This summer, the Admissions Department will be piloting two new summer programs geared towards younger kids.

 Mrs. Sarah VanGrunsven, the director of Enrollment and Management at NDA, outlined this NDA outreach to possible future Tritons.

“The effort is to get students on campus at a younger age,” she explained. “It is our intention to grow this program as a feeder to NDA.” 

In fact, many of the students that will participate in these camps are in the 5th-8th grade age range. 

“These camps offer an alternative to our athletic camps,” she continued. 

While summer athletic camps have been around for years, these new programs focus on the arts. The first camp is Drama Camp, led by drama teacher Andrea Gilson, and launching from Monday June 7 to Thursday, June 10. While the camp only lasts a few days, it is valuable for these young students to get familiar with a high school campus and engage in a new interest. 

The second camp is called the Art/DIY (Do-it-Yourself) Camp, organized and led by art teacher Melanie Bradshaw. Students will be encouraged to flex their creativity and artistic ability over the same period of time as the Drama Camp. 

While so much of the school curriculum is focused on math, literature and science, many of the more artistic subjects are too often slighted or overlooked. So many students have artistic abilities, be it painting, acting, or something else entirely, and these new camps will offer an excellent opportunity to experiment with these skills. 

That way, by the time these 5th-8th graders get to high school, they will already have a taste of what the school offers in the Fine Arts.