On January 31, the Municipal Elementary School office received a call alerting them that their 5th grade students would not be attending the fourth or the fifth day of STARBASE Hill Academy, an inspiring five-day, hands-on, minds-on STEAM program housed at Hill Air Force Base. No more children are allowed to learn here.
The children and teachers were disappointed to say the least. STARBASE Hill, along with the other 89 STARBASE academies in the United States, were defunded without prior notice. Students in five northern and eastern Utah school districts, as well as homeschooled and private-schooled children, have benefitted from attending STARBASE Hill for the past 14 years. Many say it was a life-changing event. I have been an instructor here for the past 13 years and have witnessed amazing results in students who were able to discover, explore and invent in an environment that built them not only academically, but in character.
Rep. Blake Moore has given his support to the program this year. He has been the first Utah politician to do so.
The nearly 400 students that are currently attending STARBASE Hill will be so disappointed to find out their adventure has ended. The schools who would have attended the rest of the year have been notified that their 1,400 students will not have this opportunity. I am so angry. But mostly so sad for this to have happened to these children who do not have the means or availability to experience and learn as they did at STARBASE Hill.
PLEASE alert our public. If funding can be pulled out without warning like this, what will be destroyed next? Who will suffer?
Trish Bodily
Kamas