Principal Greg: Connecting Kids to Science through Nature from 1990-2020

Dear Cuyamaca Outdoor School Friends,

I had planned this year to be my last at Cuyamaca. Thirty years sounded like a nice round number. Every Friday since September, I was announcing my retirement and saying goodbye to our visiting teachers, some of whom have been bringing their students to Cuyamaca for my entire tenure. Every Monday at staff meetings, I was giving my books and teaching materials away. And then -- unknowingly, we said goodbye to our last group of students for the year on March 13. The COVID-19 pandemic brought an abrupt halt to our school year and shortly thereafter we were having staff Zoom meetings to figure out how to make outdoor education relevant via distance learning with our COS Home edition.

Our staff did a fabulous job creating videos for the students, encouraging them to stay connected with nature in myriad ways during this strange new world of physical distancing. If you haven’t seen all of them, you can check them out on the San Diego County Office of Education COS YouTube playlist.

We have well thought-out plans for next year to serve not only all of our students, but we also hope to serve the students who missed out on their experience this year. I know the program will be in excellent hands under the leadership of Cuyamaca Outdoor School Vice Principal Kris Pamintuan, who has been selected to take the reins. She has 24 years of experience in outdoor education at three different outdoor schools and I look forward to seeing students and staff thrive under her guidance.

I did a little math while reflecting on my decades at Cuyamaca and here is what I came up with:

What fun! Confucius said, “Choose a job that you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” That has certainly been the case in my career. People asked me often this year, “Are you counting the days until retirement?” I would say, “No, I am trying to savor every moment remaining.”

Over the years, I noticed that I had developed certain philosophies at work, so the last few years I honed them into clear messages that I shared with staff and clients:

I am grateful that I have been able to make my life’s passion my work. Every week brought me great satisfaction that we had made a difference in people’s lives. I thank all of you for the role you have played in making this once-in-a-lifetime experience possible for over 1 million children in San Diego County. It’s beautiful how this small program connects generations of families to the outdoors.

Next year is our 75th anniversary. On March 17, 1946, the “Original 6th Grade Camp” in California was born. It is my hope and belief that the San Diego County Office of Education will continue to be a leader in outdoor education so that your children and grandchildren may have this transformative experience just like so many before them.

Happy trails,

Greg Schuett

Read more about Principal Greg’s time at COS

Cuyamaca Outdoor School Vice Principal Kris Pamintuan has been named principal to replace the retiring Greg Schuett. Pamintuan joined the staff in 2018.

“I am humbled, honored, and excited to be the next Cuyamaca Outdoor School principal,” said Pamintuan. “Principal Greg has been an incredible leader and an inspiration to tens of thousands of students, hundreds of visiting classroom teachers and, of course, the Cuyamaca staff. He utilized calm, informed decision-making and excellent customer service, and always had an eye toward making Cuyamaca the best outdoor school in the state. I will endeavor to do the same.”

The new leader said she is looking forward to continuing the Cuyamaca tradition of "continual program improvement."

“And with so many changes happening in the world right now, I am eager to see what our thoughtful and creative team comes up with,” Pamintuan said.

Read more.

As Cuyamaca Outdoor School approaches its 75th anniversary, the program is being modified for the 2020-21 school year so it can continue providing students with outdoor education under the current health and safety precautions. Additional changes could be made if health conditions change.

Starting in January 2021, COS will offer a three-day residential program at Cuyamaca. One group of students will attend Monday through Wednesday and a different group will attend Wednesday through Friday in order to accommodate as many schools as possible in the reduced time frame.

COS will follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and American Camping Association cleaning and disinfecting protocols throughout campus, and no more than 216 students will be on campus at one time (about half the camp’s capacity) to allow for physical distancing.

Schools currently scheduled from September to December will be rescheduled for another time between January and June. If these weeks fill to capacity at Cuyamaca, COS will open Camp Palomar. With this schedule, COS is hoping the students that were not able to attend camp this past spring can reschedule in 2021.

For more about the new program, please contact Principal Kris at [email protected].

For decades, students across San Diego County have been attending 6th Grade Camp at Cuyamaca Outdoor School. Since schools were closed in March to prevent the spread of COVID-19, hundreds of students have missed out on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so the staff at COS decided to bring the experience home to students this year.

To help teachers, parents, and students capture some of the great experiences at camp, COS launched a home edition, complete with videos, activities, lessons, and more, to engage students in science and connect them to nature right from their own homes.

