Posted on 10/26/2022 8:19:38 PM PDT by NoLibZone
The camp’s director said misinformation about his counselors and transphobia led to the Culver School District pulling its students Outdoor School is a rite of passage for many Oregon students, when pre-teen students across the state spend multiple days in the wilderness learning about the outdoors.
The sixth grade students of Culver Schools, a small district in rural Central Oregon, were scheduled for a three-day, two-night stay at Camp Tamarack in nearby Sisters starting Oct. 17. It didn’t go according to plan.
Several hours into the trip, the school bus returned, loaded up all the students and their belongings, and took them back to Culver. The reason: District officials learned nonbinary counselors would be sharing cabins with the students, according to letters sent to parents later that day.
Interviews with the district and emails from Oct. 18 show school officials took little deliberation before pulling students from the camp. Much of the district’s concerns were based on misinformation about Camp Tamarack and its nonbinary counselors, and the actions could potentially cost the district thousands of dollars in state funding.
Superintendent Stefanie Garber later wrote to parents, saying some students had expressed discomfort with staying in a cabin with a nonbinary person, particularly with dressing and showering in front of the high school-aged counselors.
She said she heard about the concerns from Culver Middle School Principal Brad Kudlac, who himself had heard it from teachers present at the camp.
“We stand for the emotional, physical and mental safety of the kids, and we stand for clear open communication,” Garber said to OPB. “So we had to err on the side of caution.”
Garber did not know how many students expressed discomfort or if they had actually requested they be taken home. She said that she was in the middle of conducting job interviews and took only around 15 minutes before deciding to send a bus, which was at another school district for a sporting event, back to Camp Tamarack.
‘There were tears’
Camp Tamarack Executive Director Charlie Anderson said that Garber and the district operated on incorrect information about the camp. He said each cabin has a private changing room, which students were made aware of, and that students do not shower during Outdoor School and would therefore never have been in a shower with a counselor.
He said the camp had no idea students were uncomfortable or that they were going home until the buses arrived. Students, he said, seemed upset when they found out.
“There was a lot of confusion — there were tears,” Anderson said. “When that was being taken away from them, there was sadness felt everywhere.”
Garber said the district could have done better in communicating with the camp, but also told parents she wished Camp Tamarack had informed her about the presence of nonbinary counselors. Anderson disagreed and said doing so would’ve been discriminatory and violated state law.
Culver’s withdrawal from Outdoor School comes as queer people across the country, especially those who are transgender and nonbinary, have faced increasing attacks from conservatives who claim these LGBTQ people are either “groomers” or pedophiles. Various state legislatures have considered and even passed laws limiting discussion of or exposure to LGBTQ topics around children.
Note: The ONLY thing surprising here is that there remains at least one normal school district in Oregon with the cajones to take such an action for its students.
Thank you for clarifying the concept of what an outdoor classroom is. I had no idea of what it meant to stay at a campsite for 3 days. I am now enlightened.
However, unless you are stripping away every other modern convenience and having them fully dependending only on what they hunt and gather, sleeping in whatever shelter they find, and tending to whatever medical needs arise with whatever nature provides, depriving adolescents of the opportunity to clean themselves after physical activity and normal bodily functions seem a bit odd if not extreme.
Males with pink hair who wear dresses and were really looking forward to spending the nights with 12-year old girls.
Gee, so the multiple weeklong backpack trips I’ve taken with groups of young men where we plan all our gear and meals, taking them with us on our backs with no hope of showers is now wrong to you?
Thanks for sharing your obviously more well tuned skills than mine.
ANOTHER REASON TO HOMESCHOOL
Here’s a great example of parents and schools fighting the leftist ideology, and a homeschooling nitwit comes along to say the battle is unwinnable.
Yes, let’s all cower in our homes and allow the left to indoctrinate future voters unopposed.
Coward.
Sigh....you didn’t even take the time to read the article, did you?
“Camp Tamarack Executive Director Charlie Anderson said that Garber and the district operated on incorrect information about the camp. He said each cabin has a private changing room, which students were made aware of, and that students do not shower during Outdoor School and would therefore never have been in a shower with a counselor.”
So the school district (and by extension, the parents) wasn’t aware that the students would not be taking showers for three days or they would not have brought the issue of sharing showers with non binary people up.
Let’s not get too sensitive, FRiend. I never made a judgement call about your personal choices. What you and your merry band of travelers choose to voluntarily subject yourselves to is your business. I’m glad that particular scenario brings you joy.
As a parent I would have a problem with my daughters being placed in that situation.
You’re entitled to your opinion, even when it is wrong.
So here we have ONE small victory and the rest of us are to sacrifice our children to leftist ideology in a vain hope that somehow enough parents will get on board when things get bad enough and turn them around?
What is it going to take to get most parents to give up their free babysitting and not allow their kids to be indoctrinated and groomed and sitting ducks for the next school mass shooter? If what is happening in schools today is not enough to raise parents from their stupor, then nothing is.
You are a fool. Sacrifice your own kids if you want. Don’t demand others sacrifice theirs for your agenda.
Because starving the beast by pulling kids out can work as well, and at least results in healthy, safer kids who are not mindless indoctrinated public school drones.
Outdoor School in Oregon isn’t exactly a wilderness experience, and Camp Tamarack is hardly backcountry. I was one of the high-school counselors at Camp Colton in 1971 and 1972, mostly to get out of school for a week (it was five days then). The sixth-graders slept in cabins and ate in the mess hall. There were showers available, but I don’t remember whether the kids used them at all; certainly I never showered with the little devils. If any counselors were “non-binary” they kept it to themselves.
Good for the Culver School District.
The local wokesters are outraged. Even when it is pointed out it was going to 17 and 18 year old boys having access to their little girls.
You’re delusional if you think pulling your kid out of school and ceding the battlefield and to the leftist will do anything but allow them to continue their indoctrination unopposed.
“Save” your child in a bubble and then watch the indoctrinated masses outvote them at the ballot box.
I’m a fighter. My kids are fighters.
Stay in the dark and cower. Others, better than you, will carry on the fight.
For the record, I did actually read the article. However, I wasn’t commenting on the article, I responded to your comment where you wrote: So let me get this straight - a bunch of hormonal teenagers spend three days doing outdoor physical activities and DO NOT SHOWER?!?!? Personal hygiene must not be a priority in the woods.
It’s very common to not have modern conveniences in the backcountry.
It’s Pat.🙄
I quite understand the lack of modern conveniences in the wilderness. That’s not the issue.
My point is if the camp - and it is a camp, not the Appalachian Trail - has modern facilities available, denying students the opportunity to use one aspect of them makes no sense. If they can use a sink to brush their teeth and a toilet to take care of business, then the showers should be made available as well.
If it is a survivalist exercise, then teach them how to boil/filter their water, dig a pit far away from the water source to squat over, and bend trees together, burrow under a log, find a cave, or build a wind break for shelter.
That’s all. Not sure why you have a problem with it. I guess we can just agree to disagree.
All the best.
What could possibly go wrong with hiring sexual deviants for camp counselors?
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