Chaperone turned school trip into family vacation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op there is no way they were reading your daughter's texts, come on. You can be annoyed at the situation but if you go in and essentially tell the principal the chaperone forces your child into unpaid labor by babysitting and read her texts you're going to sound nuts. I'm sure your daughter was pissed and I can see why but she's also being really hyperbolic.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would ask that the school look into this. If they couldn't go off on their own, what would have been different if the chaperone's kids hadn't been there? Wouldn't she still have had control over the activity?

Also, was it just the two students and the chaperone's family?

Three students, but one of them was the family's daughter.

The above is OPs post from page 1. No mention of the 100+ students and other chaperons until much later. T

She also never clarifies what the "babysitting" claim is -- so I don't think the parents went out leaving the girls in charge of the younger kids.

She said daughter could not text her details about what was happening because they were looking over her shoulder (or some such thing) Then we find out that the girls slept in a separate room.

OPs does not come across as reliable at all...no wonder her daughter seems to be exaggerating as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was a chaperone for an overseas trip and no way would our school have allowed this. They had very strict rules and our own kids weren't even allowed to be in my small group of kids that I looked after for the week.

I'm pretty laid back about most things, but this seems like a violation of the very intent of a trip like this. I'm sure there are some lessons for your DD to learn from this, but that is really rotten that she was really looking forward to this, had helped raise money and then it turned out to be a tag-along type situation with another family.

The school *really* needs to to put some guidelines in place to make sure this doesn't happen again, but I don't see anything that will "fix" it for your DD other than think about how she might have raised this as an issue sooner.

X 1,000,000. I can't believe anyone thinks it's ok for a chaperone to bring his or her FAMILY on a school-sponsored trip! In what universe is that ok?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a chaperone for an overseas trip and no way would our school have allowed this. They had very strict rules and our own kids weren't even allowed to be in my small group of kids that I looked after for the week.

I'm pretty laid back about most things, but this seems like a violation of the very intent of a trip like this. I'm sure there are some lessons for your DD to learn from this, but that is really rotten that she was really looking forward to this, had helped raise money and then it turned out to be a tag-along type situation with another family.

The school *really* needs to to put some guidelines in place to make sure this doesn't happen again, but I don't see anything that will "fix" it for your DD other than think about how she might have raised this as an issue sooner.

X 1,000,000. I can't believe anyone thinks it's ok for a chaperone to bring his or her FAMILY on a school-sponsored trip! In what universe is that ok?!

Especially when the family then behaves in exactly the way that people would be trying to prevent by putting such a ‘no family’ policy in place.

[Anonymous]

Lol... good to see you back OP!

[Anonymous]

OP - did you talk to the other girl's mom so you can complain about this together?

I too would be really pissed if I were your daughter. Tell us how it gets resolved and what the school says.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would ask that the school look into this. If they couldn't go off on their own, what would have been different if the chaperone's kids hadn't been there? Wouldn't she still have had control over the activity?

Also, was it just the two students and the chaperone's family?

Three students, but one of them was the family's daughter.

The above is OPs post from page 1. No mention of the 100+ students and other chaperons until much later. T

She also never clarifies what the "babysitting" claim is -- so I don't think the parents went out leaving the girls in charge of the younger kids.

She said daughter could not text her details about what was happening because they were looking over her shoulder (or some such thing) Then we find out that the girls slept in a separate room.

OPs does not come across as reliable at all...no wonder her daughter seems to be exaggerating as well.

I think OP answered the question she thought the pp was asking. Later people asked if it was a school trip and people still weren't sure if it was a school sponsored trip so OP gave more details.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If I'm understanding correctly that this was a volunteer parent chaperone and that one of her own kids was one of the 3 attendees... Then I'm not really sure what there is to complain about unless your daughter was actually made to babysit that parent's younger kids. If she also paid for her own trip herself and/or you would have been allowed to go if you wanted to, then... I'm sorry that the trip wasn't as your DD imagined, but it seems like this is a no brainer in terms of being fine. What would the school even do about it other than cancel future trips that couldn't get teacher chaperones?

Perhaps. I am pretty casual, but I would be stunned if one of my DCs came back from a school trip and I learned that more than half of the trip attendees were the family of the chaperone. The ratio really changes the group dynamic. The school should have provided 100% transparency: "This year Teacher A is leading the trip to Y. They will visit 1, 2, and 3 on the trip. Teacher A's family will also be part of the tour." Nothing less is negligent.

[Anonymous]

I’d be mighty pissed OP! Please keep us updated

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would complain to the school and I'd talk about this not only from the standpoint of your daughter being disappointed, I would also make it a discussion about risk and liability. If this so called chaperone could dictate babysitting duties to your daughter what else could an adult in a position of power do or demand. Without clear policies that protect the students the school is as risk.

+1

[Anonymous]

This happened with our daughter's church youth group, only to an even greater degree. The couple who were advisors had a clique of kids that stayed around their home, did their laundry, dishes, cleaning and babysat the small children, who were always included in everything the group did. This created an exclusive "inside group." I finally spoke up when the advisors steered youth away from church camp in favor of "beach week." Essentially their family vacations were being funded by our youth. Our new advisors are aware this isn't acceptable.