.” Suzi Hanks, marketing and community outreach manager for Sea Star Base in Galveston