Educational Travel
Open School Travel Program
Travel is a means to explore and make meaning of the world.We know that some of our students’ most valuable learning experiences will occur outside the walls of our building, whether in day or extended trips. Therefore, experiential learning through travel is an integral part of the Open School program.
Overnight travel begins for Open Schoolers at the end of third grade and culminates in extended educational travel excursions in high school, providing our students with excellent learning opportunities in the real world.Our travelers learn to understand themselves as individuals and as members of a group. They have the opportunity to try new things, take healthy risks, and develop their own authentic ways of being.
As a testament to these beliefs, we have prioritized travel as an inextricable aspect of the Open School experience. It is important that families considering the Open School for their students are aware that throughout the 3rd - 12th grade continuum, there are particular overnight travel experiences that are required for participation in or graduation from our school.
Day Trips
At Jeffco Open School, learning outside the four walls of the school is an integral part of the curriculum. Roughly 300 field or day trips leave out of the Open School building each year, introducing students of all ages to the world outside their classroom, at developmentally appropriate levels.
In addition to away-from-school field trips that extend elementary classroom curriculum, such as hikes, museums, or a local farm, our youngest learners venture in our own garden or take field trips around the school building, visiting spaces and places where they meet and connect with other members of their community. Parents/Guardians are invited to participate as chaperones on all elementary away-from-school excursions. See the Volunteer page for more information on becoming eligible to chaperone elementary school field trips.
Secondary students participate in a myriad of day trips in connection with their classes and advising group experiences. Depending upon the class experiences they choose for themselves, students could find themselves visiting the cadaver lab or a Denver Center performance, performing service at a local farm or a nearby long-term care home, or enjoying each other's company for the day at a skate park or sledding hill.
Overnight Travel
Open School elementary students practice learning how to be away from the familiar and becoming a functional part of a group of travelers through overnight camping and lodging experiences in places like Snow Mountain Ranch, Pickle Gulch , or the Great Sand Dunes.
Once a student enters our secondary school, the world opens up to them! Open Schoolers travel to locations within Colorado and nationally, such as New York, the Salish Sea, Pittsburgh, Catalina Island, Salem, Massachusetts, Santa Fe, the Pine Ridge reservation, and the US Mexico Border, as well as internationally to Belize, Costa Rica, Paris, France and Oaxaca, Mexico. The world really is our classroom!
Required Travel Experiences by Level
- ELC - 3rd Grade Overnight: This trip takes place at the end of students’ 3rd grade year. All four ELC Advisors accompany their third graders on an overnight to kick off the student’s Open School travel career and to process and celebrate their ELC experience.
- IA - Camping/Lodging Trips: At the beginning and end of each school year, IA students (4th & 5th grades) take a camping or lodging trip to various locations throughout the state to continue to build their travel skills and confidence.
- Bridges - Fall Trip and Bridges Trip: Bridges students (6th graders) begin their school year with a camping or lodging trip and then experience a Winter lodging trip as they transition from the first to the second semester of their Bridges year. This is the time when they are finishing up their elementary school education and beginning to contemplate their secondary education. High school student leaders accompany 6th graders on the winter Bridges trip to help them “bridge” the gap between elementary and secondary.
- Foundations - Beginnings Trip and One Extended Trip: Foundations students (7th & 8th Grades) begin each year with a car-camping trip as an entire Foundations community. Additionally, each Foundations student is expected to participate in at least one other extended travel experience during their time in the Foundations program.
- Walkabout - Wilderness Trip and One Extended Trip: All Walkabout students (9th - 12th) begin their high school experience with a four day, three night backpacking trip as their introduction to the Walkabout program. The Wilderness Trip is a sacred experience shared by all graduates of the Open School. Additionally, each Walkabout student is expected to participate in at least one other extended travel experience during their time in the Walkabout program.