Faculty members worked a booth and invited families to attend upcoming summer programs at the Parent Education League’s 5th Annual ‘Summer Days’ CAMP Fair on Sunday at the Skirball Cultural Center.
Director of Kutler Center and Summer Programs Jim Patterson and Operations and Director of Summer School Sports Programs Darlene Bible spoke to students and parents about the school’s Summer’s programs, such as the Wolverine Summer Camps, the Righteous Conversations Project and North Faring Exploration.
“The idea is to promote the program so that the wider community knows that we offer a summer program,” Patterson said. “There are a number of people who aren’t able to attend Harvard-Westlake during the academic year, and the summer gives them the opportunity to really experience the programs that we have. Being at a place like this allows us to be seen with the other summer programs in the area so that when families are putting together their programs for their kids, they can consider us along with the programs that around.”
The Parent Education League is a non-profit organization dedicated to help parents navigate through topics about schools, education and enrichment. The league helps families by providing resources like parent workshops and enrichment for those with learning disabilities. This event allowed parents to learn about more than 60 summer day camps and meet their respective directors, PEL board member Desiree Lapin (Jacob ’19) said.
“We find that when parents meet the directors of the camps and speak one-on-one with them, they get a better understanding of what the camp can offer for their children,” Lapin said. “They can sometimes find camps that they never would have dreamed of sending them to, and it turns out really well. This is an opportunity for them to meet the director and find out really what the child is going to experience. You can’t do that over the phone.”
The program helped families narrow down their options and register for different summer opportunities, participant May Ng said.
“You hear a lot about different camps out there, and you don’t know what’s right for you, and a lot of them are in different locations,” Ng said. “My kids love arts, crafts and dancing, and they have specific camps for that. This is a great opportunity for a lot of the families to check out the camps.”
