Chaperone turned school trip into family vacation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Were they able to hang out with their own peer group doing things more typical of their age group, or did they need to hang around doing things only younger siblings could do?

OP. This. (The latter).

[Anonymous]

That's terrible. Was there any sign that this was going to happen? You should talk to the school officials in person to write it in their policy to not have families along.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think this is terribly unreasonable... until the babysitter part.

That is, I don't think it's a problem for a school chaperone to bring his/her family on the trip -- especially if his daughter was one of the students. Would you have been allowed to go on the trip if you wanted to? If so, this isn't different. Was he paid substantially extra for his time? If not, then I think it's nice he served as a chaperone at all.

Also, as the adult, whether or not his/her family was there, he was going to get to dictate what they did in any case. Like, if his family wasn't there and he said "no I'm not taking you to X Y Z movie" and/or "we have to be back at the hotel by 8 pm," would that have struck you as unreasonable... or was it just his motive?

All that said, if they actually had to babysit the younger kids at some point... That would be out of line. If you just mean that they were limited in what they could do because of the young children... then I think no big deal.

Fair enough. I think it was also a situation where the students weren't allowed to do things they wanted to do (i.e. rides, etc) because the chaperone prioritized the younger children's preferences.

Or did she just use the younger kids as an excuse? If both parents were there, this doesn't even make sense, since they could have split up. You need to talk to the other girl's mom and the chaperone.

OP here. Yes, exactly. The parents could have split up and one could have taken the teens to do what they wanted to do. But the parents kept the entire family together as a large unit and the two non-family members (students) were forced to tag along and do what the family wanted to do, including rides, etc. that appealed to much younger children. I told DD she should have tried to get reassigned to a different chaperone on at least one of the days, but I don't think she really knew who to ask to make that happen.

And yes, official school-sponsored trip.

So, by "baby-sitting," do you mean that the two non-family teenagers were left ALONE AND IN CHARGE of younger kids, or just that all their vacationing was done in the presence of younger kids, along with the parents?

I think you are focusing on the wrong thing, almost like you think one of those scenarios is acceptable and the other is not. Neither is acceptable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That's terrible. Was there any sign that this was going to happen? You should talk to the school officials in person to write it in their policy to not have families along.

No and DD said she couldn’t even complain to us about it because they were reading her texts, she never had time alone to make a private call to us, etc.

I am sure it wasn’t all bad as we got many happy photos. But there were definitely hints of unhappiness along the way.

[Anonymous]

So other kids in the big trip got to do very different activities with their chaperones but your DD was stuck doing activities that were mainly aimed at entertaining the young siblings of their chaperone.

Sounds really crappy. I would be really pisses.

And why is this chaperone reading her messages and preventing her from being able to make a private call?

[Anonymous]

Pissed*

[Anonymous]

OP, you need to talk to the other mom, and then you can decide whether to talk to the chaperone and/or the school. I believe about 60% of this. Your daughter could have texted or called from the bathroom if it was that bad, or talked to one of the school officials during the actual program part. Reading all of her texts? Come on!

[Anonymous]

All 7 of them, including the dad were sharing a hotel room? How is that possible?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Were they able to hang out with their own peer group doing things more typical of their age group, or did they need to hang around doing things only younger siblings could d[b]o?

OP. This. (The latter).

I get it now, OP. These teenagers worked to earn this trip and then had to spend the fun part with someone else's younger children, not with their school friends their own age.

I would address it with the school and ask for rules to be created to address this clearly in future trips. You cannot salvage your DD's bad experience after the fact, but you can model for her that when things are badly organized, people can step up to try to make things better for others who come after them.

I've seen teenagers do a lot of work and put in many hours of real effort to go on trips like the one you're describing. For any of them to have to hang around with a family rather than spend the trip with their peer group, after months and months of work, is a complete shame and waste.

I do still want to ask -- did any educational stuff go on? Were the students brought together as a peer group for the core activity, whatever it was (theater festival, marching band event, etc.) and the problem was when the kids were doing "free time" in an amusement park, for instance, and your DD and friend had to stick with this chaperone family?

I have chaperoned several trips to amusement park days held for school orchestras and bands, where there was a playing competition first thing and then the kids were with parent chaperones in the park for the rest of the day. We would never have been allowed to bring our own, other kids. Your school blew it, or maybe that one parent chaperone just flouted the rules that were in place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My money is on the two girls being really, really disappointed that instead of this feeling like a special, adult trip, it felt like they were just children in this family, not that anything truly inappropriate happened.

How is it ever appropriate to bring non-students on a school field trip? If the students knew ahead of time, before signing up and paying, that they would have to take this trip with little children then MAYBE it would be a fair point.

I'd be pissed if I was the student, too. Whether I had to babysit or not, I wouldn't want to pay for a school trip and feel like I'm tagging along on someone else's family vacation.

Is it an actual school field trip if it was just 3 girls and a set of parents with no school employees?

It sounds more like a case where the kids wanted to go to a conference/competition/meet and the school was not going so a parent volunteered to take them.

Like a couple of theater kids wanting to go to the International Thespian Festival, the drama club is not actually attending but Larla's mom offers to fly out with them so they can attend as DCUM High School's unofficial "representatives".

Is it something like that OP?

Because I have never heard of a school trip that does not include a paid staff member attending.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All 7 of them, including the dad were sharing a hotel room? How is that possible?

Does not sound like an actual school trip.

[Anonymous]

OP you have not answered whether or not this is an actual, school sponsored trip.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you need to talk to the other mom, and then you can decide whether to talk to the chaperone and/or the school. I believe about 60% of this. Your daughter could have texted or called from the bathroom if it was that bad, or talked to one of the school officials during the actual program part. Reading all of her texts? Come on!

How would they have access to her phone? She can say no and her parents monitor it. She could send a quick one line text and you see it to contact staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Were they able to hang out with their own peer group doing things more typical of their age group, or did they need to hang around doing things only younger siblings could d[b]o?

OP. This. (The latter).

I get it now, OP. These teenagers worked to earn this trip and then had to spend the fun part with someone else's younger children, not with their school friends their own age.

I would address it with the school and ask for rules to be created to address this clearly in future trips. You cannot salvage your DD's bad experience after the fact, but you can model for her that when things are badly organized, people can step up to try to make things better for others who come after them.

I've seen teenagers do a lot of work and put in many hours of real effort to go on trips like the one you're describing. For any of them to have to hang around with a family rather than spend the trip with their peer group, after months and months of work, is a complete shame and waste.

I do still want to ask -- did any educational stuff go on? Were the students brought together as a peer group for the core activity, whatever it was (theater festival, marching band event, etc.) and the problem was when the kids were doing "free time" in an amusement park, for instance, and your DD and friend had to stick with this chaperone family?

I have chaperoned several trips to amusement park days held for school orchestras and bands, where there was a playing competition first thing and then the kids were with parent chaperones in the park for the rest of the day. We would never have been allowed to bring our own, other kids. Your school blew it, or maybe that one parent chaperone just flouted the rules that were in place.

When we went to Disney for band, we were allowed to walk alone and had to check in every few hours. Before cell phones. This makes no sense.

[Anonymous]

Talk to the school administration.