(Gothamist) Day Camps Offer Test Run For NYC Parents Still Weighing Whether To Send Kids Back To School

Ah camp, making new friends, toasting s’mores, playing Mafia. In COVID, how much of that can stay?

Link to original post: https://gothamist.com/news/day-camps-offer-test-run-nyc-parents-still-weighing-whether-send-kids-back-school

Hand sanitizer? Check. Child-sized face mask? Check. Brown bag lunch? Check. Daily health screening? Check.

This is the amended checklist parents are completing every day as they send their kids to day camp this summer during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In deciding whether to send their children to day camp, some parents say they just wanted their kids to have a semi-normal summer with the ability to get outside and make friends. They could handle the health screenings every morning and believed that masked camp counselors and staff were doing their best to make sure their kids stay safe.

And for parents still reluctant to send their kids back to school for in-person learning this year, day camp might be the only source of socialization kids get before resuming online learning.

Marisa Klages-Bombich, 43, sent her 7-year-old son to day camp during the last week of July, three weeks after camp had started. She and her partner have pre-existing conditions, so ensuring camp was going to be as safe as possible was a priority.

“If we wanted him to get some socialization, playtime and some memories of happiness for this summer, then going to camp was going to be a risk, but it was going to be a risk that we hope our family can weather,” the Staten Island resident said.

For Klages-Bombich, sending her son to camp has offered him a break from their 800 square-foot apartment, which he also shares with his younger sibling and two cats.

“It’s gotten really tough. We've had a lot of inter-family struggle around behavior expectations and doing things that don't involve screens,” she said.

Before sending her kid to camp, Klages-Bombich said she watched the state’s COVID-19 monitoring dashboard, talked to friends who are epidemiologists, parents who were sending their own kids to camp, and checked in with their pediatrician.

“I texted my epidemiologist friend and she was like, ‘I sent my kids to camp for five weeks and we’re in California,’” she said. “I feel like if an epidemiologist, who is working on public health response to COVID felt like it was okay to send her kid to camp, that it's probably okay to send my kid to camp.”

Normal activities at the Staten Island camp, such as capture the flag and day trips, have been canceled. Kids take part in a lot of arts and crafts and play small group games such as Ga-Ga, a popular Israeli take on dodgeball. Depending on the camp, sometimes there’s socially distant swimming.

Aggressive cleaning and added safety protocols are the new normal. Some day camps ask parents to stay in the car during drop off and pick up; a camp counselor wearing a mask and gloves typically meets the child at the car before taking them into the camp facility for the day. Children are placed into pods of 15 kids or fewer, and they’re only interacting with the same counselors every day as a way to minimize the spread of the virus if someone does test positive, as they did at a summer camp on Long Island in late July. These safety protocols follow the state guidelines established in June after city-run day camps were canceled and private day camps struggled to decide whether to open.

But despite increased safety protocols, some parents weren’t willing to risk camp at all this year.

Liza Maltz, a 46-year-old single parent, said she was torn on sending her son to day camp this summer after his hockey camp was canceled. She couldn’t understand how camps were going to keep kids from playing closely together.

“How can they make that work?” Maltz, who runs a nanny company called Have a Nanny, asked. “I have friends who sent their kids to camp [like it was] no big deal. I wish I could get there, but mentally I can’t.”

The Department of Education released their school opening guidelines in late July, with a more concrete version this past Friday. But some parents wonder how long schools will remain open this year before they might have to shut down if coronavirus infection rates rise.

“We're really undecided on what we're going to do,” Klages-Bombich said over whether she will send her son to school for in-person learning. “We want him to stay connected to the school and to his teachers. We really believe in public education. But we also don't necessarily want him going back to a building because we don't think buildings are safe.”