Kern County superintendent’s office highlights CampKeep program, expansion plans and access for foster and SPED students

Assistant Superintendent Russell Santos presented an overview of CampKeep, Kern County’s residential outdoor environmental‑education program, and told the board the program reaches thousands of students annually while working to expand access for foster, special‑education and migrant students.

Santos described CampKeep as a standards‑based residential program with two coastal campuses (Keep Ocean and Keep by the Sea) and said both campuses recently completed California Outdoor School Association (COSA) certification. For the 2025–26 school year Santos said 113 schools participated and listed attendance figures: about 3,400 students at one ocean campus, 4,300 at the by‑the‑sea campus, roughly 200 summer program attendees and about 271 out‑of‑county students for a combined total of 8,171 students and 1,342 adult chaperones for the year.

He said the program has restructured scholarship distribution via the CampKeep Foundation to provide a broader CampKeep experience to more students rather than a small number of individual scholarships, and described recent fundraising (Santos said the campaign raised $11,000 despite rain). Santos also discussed logistical and staffing constraints and said the program is working to broaden the pilot that allowed foster students to attend — noting foster attendance requires judicial approval to leave the county.

Trustees and several students who attended CampKeep spoke about hands‑on learning, tide pools and hikes. Santos said the program’s goal is inclusivity and that CampKeep has purchased equipment to make activities accessible to students with mobility needs.

Next steps: board members expressed support for continued outreach; staff said they will pursue ways to increase access for continuation, foster and court/community school students subject to approvals.