CHESAPEAKE BAY OUTWARD BOUND SCHOOL INC

Our mission is to change lives through challenge and discovery; and to help our students realize their true potential.

We seek to expand personal horizons in the following areas:

Compassion: Demonstrating concern and acting with a spirit of respect and generosity in service to others.
Integrity: Acting with honesty, being accountable for your decisions and actions.
Excellence: Being your best self, pursuing craftsmanship in your actions, and living a healthy and balanced life.
Inclusion and Diversity: Valuing and working to create communities representative of our society that support and respect di¬fferences

LEARNING THROUGH EXPERIENCE
Outward Bound students move through a sequence of engaging experiences, like backpacking, that promote skill mastery and incorporate reflection. Throughout the activity, students learn from their success as well as failure.

CHALLENGE AND ADVENTURE
The unfamiliar settings where Outward Bound expeditions occur challenge our students mentally and physically. Amidst the demands of the expedition, students learn to dig deep and to push themselves, where they often find there is more in them than they know.

SUPPORTIVE ENVIRONMENT
Each expedition is designed to support physical and emotional safety. Skilled and compassionate instructors use group facilitation methods and the natural world around them to help foster a caring, positive and inclusive group culture.

CBOBS has been delivering wilderness- and urban-based experiential education programs for over 30 years. Our field staff members possess a wide range of skills, including the 70-hour Wilderness First Responder certification, to work in diverse course areas with the many populations we serve. These highly trained field educators have generated positive change in Baltimore and beyond.

Our Board of Directors is populated with local professionals spanning professional spectra, and bring decades of directly applicable experience to our school. As superior stewards of funds, our relationship with our development partners is second to none.

The CBOBS Administrative staff are focused on the following strategic goals through 2026: 1) student-first, educator-aligned, school-centered program model; 2) prioritize the role of service in our communities; 3) accelerate our vision for Outward Bound in the nation's capital; 4) diverse teams, equitable opportunities, inclusive practices; 5) pursue initiatives that support the organization's sustainability; and 6) influence program quality and design through data insights.

Since establishing our basecamp in Baltimore's Leakin Park in 1986, CBOBS has served nearly 100,000 students. In any given year, CBOBS serves nearly 6,000 students with one-day and multi-day expeditions.

CBOBS continues to shine a light on the importance of character education for all students in the greater Baltimore and Washington DC regions. And our signature program -- Police Youth Challenge -- seeks to shift perceptions between Police Officers and youth in Baltimore City and beyond.

To advance our commitment to deliver the highest quality programs that support social-emotional development (SEL), Outward Bound USA and its 10 regional schools (of which the Chesapeake Bay Outward Bound School is one), established the Outward Bound Professional Learning Lab. The Lab’s purpose is to continuously improve the student experience. Collecting and analyzing data on program delivery and student outcomes, the Lab uses this data to inform program improvement and train instructors.