Why are the field trips so underwhelming?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Field trips are supposed to be a basic part of the public school curriculum. Its not asking for above and beyond. Its basic. We live in an area with a million free activities and events.

Yes, thank you! I'm the OP and that's exactly my point. And yes, I take my kids to the Smithsonians and aquarium and Huntley meadows but there's something unique about doing it with your classmates and friends! Kids in other states have a DC trip as the BIG TRIP in high school, and we don't even take our kids to see anything there in field trips.

Yes, it is "unique." Spending two hours on a bus to have maybe an hour in the museum. It is a waste of time and money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids are in the younger end of elementary but I'm really surprised by the field trips. They go on one a year, to places like Green Spring Gardens, Huntley Meadows, or Cox Farms. Are the other elementary schools like this? We live 20 minutes from the nation's capital - why aren't they visiting some of the many, many offerings there? (And yes, I take my kids to the museums!). It's not a lack of chaperones - they always have more volunteers than they can use.

Does anyone know if there are big high school trips anywhere? Where I grew up (Ohio) our big high school trip was to DC. Wondering what the equivalent is here.

This is crazy to me. I went to FCPS in the late 80’s and 90’s and we visited dozens of Smithsonian museums, Ford Theatre, the Capitol, Kennedy Center, etc. Why would they just take kids to such obscure locations for field trips when all of this is in their backyard?!

That alone isn’t possible because of all the testing we have now. We can’t take them during MAP testing windows, WIDA testing windows, or SOLs. It’s nuts.

Okay, you’re now just making things up. There is no rule anywhere that you cannot take students on a field trip during a testing window. Students go on field trips all the time during testing windows.

Name your school or this isn’t happening.
—signed an elementary administrator

Can you read? I never said it was an official rule. But it becomes incredibly difficult during those windows to plan a trip when a bunch of your kids won’t be testing or when there’s a good day to take them because they won’t be missing anything important that their classes are trying to cover between testing dates or when you aren’t scheduled to proctor. It’s a huge hassle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After having three kids go on the Jamestown field trip in 4th grade, I can honestly say that trip is a complete waste of time. It takes three hours there and three hours back, leaving only a small window to actually see the site. Everything is so rushed, it's absurd. The only way to make that trip really work is to do an overnight.

Our school used todo an overnight. Geriatric principal nixed it. He and granny AP need to go. We need to oust boomer administrators.

How much extra will the teachers be paid for an overnight? I’m a single parent teacher and wouldn’t be able to do an overnight even if I wanted to. I don’t have anyone else to watch my child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After having three kids go on the Jamestown field trip in 4th grade, I can honestly say that trip is a complete waste of time. It takes three hours there and three hours back, leaving only a small window to actually see the site. Everything is so rushed, it's absurd. The only way to make that trip really work is to do an overnight.

Our school used todo an overnight. Geriatric principal nixed it. He and granny AP need to go. We need to oust boomer administrators.

How much extra will the teachers be paid for an overnight? I’m a single parent teacher and wouldn’t be able to do an overnight even if I wanted to. I don’t have anyone else to watch my child.

I don’t think many posters are wondering about the impact these trips have on teachers.

I’ve chaperoned several overnight trips. I’ve never been paid extra for being at work 18 hour days and on call 24 hours. In two cases, I even had to pay for my own hotel room and entrance tickets. This was on top of paying for childcare back home so I could chaperone in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After having three kids go on the Jamestown field trip in 4th grade, I can honestly say that trip is a complete waste of time. It takes three hours there and three hours back, leaving only a small window to actually see the site. Everything is so rushed, it's absurd. The only way to make that trip really work is to do an overnight.

Our school used todo an overnight. Geriatric principal nixed it. He and granny AP need to go. We need to oust boomer administrators.

How much extra will the teachers be paid for an overnight? I’m a single parent teacher and wouldn’t be able to do an overnight even if I wanted to. I don’t have anyone else to watch my child.

I don’t think many posters are wondering about the impact these trips have on teachers.

I’ve chaperoned several overnight trips. I’ve never been paid extra for being at work 18 hour days and on call 24 hours. In two cases, I even had to pay for my own hotel room and entrance tickets. This was on top of paying for childcare back home so I could chaperone in the first place.

I think there are two different things going on here.

