Action:  Unless persuaded otherwise during the course of our Board discussion of this item, I intend to vote against any Board approval of a $3000 "major field trip" (Administrative Regulation 603.1).

Board Policy and Administrative Regulations: Although this has been presented as something that must be approved by the Board as a "waiver" of its policy, that is not how I read Board Policy 603.1 and Administrative Regulation 603.1.  The Board policy simply defines such trips and suggests they should have "educational value."  Thus, the only reason for bringing this item to the Board, as such, would be "if a trip is denied" (Administrative Regulation 603.1).  The Administrative Regulation refers to a $50 limit (or $1600 for "foreign language trips"), but there is no such limit (that my superficial reading reveals) in Board Policy 603.1.  Therefore, I am assuming that the Superintendent has denied permission for this trip and that the "sponsoring organization [chooses to] appeal the decision . . . to the Board of Directors . . .."

Some parents not only travel abroad, they can afford to take their children with them.  They may also provide their children extra tutoring, tennis, sailing or horseback riding lessons.

Meanwhile, other parents and guardians struggle to provide enough food and clothing for their children.

One of the arguments for school uniforms is that it minimizes these equity differentials inside school.  (It also minimizes the emphasis on commercialism and materialism that, in some schools, leads to fights, or even death, over $150 athletic shoes or jackets.)

It is from this perspective that I find a near-$3000 school trip to be inappropriate.

In fact, I have already heard from parents who are embarrassed that they cannot afford the near-$3000 cost, and concerned that their children may be academically disadvantaged as a result of their inability to go.

There is nothing we can, or should, do to discourage the children who can afford it from going to the Galapagos Islands – or anywhere else on Planet Earth – on their own time and under their own sponsorship.

It may well be that there is a non-profit, Section 501(c)(3) organization – or a for-profit travel agency – which can arrange and execute such trips.  Indeed, the October 22 memo from the West High School Biology Department indicates that it is using a firm called Voyageur out of Worcester, Massachusetts.  And the effect may well be similar – as with the horseback riding lessons or any of the other advantages that come to wealthy students.  They get the advantage; the poorer children do not.  But at least the School District will not be contributing to the inequity.

There would seem to be an internal conflict here.  (a) If the learning that occurs during the trip is not to be taken into account in the related academic course work then what is the academic relationship?  (b) And if it is to be taken into account, there are, then, very serious in school equity issues regarding the disadvantage to which this will put the students who cannot afford to take the trip.  I would welcome the organizers’ response.