On most school days, you’ll find teacher Bill Kraegler in the woods surrounded by Montgomery County sixth-graders as he explains about ecosystems and wildlife at MCPS’s Lathrop E. Smith Environmental Education Center in Rockville.
Follow Kraegler as he leads fourth-graders on a dig for bugs and you’ll hear squeals of excitement and calls of “Mr K! Mr. K! Look what we found!”
Come next year, these woods may be silent.
That’s because MCPS’s venerable Outdoor Education Program is facing the budget ax. The program, which has served hundreds of thousands of students since it began in 1963, is on the list of budget cuts proposed by MCPS Superintendent Jerry Weast should the County Council reduce his proposed $2.2 billion budget.
For a savings of about $600,000, MCPS would eliminate a program that serves every student and whose three sites also are used regularly for staff development and training. More than 22,000 students attend day and residential programs annually.
If the program is eliminated, that’s the end of Outdoor Ed, the beloved three-day rite of passage for all sixth-graders, who arrive in groups throughout the year to bunk in brick dormitories and learn about their classmates, teamwork and nature through night hikes, scientific exploration and playing games in the woods. No electronics allowed.
Neeka Cawthorne fondly remembers her middle school trip. The 38-year-old Silver Spring resident was drawn back to her Outdoor Ed experience as she walked around a pond while chaperoning her fourth-grade son’s field trip to the Smith Center last week.
“This is coming full circle," she says. “I remember coming here in sixth grade. It’s still here, alive and kicking. It’s beautiful.”
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“In this day and age, there is more and more of a disconnect between the world outside the door and inside the door,” says Kraegler. “This is needed because it’s not dessert from a well-balanced diet. It’s part of a well-balanced diet.”
Eastern Middle School teacher Michelle Ray attended Outdoor Ed this year with her sixth-graders. “I loved it, seeing kids be so different from the way they are in school,” she says. “Everybody has something fantastic to share.”
Laurie Jenkins, Outdoor Education’s supervisor, often interviews sixth-graders at the end of their stay, looking for feedback about their experience. Here’s what she hears: Kids love feeling independent. They’re proud of facing fears about being away from home and being in the woods by themselves. And they love being outside, hiking at night, and learning about nature.
And that’s the point of education, isn’t it, to broaden children’s minds and experiences, whether inside or outside the classroom?
