The camp is professional development for educators as much as it is a program for students. The daily agenda reserved an hour around midday for adult professional learning. After camp the program director asked team leads to list the topics they had discussed, so the camp could issue a professional development hours record for district and licensure purposes.
One builder village’s list gives a sense of what happens when a dozen CTE teachers spend a week together: daily ICS leadership meetings with the National Guard and agencies (five hours for leads, three for other educators); soft skills and employability skills; team building; program budgets; Perkins funding versus state pathways funding; visiting each other’s shops; the social and emotional needs of students in a high-stress setting; conflict resolution among educators and between educators and students; tool sharing and hourly goals on a build; and pathways after graduation.
Some of the learning came from the students. When teachers on one builder team were not communicating well, students who had just taken Knife River’s communication class told them to sort it out. “It’s better to just be clear. It’s kind to be clear,” the program director recalled the students saying. The teachers stepped aside, worked it out, and their team caught up with and nearly passed the others.
Before camp, educators also need training in ICS basics, the safety and emergency plans, and abuse-reporting requirements. The education sponsor delivered the abuse-reporting training by video.