When it came time to register for summer camp for her 5-year-old, Northwest D.C. mom Lorena Shank was on a mission.
She set reminders in her calendar for the day that D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation opens up its registration. She practiced copying and pasting her son’s emergency contact into the online application. And she counted how long it would take the application to refresh when the clock struck noon, the start of camp registration.
“I was hands sweaty, and super anxious, because I was just like, ‘Am I going to get this?’ I don’t know,” Shank said. She ultimately clinched a spot for her son in a DPR camp.
Parents and nonprofit leaders across the District say DPR summer camps are one of the most affordable summer options for kids, but that spots are hard to come by. That’s why Mayor Muriel Bowser announced in her March State of the District speech that she would add 1,000 more spots in DPR camps for summer 2019, bringing the total to about 8,000. That change cost D.C. about $5 million, says Jenny Reed, the director of the D.C. Office of Budget and Performance Management.
The new spots are still not enough, advocates say. There were about 34,000 pre-K 3 through 7th grade students, the grades that roughly correspond to the ages served by DPR summer camps, in D.C. Public Schools for the 2017-2018 year, according to DCPS.
While not all District children are enrolled in DCPS, and not all of them want to register for D.C.-run summer camps, the number of spots available leaves parents with few affordable options if they aren’t able to successfully register for a DPR camp, said Perry Moon, executive director of the Far Southeast Family Strengthening Collaborative, a group that primarily serves families in Ward 8.
Studies also suggest that summer learning programs, those that combine academic instruction and play, can help low-income kids keep up with their more affluent peers, meaning that low-income kids not in camp miss out on summer growth.
For summer 2019, DPR is offering more than 10 types of camps, according to the agency’s website. Families can register kids online or in-person at the Columbia Heights Recreation Center or Barry Farms Recreation Center, said Delano Hunter, director of D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation, in a statement emailed to DCist. DPR promotes its camps through print, online, social media, text and email advertisements, he said.
The least-expensive option is REC camp, where kids participate in fitness, sports, and nature activities. That camp costs $40 for eight weeks. At other camps, families register and pay per two-week session, like for DC Summer Engineers, a camp priced at $290 per two-week session.
D.C. is also opening free summer camps for children in Wards 7 and 8 from June 14 through August 2 at two DCPS schools, adding 450 more spots, Hunter said. The bulk of those spots will go to kids in foster care, homeless shelters, or those “experiencing hardship,” Hunter said. As of Thursday, there were still some spots available at the Little Explorers and Discovery Camp offerings, according to DPR’s camp registration website.
“We pride ourselves on being a safe and inexpensive option for summer camps for D.C.-area parents,” Hunter said in a statement. “We don’t have the resources to provide camps for every child in the District, but through Mayor Bowser we continue to increase our offerings.”
The private camps Shank, the Northwest D.C. mom, considered for her 5-year-old kid were much more expensive than DPR camps. She looked at Smithsonian, which charges $460 per week for preschoolers who aren’t members, and Headfirst Summer Camps in Northwest D.C., which charges about $500 per week.
Aside from price, Shank wanted to register her son for a DPR camp because he attended one last year and had a great experience, she said.
Taylor Jantz-Sell, a Columbia Heights mom, said she signed her daughter up for a private camp just in case she didn’t get a spot in a DPR camp. She ended up getting a spot in one week of DPR camp, and her daughter will spend the rest of the summer either in private camp or with family. She serves as the president of the parent-teacher organization at Tubman Elementary School, which keeps a spreadsheet of summer camps, including DPR and private options, to help parents coordinate their summer plans amid the competitive camp registration process.
Some families don’t have the option of private camp if DPR programming doesn’t pan out. Shawn High is a mother of two who lives in a D.C. Housing Authority community in Park View. She said her 4-year-old will spend the summer with her because she can’t afford to pay for private summer camp and DPR’s affordable spots are either full or too expensive for her.
“I’m not saying that we deserve a whole bunch of special treatment, but we need some extra help because we’re struggling as it is,” with affording the registration rates for DPR summer camp on a fixed income, said High.
High is president of her community’s resident council, and her daughter will attend meetings and events with her throughout the summer, even though “when I have to take her to meetings, it’s disruptive,” she said. High sent her older daughter, now 19, to a camp offered by a nonprofit.
The biggest challenge for High’s community is being able to afford summer camp, even at DPR’s discounted prices, she said. Low-income families can apply for reduced rates at DPR camps. A family of four, for example, who makes $46,435 in total annual household income before taxes is eligible to receive a 50 percent discount on camp, according to DPR’s website.
Moon, who works with low-income families in Ward 8, said it’s up to the nonprofit community to fill the gap when there are not enough spots for kids in DPR camps and private summer camp isn’t on the table.
Moon says he applauds the additional spots in DPR camps, but that the city needs more: “The reality is, there still are a large number of families that are looking for camps and activities and programs during the summer for their children that ensure their children are, as we say, in positive, productive, and adult-supervised activities during the summer.”
