With the end of the school year fast approaching, the Crookston Middle School students are getting excited for end-of-the-year class trips. A long-standing tradition for the sixth-grade class is a trip to Itasca. Middle School Mathematics teacher Dan Halland recently filled us in on the upcoming trips. “For over 50 years, probably even now 60, ’cause I’ve probably been doing this Itasca field trip for the last 10 years,” says Halland. “We’ve been going to Itasca and having our time out there for a week. So, what we have again this year is that each group, we have three groups going out, starting on May 12, they get to spend a night out at Itasca at the Ozaawindib Group Camp.”
What do the sixth graders get to do while in Itasca? “They learn about Minnesota history and a little bit about the park itself. They learn about the trees in the park and the flowers. It is a great time,” says Halland. “It’s a time for them to get out as an extension of the classroom but also have that freedom of being able to have fun.” Halland explained that before the sixth grade moved out to the high school campus, the Highland PTO had helped raise funds for the Itasca trip. Since they are no longer part of Highland, there is no PTO. This year, the sixth grade will be having a fundraiser with the help of the Masonic Lodge. “We have a pancake breakfast, sponsored by the Masons at the Masonic Lodge on Sunday, April 27. I don’t have the times exactly; I believe it’s eight, eight-thirty till around noon,” says Halland. “They helped out last year. It was such a great thing that we asked them again to help us out with this. We have a lot of students that really want to go on these trips, and they don’t always have the means to make it, so we certainly appreciate anything we can do to fundraise or take donations.” How much does a trip to Itasca cost for each student? “The cost of the trip is $60. That takes care of everything for a student that we can,” says Halland. “That’s transportation, reservation at the group camp, and the meals, so, it really is a great deal, and it’s something that the kids, for generations, I would say, look forward to, and they pass it down because I know that a lot of kids parents have gone on this trip and they still have the best memories from it.”
The sixth graders are getting excited about their Itasca trip, but the seventh and eighth graders also have end-of-year celebrations planned. “This year, we are having our seventh graders go to King Pins in Fargo, which will be on May 16,” says Halland. “There at King Pin’s they have Hyper Bowling, that’s interactive bowling, escape rooms, arcade, laser tag, things of that nature. That field trip is also $60 for the students.” The eighth grade has an exciting trip planned for their last day of school before officially being High School Students. “Our eighth graders are going to Valley Fair, in Shakopee, on the last day of school, May 29,” says Halland. “That’s kind of the end of things for middle school, and they are going to be transitioning to go to ninth grade and be high school students’, and we really want them to go out with the idea they worked so hard to be rewarded with something like this.”
Halland says that it would be much appreciated if anyone wants to donate to the school for any of these trips. “Everybody who is a student wants to be able to participate in this, and not everyone has the means. We do have scholarships, but we have people who donate to those scholarships to help them make it possible for them to be part of something like this.”
The pancake breakfast fundraiser at the Masonic Lodge for the sixth-grade trip to Itasca is Sunday, April 27, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Come on out and eat some yummy food while helping prepare the sixth graders for their May trip to Itasca.
The post Crookston Middle School Classes are preparing for end-of-year trips first appeared on KROX.