Valley View School Summer Update

As the summer is nearing the half-way point, we are excited about sharing news of the experiences our boys have been occupied with during the past few months or so. The summer program has offered numerous opportunities designed to provide youngsters with explorative learning experiences.
There has been a high level of enthusiasm amongst the students as the summer has unfolded for them.

During the school day, aside from some of the more traditional math and reading classes, courses have ranged from model airplane building culminating with a trip to a local air museum. There have been sessions around rocketry experimenting, golf, bonsai tree care and cookie baking.

Our History of baseball class finished off with a special tour of Boston's historically rich Fenway Park. There have been numerous day hikes often around the theme of "Curious New England". These have included photography class opportunities to unique and interesting places of historical significance, a mythology class culminating in a trip to a local armory museum, as well as numerous arts and crafts projects, etc.

We have continued and further developed a comprehensive program of weekly community service trips to the animal shelter, a horse farm which specializes in equine therapy for physically challenged folks, and involvement in assisting a number of local seniors in need of help such as yard work and wood stacking for the fall. We are very proud to document that the combined total of community service hours has reached an astonishing 413 since the program was initiated earlier this year.

Additionally, 8 of our boys set out to the White Mountains of New Hampshire for a 6 day wilderness backpacking trip. We hiked 25.5 miles carrying backpacks with personal and group gear, food, and supplies. The boys summited three mountain peaks in two days reaching elevations of 4950ft! We camped one evening at 4000ft with a temperature low of about 45 degrees! We also completed a "leave no trace" community service project for the park service in exchange for a discussion on the career responsibilities of a federal forest service ranger. Another group of boys will head to the Adirondacks of New York for another 6 day trip this August.

All in all it has been a very busy and productive summer. It has been most gratifying to observe our boys as they explore new horizons, develop more positive friendships, and continuing to exhibit increasing enthusiasm for personal growth.

It has been a pleasure to work with staff to assist in developing experiences that the boys enjoy, as well as to witness the relationships between staff and students strengthen during these classes and trips. The success of our summer would not be possible without the engagement of our committed staff team.

We continue to document many of these activities as they relate to experiential education on our website.

Valley View School is a private, not for profit, residential school providing a supportive therapeutic educational environment for boys between the ages of 11 and 16.