Freshman retreat could be a clique-buster in Old Saybrook

Chester - They'd spent the day hiking, climbing up a tower and putting their trust in their classmates' hands during team-building activities.

Now, with a campfire and picturesque Cedar Lake as the backdrop, 128 teenagers danced and sang to Ke$ha's "Your Love Is My Drug." One group of girls, clad in tank tops and pajama bottoms, danced atop wooden benches, drinking in glances from classmates below. A few feet away, a boy and girl played patty cake.

They looked and acted much older than their 14 or 15 years; they had yet to hit their growth spurts.

This was the new freshman class at Old Saybrook High School, out on a two-day retreat to Camp Hazen YMCA in Chester. Though they'd spent much of their lives together - first at Kathleen E. Goodwin School, then at Old Saybrook Middle School - they'd pretty much always stuck to their circle of friends, they said.

That will change in high school, where they will shed their middle-school skins and be forced out of their comfort zones. In high school, they won't always have class with the same group of people; sometimes, they'll be one of the few freshmen in their class.

So, on their fourth day of high school, the freshmen were thrust into the wilderness (actually, it was a well-managed summer camp just a couple of towns over) and told to fend for themselves (with the help of 20 adult chaperones and 20 upperclassmen, plus a handful of energetic camp counselors).

Overnight freshman retreats aren't typically a part of the public high school experience, but it's proved important in Old Saybrook, retreat organizers said. Retreat activities are designed to challenge students to take risks and work together, giving students a taste for how it feels to successfully overcome a challenge.

Students are grouped randomly into teams and cabins, ensuring they'll work with classmates they had previously only known by name and bunk with people who are not their close friends. Thanks to the Camp Hazen experience, these are classmates they will now say hi to in the hallways, the freshmen said.

Afternoon downtime on Thursday found freshman Charlie Maxson playing the game Apples to Apples with his cabinmates. Kristy Ledwith, another freshman, said she'd made a handful of new friends.

"I hung out with people who I spent the day with, who I usually don't hang around with," Ledwith said. "I've been hanging out with them all night, and it seems like they're a lot of fun."

Breaking down cliques

The retreat, now an annual tradition, started four years ago after a student survey showed that students "didn't think the community cared for them," Old Saybrook's Youth and Family Services executive director Heather McNeil said.

Youth and Family and the school district use a combination of grants, money raised by Youth and Family and school funds to organize the retreat, which costs an estimated $100 per student, McNeil said. Students don't pay a cent.

It's not a cheap endeavor, but it's worth it, McNeil said. During camp activities such as high ropes and alpine tower climbs, students can be overheard encouraging one another to complete the task, she said.

That simple act of encouragement, organizers hope, will translate into students being kinder to one another, which in turn will help break down cliques at school.

"You can't put a price tag on that," McNeil said.

Students often arrive worried about sharing a cabin with classmates they don't know, but those same students later say that getting to know their cabinmates was one of the trip's highlights, McNeil said.

"Really, the idea behind it is to develop caring relationships with their fellow students," McNeil said.

Youth and Family Services will check in with the freshman class halfway through the year to see what lasting impact the trip had on them.

This was the first year retreat organizers had 11th and 12th graders serve as student chaperones. The older students are natural role models for the younger kids, some of whom are still in middle-school mentality, school Principal Oliver Barton said.

"The older kids, they just convey an element of maturity," he said.

More upperclassmen than were needed volunteered for the job, Barton said. Of course, there was a chance some of the student chaperones just wanted to get out of school for two days.

But seniors Ashley Brodeur and Brandon Clark said they really had good intentions when they signed up to become CAPTAINs - a forced acronym they came up with that stands for Caring, Asset Builders, Positive, Teamwork, Awesome, Integrity and Nice.

As a freshman, "you really look up to older people," Clark said. Having an upperclassman greet you in the hallway can go a long way toward making you feel more welcome at school, he said.

It can also be flattering, Brodeur said.

"If one of my friends had a senior say hi to them, I'd be like, 'Dude, you know that person?' " she said.

From camp to school

No camp experience would be complete without teenagers plotting to sneak out of their cabins at night and defy authority. Chaperones swiftly cracked down on a rumor that Cabin No. 2 planned to go for a night swim, and lights out at 11 p.m. found Barton, the school principal, standing guard at the water fountain, the unofficial meeting spot for the wayward teens.

In Cabin No. 15, as nine girls prepared for bed, Lesya Fillatti dutifully called her mother on her cell phone. This was her first time away from home since she was adopted from Ukraine two years ago, and her mother was a little anxious, she said.

Some of the other girls sat in a huddle, revisiting the day's events in hushed voices and determining which of the camp counselors were the best-looking.

Fillatti and friend Keanna Chang said they were happy to have gotten to know their classmates and upperclassmen better.

"(It was) nice to do things, to team-building with people who you probably not trust but you learn to trust," Fillatti said.

When they returned to school on Tuesday and walked into class, they would feel a little less daunted, a little less lost, they said.

And when Chang inevitably and literally got lost in the hallways - the classroom numbering system was confusing, she said - she now had a group of upperclassmen to turn to.

"They're all really, really, really, really, really, really nice," Chang said of the student chaperones. "Even if you get lost at school, they'll help."

j.cho@theday.com