“Our staff thought it would be fun to share videos of them out in nature in hopes that it would encourage students and families to do the same,” said Principal Greg Schuett. “We are hoping to share science and nature with as many people as we can.”

Read more.

Contributed by Emelie Traub, COS outdoor education specialist

In the midst of this global pandemic, creativity seems to be the name of the game.

Signs staked into lawns read “Congratulations Class of 2020,” while teddy bears peer out windows for children to find. Birthday parties have been converted to a drive-thru experience, Zoom meeting rooms double as classrooms and date night restaurants, and Cuyamaca Outdoor School offers a series of home outdoor education videos.

I was called upon to make my creative contribution when my Tae Kwon Do studio asked me if I would be willing to host a Zoom party for our students using my “camp skills,” to give their parents a short break from their new reality. I quickly agreed, excited to share nature with my martial arts students. The minute I hung up the phone though, reality sunk in. How was I going to connect my students to nature virtually?

After days of wracking my brain on the subject, the ideas began to trickle into a flood! I would share photos of animals from camp and each group of animals would lead into a related camp song. Students would try on each animal adaptation for size and predict how their adaptations maximize the animal’s survival. To end the evening, I would leave them with a bedtime story about a constellation they could see from home.

I still feared the presentation would elicit a feeling of isolation, showing students what is out there with no opportunity to see it for themselves. This inspired the final piece to the puzzle: a scavenger hunt. If the students were given inspiration and a reason to get outside for some fun, then this would all be worth it! I came up with a list of nature-related items for which my students could search in their own backyards or neighborhoods.

When I typed them up though, they looked somber on paper. It needed something more. Lucky for me, my long-time friend and coworker at COS, Amanda Bradshaw, has incredible talent and happily agreed to illustrate my scavenger hunt. It turned out better than I could have imagined.

After weeks of preparing and stressing about the presentation, it was finally showtime. Time passed quickly, as my wide-eyed students laughed about crazy camp songs and shared their own experiences of animals they had seen. When the curtains were lowered, I felt extremely satisfied with how things had gone.

Uncertain of what the future held for our program, I emailed Kris Pamintuan to see if she could somehow use the presentation. She loved the idea and promised to keep it in mind for future use.

It wasn’t long before multiple teachers asked Pamintuan to collaborate on ideas for an alternate camp experience the week that their students had been scheduled to come to camp. As part of that collaboration, she thought of my work. Soon, I was collaborating with multiple classroom teachers on how to make the most of the week for their students, with my “Virtually Camp” presentation as the introduction to their week.

I was impressed and touched by the initiative the classroom teachers took to create an alternative camp experience for their students. Pressures of preparing the students for their next grade levels in such unfamiliar conditions could easily have been used as an excuse to carry on as normal, but these teachers gave their students an outlet to disconnect, and I felt fortunate to have had the opportunity to contribute.

Just like that, this pandemic pitfall becomes an opportunity for creative new teaching methods.

Carolyn Withers-Miller, outdoor education specialist, Dino Stavros, maintenance and operations supervisor, and Jim Hawkins, building maintenance specialist are all retiring in June after decades of combined service to Cuyamaca Outdoor School.

Carolyn joined SDCOE in 1991 as an outdoor education specialist at Fox Outdoor School and joined the Cuyamaca staff in 2010 when the Fox site closed. She is known for singing a song called “Moose da Moose” to the kids every week.

She lives on a small ranch in the desert near Shelter Valley with her husband, where she is an avid gardener, and grows most of her own fresh produce. For many years, she was a long-distance cross-country runner and equestrian racer.

Dino joined SDCOE in the late 80s, serving as maintenance engineer at Camp Fox, ultimately serving as supervisor for all three camp sites beginning in 2010. He lives with his wife, Pam, whom he met while she was secretary at Camp Fox. Dino and Pam enjoy spending time with their eight grandchildren, horseback riding, and riding their new electric assist bikes at the beach.

Jim has been with SDCOE since 2009, serving as maintenance worker at Camp Palomar before joining the staff at Cuyamaca in 2011. In 2019, he was promoted to building maintenance specialist. Jim and his wife have a new RV and plan to hit the road in retirement.

This quarterly newsletter will keep you up-to-date on Cuyamaca Outdoor School:

The Original 6th Grade Camp.