Exploring Nature's Beauty at Summit Camp & Travel

PLEASE, Please, please keep your precious children away from that place!!!!! There are only after your money! They can careless about your child’s nutrition, if they are in a regiment diet, taking medications and food allergies. They would not allow your child to contact their parents to report about their health, they will not let you know if the child is sick. Discovering that they served fast food and food labels as for institutional use only! I don't think Mr. Baum and his family will feed his family with food for prisoners. Stay away from that place, they just want to keep collecting your money. Putting fear on the child to keep us from knowing the truth.

This is not enough to say everything that is wrong at Summit Camp and about the director’s behavior. There were many kids there with multiple medications and special health care needs, and from what I saw, the staff did not always have enough medical knowledge or training to properly deal with those situations. Unfortunately, the camp really needs qualified health staff, but instead it often seemed like the concerns and the bad opinions were just ignored. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that camps should have written health policies and emergency protocols reviewed by a physician with specialized training in children’s health. It also says that staff responsible for medications should have the proper knowledge and training to safely store and administer them, and that children with special health care needs may require additional services, accommodations, and specific staff training. These are basic things that should be taken seriously when you are responsible for children with complex medical needs. (American Academy of Pediatrics) It is really sad to see how some of these conditions and the health of these kids are treated. The camp needs real, qualified health staff who actually understand these situations, not just counselors who receive some training for a few weeks and then are expected to deal with children who may have serious or complex medical needs. The health and safety of these kids should come first. Unfortunately, Summit’s staff and owner seem to prefer ignoring what America medical associations recommend and responding with hostility or simply ignoring negative feedback.

Awful. Do not send your child there.

I attended Summit Camp second session summer 2005. Mayer Ninette Regina Gene and Tim were all still there at the time I was there. and still at the helm at the time I was there. I have never had so much fun in my entire life. I had a blast. There was nothing i didn’t like about it. I didn’t want to leave summit camp when all was said and done. I didn’t want my time at summit camp to end.

Remember Summit Camp & Travel—located in Rileyville (near Honesdale), Wayne County, Pennsylvania—had such fun activities when I attended from 2002 - 2006, ranging from Banana Boating to Go-Karts (as well as the camp's theme song dance to "Reach For The Stars" by S-Club 7). I was even on their Teen Travel Program to New England and Israel when I was 17 in 2011. Summit recruits the kindest and most qualified counselors, each of whom are required to provide professional reference letters and possess an extensive background working with children who have attentional, social, and emotional challenges. The camp also provides an excellent positive behavior support program for its campers, as well as features six nurses on-site and a pediatrician who lived on campus. The late Founder/Owner Mayer Stiskin and his brother Hershel founded The Summit School in Queens, New York (which the camp is named after), a prestigious special education middle and high school that I graduated from following being enrolled there for 10 years from 2002 to 2012. My late maternal grandma’s best friend Dr. Judy Gordon is director emeritus for making the school more high functioning where she also served as the Lower (middle) School principal for 40 years. The former Camp Director Regina Skyer still runs a successful special needs law firm in New York City and she previously served on the school’s Professional Advisory Board. And who could forget the late legendary Head Counselor/Program Director Tim Kedge conducting the announcements in the Dining Hall? He was like the Ryan Seacrest of the camp and from England who tragically passed away from cardiac arrest in 2009. When on their Teen Travel Program, the founders (Mayer and Ninette Stiskin) along with Regina Skyer had already sold the camp to Senior Director Emeritus Eugene Bell after 2008.