We are at Woodlin ES in Silver Spring:

Third Grade has had:
Trip to see Charlotte's Web at Imagination Stage
Shakespeare Theatre Workshops with final culminating in school field Trip of the play 'A Midsummer's Night Dream'
Harnessing Heat (in school field Trip) workshop provided by MadScience DC
A trip to Baltimore Museum of Industry
A breadmaking field trip ( in school workshop) which is held every year for 3rd grade
End of the year 3rd grade picnic at the oval local park

I'm not sure if there will be any other field trips but I'd like there to be. Seems like the problems are that some schools aren't hosting more enriching opportunities that don't require busses. Maybe ask your teachers at your school if they could plan activities or events that happen in school during times where everyone else is in class so that the workshop personnel can use the gym or cafeteria or other space as necessary.

I love Outdoor Ed. I think this is a great idea.

On the other hand, why do we send students to medieval times? We live in an area that has so many museums, however, our school has not been able to plan a educational fieldtrip with even the Smithsonian museum that is tied in with curriculum or a unit of study.

Anonymous wrote:My 5th grader had a trip to the Air & Space Museum yesterday. Cost $15, school buses, back at school for a late lunch. Said they saw a total of one exhibit, a 3D movie, and got lost because it was so crowded with tourists that the small group got separated from their class.

Seriously—why on earth would anyone plan a Smithsonian field trip in the middle of tourist season? With a late-start elementary school, it's bad enough getting down there and back in time for the afternoon bus routes, never mind fighting traffic and crowds. (We're downcounty, so I can't imagine how upcounty schools could do it.) I guess as long as they're missing class, the kids don't care, but it seems like a waste of time, and stressful for teachers, I'm sure.

It sounds like they didn't have enough parent volunteers or school refused them which is a bad idea in that situation. If they were with a parent, the parent may have paid for a movie. We've paid for extra stuff for the group of kids we've had.

I am not in MoCo, but have been planning and organizing field trips for our school for 2 years as a parent volunteer.
Our school is high farms and has some federal money to spend on trips as well as some PTA money so we didn’t pay anything out of pocket.
It definitely is a lot of teacher discretion.
Last year there were 2 first grades where one teacher was not a fan of field trips and another just didn’t care so we only had one trip (suggested and organized by me). This year there are three teachers and apparently there is a field trip enthusiast among them, they had a couple of cool ones.
The buses are either limited in time or expensive.
The trips also have to align with curriculum.
There is a charter school nearby where parents always drive the kids and they have 5+ trips a year, some of them being a bit ridiculous TBH, like a trip to a park or grocery store.

Anonymous wrote:My 5th grader had a trip to the Air & Space Museum yesterday. Cost $15, school buses, back at school for a late lunch. Said they saw a total of one exhibit, a 3D movie, and got lost because it was so crowded with tourists that the small group got separated from their class.

Seriously—why on earth would anyone plan a Smithsonian field trip in the middle of tourist season? With a late-start elementary school, it's bad enough getting down there and back in time for the afternoon bus routes, never mind fighting traffic and crowds. (We're downcounty, so I can't imagine how upcounty schools could do it.) I guess as long as they're missing class, the kids don't care, but it seems like a waste of time, and stressful for teachers, I'm sure.

Do you know if this was a school bus or a charter bus?

My 5th grader had a trip to the Air & Space Museum yesterday. Cost $15, school buses, back at school for a late lunch. Said they saw a total of one exhibit, a 3D movie, and got lost because it was so crowded with tourists that the small group got separated from their class.

Seriously—why on earth would anyone plan a Smithsonian field trip in the middle of tourist season? With a late-start elementary school, it's bad enough getting down there and back in time for the afternoon bus routes, never mind fighting traffic and crowds. (We're downcounty, so I can't imagine how upcounty schools could do it.) I guess as long as they're missing class, the kids don't care, but it seems like a waste of time, and stressful for teachers, I'm sure.

We are at Beverly Farms. Our 4th graders got ra private, after-hours tour of the Air and Space Museum and each got to sit in the cockpit of their favorite plane in the museum.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My 7th grader's trip to Medieval Times was $50 all included: bus, tickets, lunch.

