Parents working to restore outdoor school

Reynolds group plans meeting at Gresham Library this Saturday

By Rob Cullivan

The Gresham Outlook, Nov 17, 2009, Updated Nov 18, 2009 (7 Reader comments)

/ Gresham Outlook

Michelle Stein

Reynolds School District parents are organizing to save the environmental education program Outdoor School for the district’s sixth-grade students this year.

Outdoor School supporters are inviting the public to a meeting from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 21, at Gresham Library, 385 N.W. Miller Ave.

Folks interested in restoring the program are urged to bring fundraising ideas and consider volunteering to help the effort, noted Michelle Stein and Clifford Hirsch Jr.

Stein’s twin daughters Rebecca and Brianna attend sixth grade at Walt Morey Middle School along with Hirsch’s daughter, Sarah. Hirsch is one of 11 people vying to be appointed to a Reynolds School Board seat vacated by the recent resignation of John Nelsen.

Outdoor School is a rite of passage for Oregon’s children, Stein and Hirsch noted, and this year’s class of Reynolds’ sixth-graders should not miss out on the experience.

“It’s a great non-traditional learning experience,” Hirsch says, noting it appeals especially to students who prefer hands-on education to listening to a lecture.

“It’s like the secret society that the sixth-graders participate in,” Stein said. “By the time it’s over, they don’t want to leave.”

Realistic goal

The organizers have already secured $43,000 in funding from Friends of Outdoor School, a program of the E2 organization that works with the Multnomah Education Service District, as well as other sources, and have about 51 percent of what they need to ensure all Reynolds sixth-graders can enjoy a three-day/two-night outdoor school.

The organizers hope to raise a minimum amount of $92,000 — or $110 per student — to fund the program, Stein and Hirsch say.

Funding the traditional full week experience would cost $240,000 or $260 per student, they add, noting they’d love to be able to provide the full-week experience, but want to set a realistic fundraising goal.

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