28 THE QUEENS COURIER • KIDS & EDUCATION • JUNE 25, 2020 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
kids & education
Commonpoint Queens leads the
way for safe, fun summer day camp
BY CARLOTTA MOHAMED
cmohamed@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Commonpoint Queens typically runs
six summer day camps out of four locations,
Queens College students star in multilingual video welcoming incoming president
BY CARLOTTA MOHAMED
cmohamed@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Queens College is marking
the start of a new beginning
as the school community
welcomes its incoming
President Frank Wu, who will be
the fi rst Asian-American leader
of a CUNY college in the
world’s most diverse borough
when he takes offi ce on July 1.
Queens College students delivered
a multilingual welcome to
Wu in a new video with a phrase
similar to “Welcome to Queens
College!” in 17 languages. In
total, 83 languages are represented
on campus by a student body
that identifi es with nearly 140
ancestries. Th e languages spoken
in the video are American
Sign Language, Amharic, Arabic,
Bukharian, Chinese (Mandarin),
English, Fanti, Farsi (Persian),
Greek, Haitian Creole, Hebrew,
Italian, Korean, Portuguese,
Russian, Spanish and Urdu.
Wu, in turn, acknowledged
the challenges faced by the college,
borough and city during
the COVID-19 pandemic, and
pledged his support going forward.
“I know that I will be serving
as president during a very
diffi cult time in the history of
our college community, city,
state and nation,” Wu said in
the video. “Th e pandemic has
forced Queens College to shift to
remote learning, created many
fi nancial diffi culties, and left us
concerned about the future. It
has also caused profound heartache,
with valued members of
the Queens College community
succumbing to this terrible
disease.”
“Diffi cult times oft en bring out
the best in people. I am enormously
impressed with the resiliency
and strength of Queens
College and the CUNY community,”
Wu added.
Wu also thanked Interim
President William Tramontano,
who began leading the college in
June 2019 aft er his predecessor,
Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, was
appointed chancellor of CUNY.
Wu calls leading Queens
College, “a dream job,” saying,
“In fact, because you were
my only choice, this was the
only search I was in.” Wu is an
American-born son of Chinese
immigrants.
He was a William L. Prosser
distinguished professor at the
University of California Hastings
College of the Law. He was unanimously
appointed the 11th president
of Queens College by the
City University of New York’s
board of trustees on March 30.
Wu received a BA from Johns
Hopkins University and a JD
with honors from the University
of Michigan. He completed the
Management Development
Program at the Harvard
Graduate School of Education.
Th e fi rst Asian-American to
serve as Queens College president
— and the fi rst Asian-
American to serve as a president
of a CUNY college in Queens
County — Wu is well-known
for breaking barriers and creating
opportunities for student
success.
He was the first Asian-
American on the faculty of the
law school at historically black
Howard University, and spent
two years directing its law school
clinic. He spent a decade serving
on the board of Gallaudet
University, which off ers higher
education to deaf and hearing
impaired students.
Prior to joining UC Hastings
as chancellor and dean, an offi ce
he held for fi ve years, he was the
dean of Wayne State University
Law School in Detroit; he was
the fi rst Asian-American in
those leadership roles.
serving 1,100-plus children ages 2
to 15. Knowing the challenges of opening
camp programs in summer 2020 will be
far from typical, Commonpoint Queens
is drawing on their experience running
seven Regional Enrichment Centers
(REC).
“We are running camp because kids
need camp. Th ey need to be outside and
with their peers. If regulations allow us to
serve 10 children or 100 or 500, we will
provide a safe and fun camp experience
for those kids,” said Danielle Ellman, CEO
of Commonpoint Queens.
For the past 11 weeks, Commonpoint
Queens has provided emergency child
care to 16,335 children ages 3 to 12. In
that time they have not identifi ed a single
case of COVID-19 in any of the children
in their care. When they fi rst received the
contract to open two RECs in their facilities
and manage fi ve additional centers
within NYC public schools, they implemented
a series of protocols that met or
exceeded government standards.
Over the weeks they refi ned their policies
and procedures. A few of their best
practices include grouping children and
keeping them together throughout the
day, cleaning high-touch surfaces on an
ongoing basis, ensuring all
participants and staff wear masks,
and deep cleaning the classrooms
and gyms daily.
The additional challenge
of children attending the REC
forced the staff to look for new
ways to assimilate children who
were unfamiliar with the facility and
their peers into the program was met
with a caring, age-appropriate integration
approach.
Along the way, the staff didn’t forget
the fun, and got creative in reinventing
games and activities to fi t the new social
distancing rules. Games were modifi ed in
ways that allowed kids to collaborate and
compete while being physically distanced.
Story time, circle time, arts and craft s,
and other quiet activities
were rethought to provide
opportunities for teamwork
and conversation.
In preparation for
the opening day of the
upcoming camp season,
Commonpoint Queens has
put into place a “safe camping
guide” outlining how
their summer day camps
will operate during the
coronavirus pandemic. Th e
guide draws on best practices
on everything from
social distancing and
cleaning, to having
fun in a nurturing,
safe, socially distanced
environment
that recognizes and
respects each child and family
as valued and active participants
in their social,
emotional and educational
development.
In the context of the
need for staying safe and social distancing,
having a resource where kids can
be kids in a safe, nurturing environment
that respects them as individuals
is critical to their social and emotional
health, according to Angela Diaz, a professor
at the Department of Pediatrics
and Environmental Medicine and Public
Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at
Mount Sinai.
“Our children have been in quarantine
for 12-plus weeks. Th ey see the news.
Many have lost family members and
friends to COVID-19, and are now witnessing
images of police violence against
people of color and protests against racism.
Th ey need and deserve a break,”
Diaz said.
According to Diaz, summer camp
“enables, reinforces and facilitates” a
child’s ability to learn for life and prepares
them for successful adulthood. Kids
acquire skills such as self confi dence, the
importance of kindness and generosity,
and confi dence in voicing their opinions
as well as positive behaviors such as resilience
and empathy which are nurtured.
Commonpoint Queens’ safe camping plan
begins each day with screening all campers
and staff for symptoms by asking them
to self-report COVID-19 symptoms, such
as a cough, sore throat, or loss of taste or
smell. Th ey also include daily temperature
checks. Th e camps will isolate and send
home any camper displaying symptoms.
Campers and their counselors will be
grouped into smaller “teams” for all daily
activities and provided with individual
equipment to avoid sharing, with the goal
of not only limiting the spread of the virus
but also, if a case is identifi ed, to quickly
contact and trace everyone that individual
has connected with. For information
on registration, contact DayCamp@
CommonpointQueens.org.
Photos courtesy of Commonpoint Queens
Screenshot via YouTube
/CommonpointQueens.org
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