I paid nearly that much for him to go to Mount Vernon and St Mary's City in 5th and 4th grade, respectively.

This is why most PTAs allocate funds to students who cannot pay the field trips.

? MoCo? Meanwhile, my 4th grader has not had a field trip this year.

MCPS. Your 4th grader should have gone somewhere related to the early colonial period, as per "tradition" (meaning that the handful of MCPS elementaries I know have done such a field trip in 4th, like my kids').

We are at Greenwood in Brookeville and have not gone anywhere and have not received word of any field trips.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've wondered this, too. Most of my kids' field trips are $10-$20. Our school sometimes uses charter buses which I am sure adds to the cost.

I think they end up using charter busses because they can't get there and back in time for the busses to do the HS run. It used to be you had to be back by 1:00 to use MCPS busses. With ES not starting until 9:30, you wouldn't be organized to leave until 9:45 at the earliest, depending on how far you are from the zoo, you might have 2 hours to visit the zoo and have lunch before heading back.

Not sure if the time you need to be back shifted with the change in bell times or not, but it's always been an issue for schools farther away from the city. It's hard to go and get back in the time you can get an MCPS bus, so you have to pay for a charter bus which is much more expensive.

This has been our experience and the charter bus can be expensive.
Also the schools try to ensure that noone misses a trip for financial reasons so if you can I suggest you put in a little donation to help cover another child's cost.

F that. I am not paying for other kid’s field trips. Ridiculous.

Sheesh. Even my 6th grader is more generous than you, he brought us his own money with intent to donate it just in case a (unknown) classmate wasn't able to afford an activity they're doing.

Anonymous wrote:DD is in kindergarten. We are in W cluster. Do the W schools go on better or more field trips? Sounds like it from this thread.

My co-worker's kids went to a "W" school. My kids went to a non-W school. We were comparing field trips one day - this was shortly after my younger daughter went on a field trip to one of the Smithsonian Museums. He said the teachers at his school would never do such a field trip because they didn't want to take kids into DC. His daughter took a field trip to Wegman's

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD is in kindergarten. We are in W cluster. Do the W schools go on better or more field trips? Sounds like it from this thread.

We're at a Silver Spring FOCUS ES and our field trips are okay, though talking to my friends in Potomac, they do seem to get some pretty awesome ones! Like one of theirs was a field trip to the Kennedy Center with a meal prepared by the Kennedy Center chef or something crazy.

In 2nd grade, ALL the schools go to Strathmore.

Everyone goes to Strathmore in second grade and also in fifth grade.

We are in a "W" school. Kids went to Strathmore, St. Mary's, and Mount Vernon. No trips to the Kennedy Center with chef prepared meals! Who comes up with this garbage. I grew up in Montgomery County and we had a lot more field trips than that in the late 70's early 80's.

My impression is that the teachers decide the field trips with the exception of some big ones that either by policy or by tradition are fixed for certain grades (for example, our elementary always sends 5th graders on an overnight trip to Williamsburg.)

It's a bit unfortunate because clearly some teachers are particularly interested in planning very creative field trips and others are not. There was a teacher at my kids' school who used to organize a bunch of really great field trips, including optional ones held on the weekends. Then she got into some kind of a spat with the administration and refused to do it anymore, and the quality of the field trips really declined.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD is in kindergarten. We are in W cluster. Do the W schools go on better or more field trips? Sounds like it from this thread.

We're at a Silver Spring FOCUS ES and our field trips are okay, though talking to my friends in Potomac, they do seem to get some pretty awesome ones! Like one of theirs was a field trip to the Kennedy Center with a meal prepared by the Kennedy Center chef or something crazy.

In 2nd grade, ALL the schools go to Strathmore.

Everyone goes to Strathmore in second grade and also in fifth grade.

It our local public, full pay parents had to make up for those students who could not afford to pay at all. They factored in the cost of the students who were FARMS, and then split the cost across the nonFarms kids.

When DD was in 4th grade at a focus school, there was talk of going to Annapolis as a less expensive alternative to the traditional St Msry’s Trip. Parents made it clear we were willing to fundraise, donation, do whatever was needed to make the traditional trip happen, and we got it done.