Overnight camp comes back

BROOKLINE – A parent in town has revived an overnight environmental camp program for sixth-graders that was cut for budget reasons, arranging privately for families to send their children during April vacation.

Pat Cambray, who has two daughters, one going into seventh grade and another going into sixth grade, said parents of roughly 25 children, including students in Hollis, have expressed interest in sending their children to Nature’s Classroom in Greenfield during the week of April 26.

Cambray has also opened the program to fifth- and seventh-graders in Brookline and Hollis.

For years, sixth-graders at the Captain Samuel Douglass Academy have attended the five-day program, held at the end of the school year.

This year, 90 out of a class of 94 sixth graders participated.

The school district paid for the cost of a nurse, chaperones and teachers who accompanied the sixth-graders at the Captain Samuel Douglass Academy.

The program was cut as the school district faced a funding crunch. The cost, including transportation, was $340 per child. Cambray said parents will have to pay about $350 per child for the overnight camp.