No DCPS busses for in-city class trips

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I do think there should be money in the school system for field trip buses. You do not need to maintain a fleet of buses. There are many companies that will contract specifically for field trips. Whether the money comes from the PA or the system, having a charter bus option (now many are available with seat belts) is often the safest. I agree that using city transport is fun and educational and I do use the public buses at times with student groups. However, can you imagine having those cute pre-K students trapped on the Green Line for two hours or thrown from escalators at L'Enfant Plaza? Or having their cute little shoelaces, jacket ties or fingers sucked into the escalator works? Metro has become way too unreliable, and some children are too small for some kinds of travel. without one to one adult care. And in certain parts of our city public buses are being pelted with rocks by disgruntled teens. These public options shouldn't be the only go to. Getting out on field trips is an important part of education, and access and safety should be the deciding factors for mode of transport.

Oh please. Metro is so reliable that millions of people use it every day. You're either being alarmist or ridiculous.

Plus it's still safer, statistically speaking, than road travel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've seen lots of little kids on public transportation, Metro and Metrobus. They're often wearing matching school shirts and lanyards and such.

I think it's a pretty neat part of living in the city; learning to successfully navigate it at a young age strikes me as useful.[/quote]

Yes, public transit use is NORMAL for all ages.

The field trip destination programs will often pay for buses, but I'll tell you that these contracted bus services can be extremely unreliable. Because they have to drive in from G-d knows where in the not-close 'burbs before they get to the school, they're very often quite late. They're also not necessarily so good about picking up on time. And they may be too big for the routes that would otherwise be most logical, and have to go way the hell around so they can stay on wider streets.

It's a crying shame so many DCPS and now charter schools are not so convenient to Metro stations, because Metro is otherwise the far superior option, even considering the logistics of being responsible for many little kids.

[Anonymous]

There are many programs that will pay for buses. Head Start does.

[Anonymous]

I'm going with what the teacher says!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm going with what the teacher says!

Ditto. It is easy to say ride public transportation if you aren't a teacher or chaperone. Trust me your nerves will be frazzled after a couple hours with the "cuties".

[Anonymous]

DCPS pays one million dollars to Capital Entertainment Bus Company to transport athletes to inner-city games. Which means they will send a 55 seat passenger bus to transport a 9-member team from Spingarn to Eastern. I could never understand that logic.

[Anonymous]

There are no regular school buses in the District. There are the "short buses" for special education students. Our school has rented a bus for trips to aquarium/farm etc. Each family pays a small fee for the field trip to help cover the costs. There are some funds that come from the parent teacher association.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS pays one million dollars to Capital Entertainment Bus Company to transport athletes to inner-city games. Which means they will send a 55 seat passenger bus to transport a 9-member team from Spingarn to Eastern. I could never understand that logic.

Do you know that to be true? I'm not discounting the fact DCPS pays for transporting athletes. It is probably in the athletic budget. That is normal ( safety issues for the athlete which includes tennis, softball, volleyball etc. not just basketball).Some schools just plain don't like each other. Why run the risk of rival schools confronting each other, on there way home from a game. I do have problem with all the money they are saving from not buying or using text books and DCPS huge fleet of buses can't take kids to museums or historical sites. It is going to take one incident such as a child become missing or like my 11 year old daughter being approached by a learing, perverted passenger while I was present, to cause the school system to resond accordingly. It is not cute then. For 6 hours, our kids should be free to learn without being harrassed. I'm not naive. There are real world issues my DC will face while she is in school. Taking a bus on field trip is a no-brainer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I do think there should be money in the school system for field trip buses. You do not need to maintain a fleet of buses. There are many companies that will contract specifically for field trips. Whether the money comes from the PA or the system, having a charter bus option (now many are available with seat belts) is often the safest. I agree that using city transport is fun and educational and I do use the public buses at times with student groups. However, can you imagine having those cute pre-K students trapped on the Green Line for two hours or thrown from escalators at L'Enfant Plaza? Or having their cute little shoelaces, jacket ties or fingers sucked into the escalator works? Metro has become way too unreliable, and some children are too small for some kinds of travel. without one to one adult care. And in certain parts of our city public buses are being pelted with rocks by disgruntled teens. These public options shouldn't be the only go to. Getting out on field trips is an important part of education, and access and safety should be the deciding factors for mode of transport.

You really should seek professional help to bind your anxiety level. The scenarios you are describing are hardly the norm. In China and Japan, children as young as 5 travel on public transportation to schools throughout major cities without adult supervision. And they are more independent and happy as a result. You must live in a state of nearly crippling anxiety.

