Eagle Rock Blueprints Describe Both Physical and Mission Projects

A set of blueprints is most often construed as an architectural plan for a physical building project. And, in truth, we’re discussing such a construction project in today’s post that will see the first of two new buildings bringing a welcome — and needed — addition to Eagle Rock 640-acre campus in Estes Park, Colo.

But we’re also talking today about a second set of “blueprints” that specifically affects Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center’s institutional planning process. Called Vision 2020, this blueprint enables our board members and staff to fulfill our mission by carefully planning for the allocation and use of resources.

IMG_6916

As the result of a thorough planning process conducted several years ago, our board — assisted by students and staff — adopted an updated plan that incorporates seven major areas of focus (called domains) to be carried out over a multi-year period.

These domains range from one dealing with the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion; to another describing the implementation of an Continue reading…

Introducing Eagle Rock School’s Latest Graduates

Springtime graduations are among our favorite times of year at Eagle Rock School. It’s an event that coincides with mother birds nudging their young offspring out of the nest, and no, the irony does not escape those of us who educationally nurture these young folks.

In the case of our latest grads — who take the stage starting at 4pm MT on Friday, April 10, 2015 — we’re celebrating the successful completion of the Eagle Rock experience for four inspiring high school graduates, including Song Candea, Sonja Stolmar, Maya West, and Hunter Gantz.

Eagle-Rock-School-Graduates-ER65

Below is a little background on each, and even a piece of advice from these veteran Eagle Rockers:

Song Candea joined us in ER 57 (the 57th trimester of Eagle Rock) and has been an active member in the Eagle Rock community ever since. He hails from Niwot, Colorado, and resided in Aspen House throughout his three years here.

Song has been described as an incredibly strong leader who leads by example, taking every opportunity given to him to grow as an individual. Because of this mentality, he was recently selected as the Student Wilderness Instructor for the incoming students of ER 64.

His success in his roles with the Outdoor Education department is paving the way for future student involvement. And with this passion for the outdoors he is seeking to major in Outdoor Education while attending Colorado Mountain College in Steamboat Springs, beginning this fall. Song also showed his talents as an active member of the musical improvisation ensemble, choir, as well as acting in the play In the Blood.

Song’s advice for all the educators reading this: “Teach students what they want to learn and they will learn it.”

Hunter Gantz is another Colorado native — from Boulder — who also joined us in ER 57. Hunter was immediately drawn to the multitude of music and performance opportunities on campus — from musicals to choir and a cappella, and poetry slams.

Hunter was in the Eagle Rock theater productions of Continue reading…

Meet The Team: Eagle Rock Human Performance Center Instructional Specialist, Anna Magle-Haberek

Anna-Magle-HaberekWhat Anna Magle-Haberek does here at Eagle Rock — and does quite well, we might add — is teach a bunch of classes that all seem to have energetic titles. These include “Lifelong Fitness,” “Run for Your Life” and “Learn to Swim.”

She’s also responsible for organizing intramurals and morning exercise each Wednesday, and she’s manager of the student lifeguarding and aquatics program. Add to those tasks the responsibilities of houseparent at Lodgepole House, and you can see Anna’s got a full load going on here.

We asked this energetic instructional specialist to give us some details of her life so we can get to know her better. Here’s what she had to say:

Eagle Rock: What did you do prior to coming to work for Eagle Rock? 

Anna: I’ve moved around a bit. I worked for the National Park Service for seven seasons, I’ve been a college track coach, a personal trainer, I’ve taught at the University of New Hampshire and University of Minnesota, and have worked with youth at a wilderness therapy program in Canada.

ER: What first attracted you to Eagle Rock?

Anna: My husband was a wilderness instructor at Eagle Rock in trimesters 48 and 51 (actually he was leading a wilderness trip with the School up until two days before our wedding.). He fell in love with it and we had both talked about wanting to work at Eagle Rock ever since.

ER: When you’re not working, what do you like to do in your spare time? 

Anna: I love to be Continue reading…

The Latest News From the Rock — December 2014

Having just wrapped up our 64th trimester, a blanket of quiet has settled over our campus. And looking back, it proved to be a busy and productive trimester for all of us here at Eagle Rock.

We kicked ER 64 off by welcoming eight new full-time Eagle Rock staff members, 10 new Eagle Rock Public Allies fellows, and one wilderness intern — Jack Bresnahan — to our mountainside community. Add it up and that’s just about 40 percent of our staff. Considering all the newness, we’ve done pretty well.

As expected, our students continued to deepen their understanding of our five expectations — making healthy life choices, communicating effectively, practicing leadership for justice, being an engaged global citizen and developing an expanding knowledge base. Much of this was absorbed through engaging classroom discussion.

And, of course we’re proud to have sent our three newest Eagle Rock School graduates — Gigi Hagopian, Isaac Holmes and Cat Leger — out into the world.

In addition to classroom activities, we’ve been working hard to improve the quality of student life elsewhere at Eagle Rock, and this trimester we had a lot going on, thanks to a large extent to The Magnificent 7 — an elite group of veteran students who help out with evening duty.

This trimester, the M7 put on an exciting house versus house Olympics, and when the dust settled, Aspen and Lodgepole were tied for first place. To break the tie, student Ziyad Johnstone, representing Aspen, and Isiah Gonzales, representing Lodgepole, played a nail-biting game of egg roulette for the tiebreaker.

If you’ve never seen it, egg roulette has each person work back and forth through a Continue reading…

A Day In The Life of an Eagle Rock Student

JHP_0047Editor’s Note: Eagle Rock student Jaliza Perez walks us through a typical day for her – from sunrise to bedtime – helping future Eagle Rock students understand the routine here in Estes Park, Colo., on any given school day. Jaliza wrote this piece earlier this year and has since graduated. Her plan now is to start an apprenticeship with Public Allies in Los Angeles doing community-based work.

7:00 a.m.: The sound of an unpleasant alarm goes off and I have no other choice but to wake up. It’s 7 a.m. on a Monday and it’s time to get up and run the gate. I put on my sneakers and walk to the bathroom to brush my teeth.

Once I’m done I hurry down the stairs out of the girl’s wing and head over to where everyone meets to run to the gate that serves as the entrance to our school property and back. Sometimes it takes us only 30 minutes to do the gate and other times it can take longer. Breakfast starts at 8 a.m., so I try to make it back before then. When I’m done I walk into the lodge grab a glass of water and wait for breakfast.

9:20 a.m.: When I’m done eating I head back to my house to get ready for the day. It’s now 9:20 a.m. — just 10 minutes before class. I grab my bag, coat and hat. I’m taking this class called Learning Spanish where we teach Spanish to second graders who are also learning Spanish.

We teach the little kids Spanish one or two days a week, and today is one of those days. So we meet in the lodge before we head out so that my teacher can make sure we have all our materials ready for our lesson plans. After she checks everything we head out to the bus.

At the elementary school I teach three kids how to express their emotions in Spanish. Sometimes I need to remember to have patience with the little kids but for the most part they do a great job of staying engaged. Whenever we go see the second graders I leave in a better mood because they’re always so happy to see us and working with them makes me forget about other things.

11:50 a.m.: It’s almost noon and we’re back on the Eagle Rock campus just in time for chores. Sometimes we will just sweep and wipe surfaces, but if its really dirty we will do a deep clean and leave a note on the whiteboard reminding people to pick up after themselves. By now its 12:30 p.m. and time for lunch! I head over to the lodge and wait for Kitchen Patrol to yell, “Put down chairs.” After everyone helps take the chairs down we can all Continue reading…