I believe in not taking things for granted. In the early years of High Trails, staff would start to talk about the next school year and I would stop them in their tracks.

“If there is a next year” I would counter. “If students learn, have fun, and stay safe this year”.  I would keep going. “If schools, who are our customers, are impressed enough with their experience that they want to return”. 

Back then, we were pretty darn lucky to even be in the outdoor education business, and I refused to take anything, especially customers, for granted. Pushing this attitude upon our staff helped them to see that having schools for customers was a gift, and we had to work extra hard to continue to earn their support and patronage.

This concept is equally applicable to the other 50% of our success…our staff. When people apply to work at High Trails, I am genuinely and consistently humbled. I can’t believe that someone would want to work with us and am so grateful for their interest. We try to deserve this attention by being upfront and honest about the position, responding promptly to inquiries, and giving people a good amount of personal attention before they show up to work out here.

It gets even harder once someone is hired, and we have to follow through on our promises. Do people get the chance to make a difference in the lives of children? Are they surrounded by a happy, positive community? Do they discover that hard work can be just as fun and fulfilling as anything else in life? Do they get the chance to grow and learn in a supportive environment? I hope so. I can’t imagine any worth in having a successful business with unhappy employees.

This “grateful humbleness” is taken to yet another level when current staff apply for positions within High Trails.

It’s one thing to design a website that sells a concept to unwitting applicants. It’s another thing entirely when people, that are all too aware of the ups and downs of the program, take the time to apply for an internal position.

Right now we’re at the tail end of hiring people for administrative positions for next school year, and we just finished looking at a large amount of quality applications.  While I am excited for the new people stepping into positions, my thoughts go more to the folks that applied for positions but didn’t get anything. To these people, here is a message: 

Thank you… 

• for putting yourself out there, with no guarantee of anything in return.
• for caring enough to turn in creative applications. You obviously invested your valuable free time into them.
• for taking the bad news in a constructive way, and consistently asking “how can I improve?”.
• for understanding that as much as we want to make everyone happy with a new position, it’s just not possible.
• for not giving up.
• for wanting to be a part of High Trails.

I am, at the very real risk of going off the cheesy end of the spectrum, honest to goodness honored that so many people cared enough to apply for these positions. I hope our program shows, as time goes on, that we don’t take things for granted. I hope we truly deserve to have wonderful people like you…living, working, and enjoying life…here. 

At High Trails Outdoor Science School, we literally force our instructors to write about elementary outdoor education, teaching outside, learning outside, our dirty classroom (the forest…gosh), environmental science, outdoor science, and all other tree hugging student and kid loving things that keep us engaged, passionate, driven, loving our job, digging our life, and spreading the word to anyone whose attention we can hold for long enough to actually make it through reading this entire sentence. Whew…. www.dirtyclassroom.com