Previous Experience Doesn’t Always Equate with Success

The American Camp Association (ACA) is the accrediting body for most American summer camps. As part of their accreditation process, representatives from the ACA visit and evaluate camps on a rotating cycle every few years to ensure that their criteria are being met. Recently, the ACA switched from a three-year accreditation cycle to a five-year accreditation cycle, meaning that some camps, like us, were lucky and moved immediately to the five-year cycle. This shift means that we have not had an evaluation year since the ACA’s last visit in 2014 when Kingsley Pines Camp received a perfect score. According to the new five-year cycle, 2019 is once again an accreditation year for us, and the ACA will visit on July 15.

Our director is extremely detail-oriented, and this is never more apparent than during an ACA year. An ACA year for us always comes with more stress than normal. This stress does not stem from worries of not achieving accreditation, as we go above and beyond many of our peer camps, but rather ensuring that our evaluation accurately represents the comprehensiveness of the procedures and programming we have in place. As part of the preparation for an ACA year, not only do we more rigorously document our procedures, but our staffing also changes in a few small ways to meet their criteria.

This year, the biggest way this is felt in day-to-day camp life is that Dan, our program director, has stepped in to also fill the role of boys’ campus head and delegated some of his previous program director responsibilities. These two positions are normally full responsibilities in and of themselves, however, because of extenuating life circumstances, our previous boys’ campus head was unable to return. Although there is a current staff member who normally would have been promoted into this position and most likely would have been if this was not an ACA year, the responsibilities of the position were delegated to Dan this year because of his previous experience in the role. However, it has been many years since Dan was boys’ campus head, and a lot has changed on the boys’ campus since his previous tenure, mostly as a result of the progressive campus heads that have come since him. There had to be a tradeoff made between staffing the right person for the ACA year and the right person for the job in 2019. This experience has demonstrated to me how bureaucracy and regulations can affect normally functional and successful organizational structures.

Over the past several years, the boys’ campus has focused heavily on building community and giving boys the encouragement and space to be emotionally vulnerable. However, partly because of Dan’s split attention this year, it feels like some of those important traits have been lost, and the role has become more of a checklist than a transformational leadership role. To myself and other staff members with whom I’ve spoken about this, we feel that Dan has too much on his plate, and unlike the campus heads of the past, his whole focus is not on the boys’ campus. This isn’t to say that he is doing a poor job, but merely that putting this much work on one person would be a lot for anyone. It is more of a criticism of the choice to put him once again in this role, rather than someone who was able to fully commit to it. While it is relieving to know that this is a temporary problem, it is frustrating this summer, especially when compared with previous stellar campus heads who have transformed the communities that we create.

In the past, I would have gone to either the girls’ or the boys’ campus head and expected to receive the same level of support, however, due to the position change, I am now much less likely to see Dan about problems I’m having with campers because he does not seem to have the time to devote to the campus head side of his job. The ineffectiveness of this staffing choice has reassured me of the normal effectiveness of our staffing and the progress that the boys’ campus has made in the last few years, as the absence of a fully present campus head is now definitely notable. In the future, I am reassured to know that boys’ campus head will be once again be the only role held by a staff member who will be able to fully devote themselves to the role. In the meantime, there does not seem to be an easy solution, and more responsibility has fallen to the cabin staff and girls’ campus head to support campers and each other.