[Anonymous]

I don't know. In places like Germany, China and Japan, do 11 year old girls never get leered at? I wonder? Is it because these are mostly homogenous (monoracial) populations that causes people to not be so ruffled by the misdeeds of citizens? I wonder if there isn't some dog whistle racism going on here when people are clutching their pearls so tightly about their special snowflakes on the subway. And for those of you that have no such sinister motive--wtf? why can't your child walk up an escalator if it's broken? Why can't they walk to the museum, rather than sit on a bus, yelling into their friend's ears, singing and raising holy hell for some hapless bus driver.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm going with what the teacher says!

Ditto. It is easy to say ride public transportation if you aren't a teacher or chaperone. Trust me your nerves will be frazzled after a couple hours with the "cuties".

I'm 18:14 and I was a teacher who supervised many Metro trips. I also wished we had just taken Metro the several times contracted buses left my class stranded while I called dispatchers and supervisors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I do think there should be money in the school system for field trip buses. You do not need to maintain a fleet of buses. There are many companies that will contract specifically for field trips. Whether the money comes from the PA or the system, having a charter bus option (now many are available with seat belts) is often the safest. I agree that using city transport is fun and educational and I do use the public buses at times with student groups. However, can you imagine having those cute pre-K students trapped on the Green Line for two hours or thrown from escalators at L'Enfant Plaza? Or having their cute little shoelaces, jacket ties or fingers sucked into the escalator works? Metro has become way too unreliable, and some children are too small for some kinds of travel. without one to one adult care. And in certain parts of our city public buses are being pelted with rocks by disgruntled teens. These public options shouldn't be the only go to. Getting out on field trips is an important part of education, and access and safety should be the deciding factors for mode of transport.

You really should seek professional help to bind your anxiety level. The scenarios you are describing are hardly the norm. In China and Japan, children as young as 5 travel on public transportation to schools throughout major cities without adult supervision. And they are more independent and happy as a result. You must live in a state of nearly crippling anxiety.

Wow. Spoken lie someone who has never tried to heard 3 year olds on a metro. It' is, hands down, the most stressful part of the trip. But, if you think we teachers are missing the boat on this, feel free to sign up as a chaperone! I am sure we would be amazed by your calm and wisdom. Or, more likely watch you eat your words!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I do think there should be money in the school system for field trip buses. You do not need to maintain a fleet of buses. There are many companies that will contract specifically for field trips. Whether the money comes from the PA or the system, having a charter bus option (now many are available with seat belts) is often the safest. I agree that using city transport is fun and educational and I do use the public buses at times with student groups. However, can you imagine having those cute pre-K students trapped on the Green Line for two hours or thrown from escalators at L'Enfant Plaza? Or having their cute little shoelaces, jacket ties or fingers sucked into the escalator works? Metro has become way too unreliable, and some children are too small for some kinds of travel. without one to one adult care. And in certain parts of our city public buses are being pelted with rocks by disgruntled teens. These public options shouldn't be the only go to. Getting out on field trips is an important part of education, and access and safety should be the deciding factors for mode of transport.

You really should seek professional help to bind your anxiety level. The scenarios you are describing are hardly the norm. In China and Japan, children as young as 5 travel on public transportation to schools throughout major cities without adult supervision. And they are more independent and happy as a result. You must live in a state of nearly crippling anxiety.

Wow. Spoken lie someone who has never tried to heard 3 year olds on a metro. It' is, hands down, the most stressful part of the trip. But, if you think we teachers are missing the boat on this, feel free to sign up as a chaperone! I am sure we would be amazed by your calm and wisdom. Or, more likely watch you eat your words!

Hahahahahaha, no. I have 4 kids, they all go to DCPS and I have been chaperoning them and their classmates since pre-school days when *gasp* they were 3. Been doing it for 10 years now. Parents who chaperone, generally love doing it! I know I do. I only wish our kid's ward 3 MS gave us more opportunities to chaperone and participate in school in general. If you want to engender good will between families and schools, let parents get to know their kid's classmates and teachers--walking field trips are an excellent environment to do it in!

[Anonymous]

Another teacher here: public transportation is much more preferable to charter buses. When I take the kids on public I am in charge of schedules and I don't need to try to figure out what to do with a bus driver and company that may or may not know DC. There is FAR less stress taking mass transit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm going with what the teacher says!

Ditto. It is easy to say ride public transportation if you aren't a teacher or chaperone. Trust me your nerves will be frazzled after a couple hours with the "cuties".

Well what do they children of NYC use? They don't use school buses