Thursday, January 6, 2011How to creat a summer porgrams
In 1987, i was appointed the Summer Programs Director. With the recommendations from my two good friends and original faculty members, Mr. Redmond and Mr. EC Smith.
I started working at Berkeley on Davis Island in Aug 1978 and taught middle division math. I was hired on a handshake from Mr. Pennington and worked under Dr. George Mead and alongside long time friends Dr. Morris and Mr. Ripley.
In Jan of 1979, we moved to the Kelly campus. I also helped coach with the basketball teams, drove the van for the golf and tennis teams.
Started teaching Geometry in the summers in 1980. Appointed math department chair in 1985, also the year i earned my Masters Degree in Education from USF. I also taught the GRE prep course at USF for 30 years to help pay my sons tuition at Berkeley.
In 1987, Berkeley hired a new Headmaster, Joe Merluzzi and he had a dream of a Berkeley the size of the great prep schools of New England and a summer programs the same size.
Before Mr. Merluzzi arrived on campus we had agreed to start a fine arts camp and a sports camp. We hired Larkie Flemming Fine Arts camp to come to Berkeley and Clem Caprara to direct the sports camps. Before this we mainly had 80 kids taking remedial summer courses and Geometry with me.
That first summer of 1987, we added two 2 week long fine arts camp with about 20 kids in each....and four 1 week long sports camps volleyball, basketball, softball and baseball. For a grand total of about 200 campers.
With agressive marketing and a few trips to ISM "How to Grow a Summer Programs" we were able to grow the sports camps up to 52 offerings. The most successful being the All Sports Camp for kids 5-9 yrs old 9 am to 3 pm.
The addition of the swimming pool also increases our numbers by 500 campers.
Meanwhile in the 1990's we added an academic program for the lower division called Summer of Excellence. And once the Lykes Cente for the Arts was build, we added the Summer Stage as well.
Meanwhile the fine arts camps grew to 6 sessions and over 200 campers.
We eventually added the Teachers Workshop.
So we ended passing the 1,000 mark, then the 2,000 mark and now we have about 3,000 campers every summer. We run a 7 week summer letting the campus and staff rest the for two weeks in Aug before the start of the new school year.
The Summer Programs AD Team consisted of:
Manny Suarez, Summer Programs Director
Wendy Swanhart, Administrative Assistant
Larkie Fleming, Fine Arts Director
Clem Caprar, Sports Camps Director
Joanne Moore, SOE Director
Kathi Grau, Summer Stage Director
Paul Pappas, Teachers Workshop Director
In 2010, Clem and Kathi retired from the summer and were replaced by Josh Beckwith and Amy Phillips. A new position of Summer School Director was created and Jeremiah Gregg took over that title.
We await the contruction of the new sports complex and our new goal of having 4,000 campers at Berkeley during the summer.
A special thanks to Wendy Swanhart who has help the programs grow from 2,000 campers to 3,000 campers. She is our first line of "impressions" and trains much of the staff in the office. "The keeper of the keys" you might say.
Check us out at www.berkeleyprep.org/summer
Berkeley Summer Programs: "Setting a Fun Pace for Excellence"