There is a difference between, "why don't our kids go on more overnight trips?" And, "why aren't they taking a bus into DC and visiting the many FREE museums and historical sights?" There is no school in fcps that is a two hour drive to DC, as one poster complained about earlier. I have had four kids go through elementary school and not a single one did a museum trip. One of them went to Mount Vernon (was meant as a replacement for the Jamestown trip, which none of them did) and that is definitely not free

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After having three kids go on the Jamestown field trip in 4th grade, I can honestly say that trip is a complete waste of time. It takes three hours there and three hours back, leaving only a small window to actually see the site. Everything is so rushed, it's absurd. The only way to make that trip really work is to do an overnight.

Our school used todo an overnight. Geriatric principal nixed it. He and granny AP need to go. We need to oust boomer administrators.

How much extra will the teachers be paid for an overnight? I’m a single parent teacher and wouldn’t be able to do an overnight even if I wanted to. I don’t have anyone else to watch my child.

I don’t think many posters are wondering about the impact these trips have on teachers.

I’ve chaperoned several overnight trips. I’ve never been paid extra for being at work 18 hour days and on call 24 hours. In two cases, I even had to pay for my own hotel room and entrance tickets. This was on top of paying for childcare back home so I could chaperone in the first place.

I think there are two different things going on here.

There is a difference between, "why don't our kids go on more overnight trips?" And, "why aren't they taking a bus into DC and visiting the many FREE museums and historical sights?" There is no school in fcps that is a two hour drive to DC, as one poster complained about earlier. I have had four kids go through elementary school and not a single one did a museum trip. One of them went to Mount Vernon (was meant as a replacement for the Jamestown trip, which none of them did) and that is definitely not free

I live in an area that is definitely at least an hour on a school bus to get to DC. I have been on a museum field trip. At least an hour to get there (and you cannot leave until routes are complete) and an hour to get back in time for afternoon routes. Do you have any idea how much time is allowed for the museum? About an hour--maybe an hour and a half including a break for lunch.

And, that one hour trip on a school bus can definitely extend into far more. IT'S NOT WORTH IT.

[Anonymous]

Some schools aren't doing field trips to DC this year because they are afraid ICE will pick up their students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some schools aren't doing field trips to DC this year because they are afraid ICE will pick up their students.

That has to be BS. Cut it out.

[Anonymous]

There was a pumpkin patch field trip in kindergarten.
I can’t remember what the first grade field trip was.
Second grade - zoo and Smithsonian art museum.
Third grade - Riverbend Park and maybe Luray Caverns
Fourth grade - Jamestown/Yorktown/Williamsburg
Fifth grade - maybe Mount Vernon
Sixth Grade - one to Gettysburg and the other went to Petersburg

They did some sort of park with a stream in 7th grade and did Capitol Hill in 8th grade.

No overnight trips. The bigger field trips had the coach buses (including the Capitol Hill one - to allow for more time.

[Anonymous]

Oh don’t even get me started on how many of these places are not lunch friendly. I had the absolute hands down worst field trip of my entire career at the National Gallery of Art last year. Awful docents who seemed to have no clue how to interact with kids (but we HAD to tour the museum with them) and nowhere to eat lunch because you couldn’t bring outside food in, not even just to wheel coolers down through the cafeteria to get to the other side of the building. Different staff members told us completely different things and lunch was a mess. I’ll never plan another field trip there again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some schools aren't doing field trips to DC this year because they are afraid ICE will pick up their students.

That has to be BS. Cut it out.

It's not BS. There's a whole thread about it on her. My child goes to Lewis High School and they aren't going to DC because they are afraid ICE will pick up kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After having three kids go on the Jamestown field trip in 4th grade, I can honestly say that trip is a complete waste of time. It takes three hours there and three hours back, leaving only a small window to actually see the site. Everything is so rushed, it's absurd. The only way to make that trip really work is to do an overnight.

Our school used todo an overnight. Geriatric principal nixed it. He and granny AP need to go. We need to oust boomer administrators.

How much extra will the teachers be paid for an overnight? I’m a single parent teacher and wouldn’t be able to do an overnight even if I wanted to. I don’t have anyone else to watch my child.

I don’t think many posters are wondering about the impact these trips have on teachers.

