High Meadows Camp Goals and Mission

Goals & Mission

Over 50 Years of Camp & School

Learning & Growing since 1973

For more than 50 years High Meadows has offered a traditional day camp program as well as an independent progressive school serving students age Pre-K through 8th Grade. Both camp and school are rooted in our Mission with a shared focus of creating an environment in which children are empowered to learn and grow through experience, connection, and play.

High Meadows Camp Connection

Camp Goals

High Meadows Camp will:

  • Provide an environment for each camper to participate in both active and quiet outdoor activities
  • Create a social atmosphere where each camper, regardless of background, beliefs, identity, or expression feels love and respect
  • Foster a sense of adventure during each child’s stay at camp
  • Teach activity skills in a non-competitive program for each camper to feel successful
  • Emphasize the importance of “others,” their feelings and property
  • Help each camper to learn to respect and value the natural environment

Our Mission

The High Meadows community celebrates and perpetuates each individual’s quest for knowledge and skill, sense of wonder, and connection to the natural environment. We empower each to be a compassionate, responsible, and active global citizen.

Our Vision

High Meadows School and Camp inspires adventurous learners who ask questions that drive learning and seek sustainable solutions in collaboration with others. Our students emerge as ethical leaders with the skills and habits of mind to grow and adapt as they discover a place of purpose and joy in an every-changing world.

Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Justice

At High Meadows School & Camp, we strive to be a space where open and respectful minds can create a place of joy and belonging. Embracing diverse identities, experiences, and perspectives is essential to our mission. We uphold an expectation that our community members embody shared values of respect, empathy, and advocacy. Our year-round commitment to equitable policies, catalytic conversations, and inclusive curricula and experiences, empowers individuals to create positive change for a more peaceful world.

A Variety of Experiences, Self Discovery, and Fun

High Meadows offers a camper a variety of experiences, each of them pointing to the goal of self discovery and expansion in an atmosphere of fun. In relaxed and non-competitive situations, the camper is encouraged to branch out into new areas to gain confidence and to strive for proficiency in those areas in which he is already competent. The emphasis is always on personal improvement and the satisfaction gained therefrom, never on keeping score or bettering someone else. Anyone who has seen the light in a child’s eyes as he scores his first bullseye on the archery range, or pulls his first print from the developing solution in the darkroom, or dunks his head under the water in the pool for the first time, will be able to understand this philosophy. In a day when kids enter academic and athletic competition at such early ages, High Meadows offers an alternative approach for the summer – competition is confined to the area of self-improvement and learning, not graded, but viewed as a step toward a child’s self-awareness.

– Ham Kimzey, early HMC counselor

Our Values

  • We value childhood as a distinct stage of life marked by a compelling drive to learn and persevere. We believe that children are naturally curious and deserve understanding and respect. We believe that they learn and mature in different ways and at different paces and that they should be empowered to take risks, reflect and try again.
  • We value a diverse community of belonging as essential to growth and learning. At High Meadows we respect and appreciate the multi-dimensional identities of individuals who make up our community. We seek and support belonging and significance in our journey to understand ourselves and others. We commit to open communication and constructive dialogue and purposefully cultivate respectful relationships among all members of the community.
  • We value our campus and its historical significance as a starting point from which to explore and understand the world and our responsibility to its future. At High Meadows we engage with the natural environment consciously, respectfully, and purposefully and inspire students to appreciate and inhabit the earth responsibly. We utilize the outdoors to benefit mental and physical well-being and act as compassionate stewards of our interconnected world.