While students are preparing for the new school year with new clothes and supplies, teachers and other employees at Lone Peak High School are getting ready by rappeling and crossing fields of land mines.

"We were looking for activities that over 100 people could do. Something that would bring together faculty that didn't know each other and help with teaming the faculty," said Dr. Chip Koop, principal of Lone Peak High School.

The school's Professional Development Team, headed by math teacher Craig Smith, went with Army recruiter Sgt. Hill to Camp Williams, an army training camp near Traverse Mountain, to look over the facilities a few months ago. They decided that Camp Williams would be a great place for fun and bringing the faculty and staff together.

Employees of Lone Peak were invited to an optional Professional Development day set for Aug. 12, at Camp W.G. Williams. More than 95 percent of Lone Peak's faculty and staff, including teachers, custodians, secretaries, counselors and administration arrived at school on Tuesday morning knowing only that they "may get wet."

Wearing matching T-shirts, about 85-90 participants were loaded on to three buses and taken to Camp Williams where the faculty and staff were divided into 10 groups of about eight people per group. Assistant principal Rex Brimhall helped make the assignments.

"We just went down the list of departments and took one person from each department and put them in a group," he said. This way people from various departments who may have never gotten to know each other had a chance to, as Mary Felix of the English departments said, "team together, to work together, and learn to trust each other."

The morning's stations included physical activities as well as get-to-know-you activities. These included groups talking together about "My Greatest Challenge," "If you really knew me," and "My Greatest Triumph." Members of the group were able to share things they may never have shared otherwise and work together in ways that, Koop hoped, required "risk and exposure," thereby forming deeper relationships.

Participants were able to share fears and challenges and find common ground. For instance, many teachers shared a fear of public speaking. The start of a new school year means that these individuals have to move out of their comfort zone. Laurie Andersen, a secretary at the school, said that many teachers are "putting themselves out of their comfort zone for a subject and students that they love."

Each activity was designed with a specific purpose. After a station was concluded, team members would discuss how it went.

"We are processing as we go," said Koop. As faculty and staff processed, they were able to "feel more similar" than they are different.

Perhaps the highlight of the morning was the rappeling wall. Everyone had a chance to climb several flights of stairs to the top of the wall and then rappel down while a member of their group was on belay, controlling their descent. Other participants cheered from the bottom and encouraged their colleagues during the decent.

Participants not only learned to trust each other, but several people were able to learn more about themselves and what they could do.

"A lot of people were terrified," said Andersen, but they trusted the staff of Camp Williams and their colleagues on belay at the bottom. There were a few surprised exclamations of, "I did it!," once people had finished their rappel and many looks of satisfaction.

After lunch, faculty and staff again headed out for team building activities. The day was structured so that teams were able to build on the trust they developed in the morning and work together using that trust in the afternoon.

Teams were given assignments as if, as Andersen said, "we were a military unit." For example, they were told that they needed to get across a mine field that had a barrier in the middle. They had only a piece of rope and two planks and they needed to get the whole group across in 15 minutes. It was a chance for the groups to use "brain power, and physical power," as well as trust that their teammates would help them.

While the faculty and staff definitely formed deeper relationships and built a foundation of trust, there was a greater goal behind the fun. For the past three years, Lone Peak teachers have been organized into Professional Learning Communities. These communities are teams of teachers from various departments that meet together with four specific questions that they can use to help make learning more effective in the high school, according to Koop.

These include:

• What are the essentials that we want the students to learn?

• How will we know when the students have learned the essentials?

• How will we react when students don't learn what they need to?

• What do we do when students are excelling in learning?

If the faculty and staff feel more comfortable with each other and trust each other more then they should be able to come together in creating a more effective learning environment, Koop said.

The administration is hoping that the student body will reap the benefits of closer high school staff. This should enrich the learning experience. Koop said he was pleased with the day's activities saying, "I think we've reached our goal. Everyone is supporting each other."

Tuesday's team building was followed by a meeting for all faculty and staff on Wednesday. There they were able to watch video of the previous day's fun, and also discuss what had been accomplished.

The meeting provided an opportunity for faculty and staff to discuss the relationships they formed in Tuesday morning's station activities and how those relationships were necessary for success in the afternoon. Most important to the overall goal, participants were able to discuss ways to transfer what they had learned during a fun day at Camp Williams into a successful school year for the students, faculty, staff, and administration of Lone Peak High School.