Vito Sauro, the student activities coordinator, is in charge of student summer programs at SPA. Sauro said, “Because Film and Frolic (one of our most popular summer programs) is taking a break for this year, we won’t have any upper school students working with our summer programs in Summer 2021. This year we just have two camps for upper school students (Collaborative Leadership Institute and Debate).”

Previous years have allowed for Film and Frolic to take place, a video camp that teaches middle schoolers (all students entering grades 6-9th) how to edit movies on iMovie. Bobak Razavi, 7th-grade team leader, runs the two-week-long camps, along with other high schoolers he selects. With the unpredictability, Razavi decided to cancel the camp this year and the previous year as well.

Debate camp this July is run by Vincent Cheng upper school English and debate teacher. This camp takes up to thirty students with a week-long program from 9 am- 3 pm. Sophomore Remy Frank plans to attend the camp this summer and said, “I can’t wait to attend this summer so that I am ready for class in the fall.” During the fall, SPA offers beginners and advanced debate, along with JV and Varsity levels. Debate tournaments take place on the weekends and can take up the whole day. Students spend days leading up to their tournament to prepare their arguments for the case assigned. Collaborative Leadership Institute takes place for five days in late June led by Mollie Ward and Haseena Hamzawala from 9 am -2 pm. This workshop takes up to 18 students and works to develop different styles of leadership within each student.

The other programs taking place this summer are athletic camps. Athletic director Dawn Wickstrum said, “We are adding two more camps (to the program)…” The sports camps available to upper schoolers at SPA include hockey, basketball, cross country, speed and agility, girls lacrosse, fencing, and soccer. Boys hockey offers both specific position training and beginner learning. Girls hockey has one camp taking place July 7th to the 30th, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays at various times. The hockey camps are run by Ben Hourch and Dan Berthiaume. The girl’s basketball camp takes place in June while the boys takes place at the end of June to the end of July. The girl’s basketball camp is run by upper school head varsity coach Natalie McElligot (also a seventh-grade math teacher). The basketball camps go through a series of drills and that helps the player develop in their weaker categories. In the first three weeks of July cross country and speed and agility camps take place focusing on building up endurance and stamina both lead by Kellan Minter. Girls lacrosse is led by Taylor Tvedt and takes place in the morning for one week in late July but is only open to seventh to ninth graders, this camp encourages younger students to get interested in lacrosse since SPA will be splitting with Visitation next year and hopes to have enough for their own team. Beginning and advanced fencing is led by Sasha Pai and Azaline Dunlap-Smith. In the second week of July, the camps are open to both middle schoolers and high schoolers alike but depending on the skill level of the student, different camps might be recommended. The co-ed soccer camp this summer is run by Max Lipset, who has appointed captains Leo Larsen, Mac Brown, and Zekiah Juliusson to help coach the players. Brown said, “As captains, we will be helping with the couple of soccer camps that are this summer. We will help lead drills and other things, being leaders on the team. We are hoping to hold practices somewhat regularly throughout the summer to prepare for the fall season. We are looking forward to getting a good turnout.”

The soccer camp is one of the few sports camps that allow students to assist in teaching. All camps are available for sign-up on the SPA website.