I’ve chaperoned several overnight trips. I’ve never been paid extra for being at work 18 hour days and on call 24 hours. In two cases, I even had to pay for my own hotel room and entrance tickets. This was on top of paying for childcare back home so I could chaperone in the first place.

I think there are two different things going on here.

There is a difference between, "why don't our kids go on more overnight trips?" And, "why aren't they taking a bus into DC and visiting the many FREE museums and historical sights?" There is no school in fcps that is a two hour drive to DC, as one poster complained about earlier. I have had four kids go through elementary school and not a single one did a museum trip. One of them went to Mount Vernon (was meant as a replacement for the Jamestown trip, which none of them did) and that is definitely not free

I live in an area that is definitely at least an hour on a school bus to get to DC. I have been on a museum field trip. At least an hour to get there (and you cannot leave until routes are complete) and an hour to get back in time for afternoon routes. Do you have any idea how much time is allowed for the museum? About an hour--maybe an hour and a half including a break for lunch.

And, that one hour trip on a school bus can definitely extend into far more. IT'S NOT WORTH IT.

Our school rents coach busses for field trips for this reason. They don’t get back until 5. Small school, families car pool. Families pay for it though - the last field trip was over $100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some schools aren't doing field trips to DC this year because they are afraid ICE will pick up their students.

That has to be BS. Cut it out.

It's not BS. There's a whole thread about it on her. My child goes to Lewis High School and they aren't going to DC because they are afraid ICE will pick up kids.

Nope - BS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After having three kids go on the Jamestown field trip in 4th grade, I can honestly say that trip is a complete waste of time. It takes three hours there and three hours back, leaving only a small window to actually see the site. Everything is so rushed, it's absurd. The only way to make that trip really work is to do an overnight.

Our school used todo an overnight. Geriatric principal nixed it. He and granny AP need to go. We need to oust boomer administrators.

How much extra will the teachers be paid for an overnight? I’m a single parent teacher and wouldn’t be able to do an overnight even if I wanted to. I don’t have anyone else to watch my child.

I don’t think many posters are wondering about the impact these trips have on teachers.

I’ve chaperoned several overnight trips. I’ve never been paid extra for being at work 18 hour days and on call 24 hours. In two cases, I even had to pay for my own hotel room and entrance tickets. This was on top of paying for childcare back home so I could chaperone in the first place.

I have a colleague who organizes field trips for her students, but they would probably be deemed “underwhelming” by most of the people posting here. They still require a lot of extra effort and funding which I know she contributes to herself. I hope she never sees this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After having three kids go on the Jamestown field trip in 4th grade, I can honestly say that trip is a complete waste of time. It takes three hours there and three hours back, leaving only a small window to actually see the site. Everything is so rushed, it's absurd. The only way to make that trip really work is to do an overnight.

Our school used todo an overnight. Geriatric principal nixed it. He and granny AP need to go. We need to oust boomer administrators.

How much extra will the teachers be paid for an overnight? I’m a single parent teacher and wouldn’t be able to do an overnight even if I wanted to. I don’t have anyone else to watch my child.

I don’t think many posters are wondering about the impact these trips have on teachers.

I’ve chaperoned several overnight trips. I’ve never been paid extra for being at work 18 hour days and on call 24 hours. In two cases, I even had to pay for my own hotel room and entrance tickets. This was on top of paying for childcare back home so I could chaperone in the first place.

I think there are two different things going on here.

There is a difference between, "why don't our kids go on more overnight trips?" And, "why aren't they taking a bus into DC and visiting the many FREE museums and historical sights?" There is no school in fcps that is a two hour drive to DC, as one poster complained about earlier. I have had four kids go through elementary school and not a single one did a museum trip. One of them went to Mount Vernon (was meant as a replacement for the Jamestown trip, which none of them did) and that is definitely not free

I live in an area that is definitely at least an hour on a school bus to get to DC. I have been on a museum field trip. At least an hour to get there (and you cannot leave until routes are complete) and an hour to get back in time for afternoon routes. Do you have any idea how much time is allowed for the museum? About an hour--maybe an hour and a half including a break for lunch.

And, that one hour trip on a school bus can definitely extend into far more. IT'S NOT WORTH IT.

Our school rents coach busses for field trips for this reason. They don’t get back until 5. Small school, families car pool. Families pay for it though - the last field trip was over $100

This is an FCPS public?