Summer Break 2017 at Eagle Rock School

To paraphrase the American nonfiction writer Charles Bowden, summertime at Eagle Rock offers the best of what might be.

For new students who arrived in early-June, it’s the beginning of a new high school experience and the wilderness orientation trip that accompanies it. For our Public Allies fellows, it’s the end of an advanced year-long service and leadership development experience. And of course, summer signals the graduation of another group of Eagle Rock School students.

The summer months on our mountainside campus never fail to impress upon us some of the values we hold so dear — namely, that we choose to focus on continuous improvement and that we are a small organization with an outsized impact.

Along those lines, summer break at Eagle Rock School offers time for some staff, instructors, and administrators to regroup by focusing on personal and professional growth away from campus. For others, it means traveling around the country in the name of Eagle Rock to facilitate the professional development of others.

The 72nd trimester since our founding in the early 1990s officially came to a close last Friday when seven of our students received their high school diplomas in a graduation ceremony that was live streamed on Facebook. The next day — Aug. 12 — all of our students left campus for home or for vacation destinations across the country.

The next day we held a staff brunch at Grand Lake Lodge to celebrate the development and achievements of our departing cohort of Public Allies fellows. Our 2017/2018 cohort of Public Allies fellows arrives on campus on the first of September, where they’ll immediately engage in nine days of some fairly strenuous core training.

The day after Fellows training ends, we officially welcome all staff back to campus for a full week of staff development, after which we welcome veteran students back to campus (Sept. 17). Then we kick off a  week of house retreats and all-school activities (including EagleServe), followed by new students arriving on campus on the 23rd of September.

In the meantime, our Professional Development team members continue to travel far and wide facilitating operational and curriculum changes at schools all across the country. For instance:

• Professional Development Associate Sarah Bertucci just wrapped up a training at Winooski Middle/High School in Vermont
• Associate Director of Professional Development Dan Condon will be working with the I Have a Dream Foundation of Boulder County Aug. 21
• Director of Professional Development Michael Soguero is scheduled to be in New York City Aug. 21-22 where he will be working with Schools that Can
• Michael returns to Colorado for a one-day session with I Have a Dream Foundation’s Dream Big Initiative on Aug. 23
• Finally, Dan Condon will be in Seattle Aug. 23-24 working with the good folks at the Puget Sound Consortium for School Innovation.

As with each of our trimester breaks, we suggest that if you need to contact an Eagle Rock staff member, please send an email to that person. Many of our staff members check email during break and will respond to messages based on availability.