On July 26, 2021, we welcomed 66 middle and high school boys to the campus of Cal State Long Beach for our 5th Annual BOSS Summer Camp. Nearly 90% of the boys were new to BOSS (Business Of Student Success), and we used the 2-week camp to get to know them beyond virtual zoom meetings, etc. We were able to present an in-person camp and engage our boys “live” for the first time since March, 2020.
As BOSS has grown and our scholars have gotten older, our annual summer camp is focused on indoctrinating new boys to the BOSS “process” and Pillars. Our older, continuing scholars are taking advantage of an increasingly diverse array of summer opportunities including paid and unpaid internships to go along with 7 on 7 (football), travel (basketball) ball, ACT/SAT test prep and regular time on LightSail and DreamBox.
We began each day of our 2-week camp began with “Jump Start”, an hour of non-specific physical activity. After a short break, our middle school scholars spent the rest of the morning working on reading using, LightSail, and math, using DreamBox with fun, team building activities interwoven during breaks. Our boys achieved an average Lexile growth of 99 after reading for 6,753 minutes and spent 84 hours on math, completed 212 lessons completed and, as a group, become proficient on 164 new math standards.
Our high school scholars spent mornings in an immersive career and college bootcamp consistent with our “begin with the end in mind” principal, identifying and committing to pay the price for what they want. At the end of the bootcamp our scholars explored colleges/admissions process facilitated by College Access Partnership co-founder, Sue Slotnick, along with team members Lisa Kurstin and Davida Koren, determined career requirements, built careers and “lives”, including personal budgets taking into consideration real life earnings and living expenses.
After lunch, our middle schoolers were busy building and coding their MBot robots, which culminated with a Robot Coding Challenge and Showcase Day. Our high schoolers spent afternoons learning the theories and intricacies behind game and architectural design, using the board game “Big Money Basketball” for the former and SoFi Stadium to study how spaces were created by carving space out of space, creating space out of space, using tools such as geometry, colors and shapes.
Our founder and leader, Everett Glenn, kicked off the 4 “Lunch and Learns” we presented during camp by sharing his journey with our scholars. Others included Human Performance Mentors founder Michael Cooper joined former NBA Lottery Pick, 13-year pro and current Mayor of Warrensville Heights, OH, Brad Sellers, Damon Katz and his US Bank team and Manzer Mirkar and Steve Bayne of stadium designers, HKS Architects. Mr. Cooper shared strategies to improve mental strength, focus, attitude and behavior to create high octane, successful performance in and beyond school. Mayor Sellers shared his journey from high school All-American at Warrensville High to Ohio State to the NBA Champion Bulls and back home to lead the city as its mayor, including obstacles faced and overcome, success strategies aligned with our BOSS Pillars. Damon and his US Bank team engaged the scholars in a conversation around the 5 C’s of credit. The HKS team took the boys through an architectural journey of So-Fi Stadium, home for the Los Angeles Chargers and Los Angeles Rams..
In the midst of it all, our BOSS Coders put in extra work to finish the mobile app submitted to the 2021 MIT Global Appathon, “Haniel”, an app that will connect people globally based on needs like food, health, housing insecurity and individual and organizational resources.
Due to COVID restrictions, we were not able to provide our usual (and amazing i.e. Aerospace, Applied Minds, SpaceX, Harbor Tour) field trips and the Los Angeles Lakers were not able to present their annual BOSS/Lakers Clinic.
Our closing ceremony celebrated the accomplishments of our scholars, including our All-DreamBox team (Avery Allen, Nathaniel Carpenter, Joshua Pearson, Jaylen Rice and Angelo Santos), our All-LightSail team (Emile Ballard, Master Bedford, Antonio Montoya, Angelo Santos and Asher Wright), Robot Coding Challenge and Showcase Day winners, our “Best Life” Builder and our Camp MVPs (Casey Maddox (Upper), Jared Williams (Lower) and Christian Rios (Overall).
Former D-1 basketball player turned Wilhelmina model, turned actor (NBC’s “Young Rock”, Netflix’ “John Henry” and “Mindhunter”) Rich Morrow, delivered an inspirational keynote.
All is all, a great way to rebound from the 16 months we’d spent mostly in remote communication and contact. Please click here to enjoy a Google photo gallery capturing the excitement of our 6th Annual BOSS Camp.
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