About
Beyond The Classroom offers weekly field trips, hands-on projects, and creative exploration, including real-world learning experiences like visits to museums, farms, theaters, and gardens. Campers take part in weekly projects that use different mediums, from traditional art materials to recycled or reused surpluses from factories, along with various activities and games that foster connection, community, and friendship. The program also includes scavenger hunt walks around the neighborhood, daily campfire stories, and opportunities for campers to earn badges and prizes, such as tickets from scavenger hunts and a weekly chance for the camper with the most badges to pie a selected counselor.
• Ages: 5–11 years old
• Schedule: Year-round program with Monday–Friday options, generally open 8:00am–6:00pm and during most school holidays and local school vacations, including spring, winter, and summer breaks
Beyond The Classroom is a K–5 after-school enrichment program that describes itself as a home away from home and offers BTC Summer Camp under the same philosophy. The program uses child-led, project-based learning and states that play is the most natural way to learn. It uses The Whole-Brain Child approach to help children strengthen empathy, resilience, and self-awareness through mindful communication and character-building activities, and literacy is nurtured through daily campfire stories and weekly projects that provide a creative space to apply what campers learned.
Beyond The Classroom states that it has been enriching children’s minds for over a decade. The founder and Executive Director is Samantha Montes, and the program was founded by two South Pasadena moms and former educators. Its mission is to provide a “home away from home” that is safe, loving, and nurturing for children while cultivating their emotional intelligence, to create an enriching play-based environment that fosters a passion for learning and encourages children to take ownership of their education, to increase parental awareness of childhood development and foster stronger parent-child relationships, and to strengthen the community and establish partnerships among its members for the betterment of children and families.
The program describes itself as blending educational expertise with personal care to support children and their families. Monthly parent education meetings offer guidance on childhood development and help strengthen the home-to-program connection, and the program states that it aims to strengthen the community and establish partnerships among its members for the betterment of children and families.
Parent and alumni testimonials describe Beyond The Classroom as a beloved place in the South Pasadena community where kids can grow and thrive, with teachers whose tender love, guidance, and energy had an impact on children such as Olivia and Marlow. Alumni and volunteers describe BTC as providing a safe space to play, a hangout with friends after school, and a place to be energetic, with teachers who actively engage and play with the kids. Former participants also note returning to volunteer and being greeted by the same welcoming staff, and parents Chris and Phabillia B. state that the core values of kindness, empathy, and community involvement at BTC have contributed to their children becoming compassionate and socially conscious individuals.
Last updated June 14, 2026.
• Ages: 5–11 years old
• Schedule: Year-round program with Monday–Friday options, generally open 8:00am–6:00pm and during most school holidays and local school vacations, including spring, winter, and summer breaks
Beyond The Classroom is a K–5 after-school enrichment program that describes itself as a home away from home and offers BTC Summer Camp under the same philosophy. The program uses child-led, project-based learning and states that play is the most natural way to learn. It uses The Whole-Brain Child approach to help children strengthen empathy, resilience, and self-awareness through mindful communication and character-building activities, and literacy is nurtured through daily campfire stories and weekly projects that provide a creative space to apply what campers learned.
Beyond The Classroom states that it has been enriching children’s minds for over a decade. The founder and Executive Director is Samantha Montes, and the program was founded by two South Pasadena moms and former educators. Its mission is to provide a “home away from home” that is safe, loving, and nurturing for children while cultivating their emotional intelligence, to create an enriching play-based environment that fosters a passion for learning and encourages children to take ownership of their education, to increase parental awareness of childhood development and foster stronger parent-child relationships, and to strengthen the community and establish partnerships among its members for the betterment of children and families.
The program describes itself as blending educational expertise with personal care to support children and their families. Monthly parent education meetings offer guidance on childhood development and help strengthen the home-to-program connection, and the program states that it aims to strengthen the community and establish partnerships among its members for the betterment of children and families.
Parent and alumni testimonials describe Beyond The Classroom as a beloved place in the South Pasadena community where kids can grow and thrive, with teachers whose tender love, guidance, and energy had an impact on children such as Olivia and Marlow. Alumni and volunteers describe BTC as providing a safe space to play, a hangout with friends after school, and a place to be energetic, with teachers who actively engage and play with the kids. Former participants also note returning to volunteer and being greeted by the same welcoming staff, and parents Chris and Phabillia B. state that the core values of kindness, empathy, and community involvement at BTC have contributed to their children becoming compassionate and socially conscious individuals.
Last updated June 14, 2026.
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