If you stop by the RASP office, you will notice a trend starting to appear with the new decor, from fake jungle vines hanging, to our tree with snakes, lizards and frogs, a zebra pillow for a reading nook and animal printed party hats sitting around the room. To say that we are excited for this year’s summer theme, which is jungle, is an understatement.
Let’s start off with summer information for anyone new or that may not know about the RASP summer program. Like the school year, we are primarily funded by the 21st century grant and provide 65% academic enrichment within the program. We will be located at the Hagen building, hours run from 7:30 a.m to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. The program runs from June 3rd to August 9th and will be closed July 3rd to 5th. We do not provide lunch, however we do provide snack time.
Since we run the program at all 6 public schools during the school year we have to move all of our supplies from the back to the Hagen building, then we take inventory and reallocate our supplies to our summer classrooms, which are also occupied by other programs during the school year, such as the early childhood center and the alternative high school. We have to wait for the classrooms to be emptied before we can even get in to set them up. Our staff take pride in setting up their classrooms to make it a magical place for students to attend, usually following our theme for the summer. We already have several new jungle classroom décor sets ready to be placed on the walls! After the classrooms are complete, we also set up a front area for our check in and pick up and set up the lunchroom and gym for students.
In early august a lot of our college students and graduating high school students head back to Fargo and grand forks to continue their education. We then do our process reversed, of gathering items from the classrooms and moving everything back to our 6 RASP locations at the schools.
Not only is the program 65% educational which allows the RASP students summer retention to stay up, but we also have several field trips and events throughout the program, our field trips include- swimming at the WRCC, bowling and the Bismarck zoo. The events include- a spelling bee, track meet, talent show, big sticks visit, gateway to science, participating in the national lemonade stand day- which provides learning entrepreneurship and a possible play on the jungle book is in the works! We also have a fantastic curriculum coordinator who will be doing various art classes throughout the entire summer such as a colorful ostrich, summer pop art and other fun jungle themed animals.
It is bittersweet but as I help prepare for closing out this school year and prepare for the summer program, it will be my last school year with RASP. I have truly been blessed to be able to be a part of the RASP program. These past 10 years I have learned many lessons and met so many influential and friendly faces. I also will of course miss our turtle (Turtie) who is 9 years old this October! I know I am leaving it in good hands with Kim McNaney leading the RASP team and look forward to see how the program will expand and prosper.