Introduction
In order to complete this activity, I reviewed the school’s Field Trip policies in the Handbook and spoke with NH and DA, two of our principals about the procedure for approving trips. I also spoke with JS, the director of student activities, about how trips are planned. I watched the development of a number of trips and planned and led one of my own, taking seven high school students to New York on a Performing Arts trip.
Findings
The first conclusion I reached is that, although our school offers a number of trips to our students in grades 5-12, these are mostly multi-day destination trips and we offer very few traditional field trips. In fact, students may go an entire year without ever taking a day trip to a local destination to expand upon something they’ve learned in class. I think that this is caused by a number of factors, including the accessibility of online resources, the relatively large size of our classes and the cost and other headaches of arranging student transportation. This is a shame and, in my opinion, should be rectified.
The majority of our middle and upper school trips are arranged by the student activities department and are religious retreats held over a weekend, by grade level, at some destination reachable by bus. These are popular programs, usually attended by every student in a grade, and feature social and educational programming, as well as team-building activities. Other trips include trips to athletic and academic competitions such as basketball tournaments and debates as well as special trips like the performing arts tour I led.
Access is arranged for all students and the logistics of bringing students with disabilities are simple to solve nowadays. We have a special staff to assist students with more severs physical and mental disabilities and they often accompany our trips. The only real barrier to everyone’s attendance is cost since trips like these can be unfortunately expensive. The school makes funds available for those who request it but there are always a few families who prefer not to ask and are therefor left out.
In the case of the grade-level weekend trips I observed, the goals were all achieved in appropriate ways. The trips were chaperoned by the students’ teachers and lessons learned in the classroom were often extended while away on the trip. The same phenomenon occurred on my performing arts trip since many of the students work with me in the school’s theater program.
The safety and legal issues of liability and permission are covered by standard forms and procedures the school requires; these have been ironed out for years and work very well. They must be taken care of but do not present a significant challenge..