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5 Field Trip Problems and How to Prevent Them

by BrainNinjasWP

Field trips can be so much fun when they run smoothly. However, there can also be those field trips where you want to pull your hair out or vow never to do it again. We’ve gone on hundreds of field trips over our careers. Some of these trips are cherished memories of special classes. Others are permanent scars and trauma (ok, that might be pushing it). Come learn from our mistakes so you can avoid these field trip problems.

We have a whole list of more ideas for items you can put in your field trip backpacks in our post, The Ultimate Guide to Field Trips . It also has lots of helpful tips to plan your trips. If you’ve ever tried to find a tissue in the wild, you’ll thank us for this!

Not All Field Trip Problems Are Created Equal

There are some problems that you just can’t plan for (like the child who was dealing with food poisoning and got sick all over the bus). And there are some problems that you can’t really prevent because you don’t think it will happen in a million years (like the child that caught their crutch between the planks on a wharf and fell – cast and all – into the pond).

You can do all the planning in the world to make sure your field trip is organized and will be valuable to your learners, but there is a whole class of field trip problems that take a special kind of planning and preparation. These are your volunteers.

Volunteers are absolutely vital to any field trip. It is not possible to be the eyes and ears of every child when you take your class out into the wild. You need those volunteers to round up the children and keep them safe so you can manage the learning. Most of our experiences are very positive, but we have had plenty of experience and thought it could help any teacher who is still learning the ropes or hasn’t been on a field trip in a while.

Make your expectations about what you want from your volunteers very clear from the beginning. Many parents or family members want to come along on the field trip to spend time with their children. While that is wonderful, your goal as the supervising teacher is to make sure all your students are being supervised.

Need help organizing your field trip?

We have a simple set of field trip forms that you can use to keep your field trip organized. They are available in the Resource Library for members of our email list. If you’re not on the list yet, we can send it directly to your inbox when you sign up.

Problem #1: Parent-child Relationships

Through years and years of field trips with parents and children, we’ve learned there is no perfect relationship. Some field trip problems have nothing to do with you.

Hyper focused

Some parents spend all their time with their child, leading to another child who was supposed to be supervised by that adult having a problem that you now have to deal with. Honestly, it would save you time if the parent weren’t there in the first place.

Taking Over

Some parents take over everything the child is doing on the field trip. Instead of this, the child – who can normally be responsible and do their work – suddenly can’t even write their own name on a piece of paper. Some parents like to “overhelp” their own child during the field trip. I’ve witnessed perfectly good children suddenly go limp as if it’s too much strain to put on their own shoes. Why? Because that’s what happens at home. We don’t have time for that at school.

Separation of Home and School

Some children can’t handle the parent coming into their class. They need the separation of home and school. It’s almost like they’re two different children. One year, we had a student who was an absolute delight until the day her mother came on a field trip. This child had a full-blown kicking and screaming temper tantrum in the middle of the very public exhibition. The more mom tried to help, the worse it got. She asked that her mom never come on another field trip. We spoke with her mom, who agreed (but found other ways to volunteer).

The Solution

I had a rule that parents were not always put in the same learning group as their children. This was something parents were told in advance. I simply worded it as We cannot guarantee you will have the opportunity to spend the whole day with your child as our main objective is for the safety and supervision of all students. This means you may be asked to supervise students in different groups or classes based on the needs of all students.

There are still plenty of times they can spend time together during the field trip. Encourage them to ride the bus together, each lunch together, or if there is “free time” where students are kept in an enclosed space where it doesn’t matter who leads who.

If a child acts out when a parent comes along, maybe choose a different volunteer or separate them as much as possible on the trip. Talk with the child and the parent separately to brainstorm ways to make it more manageable.

If a parent is too helpful, explain that it’s important to the process to see what children can do independently. Redirect them to a child who genuinely needs the extra help.

Problem #2: Phones and Photos

Technology has created new field trip problems. When we began teaching, we didn’t need to worry about smartphones.

Our school has a very strict policy that parent volunteers cannot take photos of students. This is because of privacy rules. Schools are not public spaces, and the photos taken inside are not allowed to be made public unless it is specifically a public event (like a concert or an assembly where the public is invited). One of the reasons this rule is in place is to prevent students who may be protected in the foster care system, custody situations, or parental requests for privacy from being accidentally made public. Despite being in public spaces, not all aspects of field trips are “public.”

I also ask parents to put their phones on silent and avoid being on them during “class time.” Nothing is more annoying than listening to a guest speaker with a volunteer chatting away on their phone just outside the door. Not only are they disruptive, but they’ve missed the information the students got and will now struggle with the activity or lesson.

Before going on a field trip, I explain that parents are not permitted to take any photos (even those of their child). Instead, I provide school devices that all the parent volunteers can use to take photos. These photos are property of the school, but if a photo of a child is good, I pass it along to the parents.

Problem #3: Volunteers with Their Own Set of Rules

Before I share these horror stories, I want to point out that these are only three stories out of the hundreds of volunteers I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside over the years. But, just as in life, there are some people who don’t feel the rules should apply to everyone.

While visiting a local historical site, I’d made a point of telling families that we would not have access to the restaurant or any microwaves for lunch. Students and volunteers needed to bring a lunch they could eat quickly as our time between sessions was about twenty minutes long. That included washroom breaks and walking across a huge field to get to the afternoon’s activities.

As we were walking to the afternoon’s activities, I noticed that one volunteer and his son weren’t in our line. When I inquired with the other group members, they told me they’d gone to the restaurant for lunch. Not only had they broken the rules, they were almost forty minutes late to the afternoon activities. The dad tried to blame it on his wife “not telling him about the lunch rule,” but his son totally tattled.

Gift Shop of Horrors

The second example I can share is a field trip to the museum. The trip was extremely short, so students were not permitted to go to the cafe or gift shop. As we were waiting on the bus for the last group to arrive, I realized the reason they were so late was that the dad had taken his group to the gift shop and they were having a little spending treat on him. When they got to the bus, he genuinely didn’t understand why buying five children box loads of candy and then putting them on the bus with the other twenty-five children without candy might be a problem. The only silver lining is that the bus driver wouldn’t let any of them eat the candy during the drive.

Retail Therapy

And the winner for the worst volunteer was when I took a choir to sing at a local festival. After the festival, there were about twenty minutes of free time so students could look around. As we lined up at the bus, I realized I had all my students, but I was missing one parent volunteer. When I inquired about her, the kids said she was shopping. Now, the part I left out was that it was -40°C, snowing, there were over 1,000 students and our bus driver wasn’t going to wait. We drove back to the school without her.

I’m sure you want to know what happened. She took a cab back to the school and screamed at the office staff about how she wanted to be reimbursed. Fortunately, my principal confronted her about the shopping instead of supervising the students (she was still holding her bag of goodies she’d bought) and explained that she would not be asked to accompany any group of students anywhere again.

This one is a little more difficult to predict, but you do not have to take every person who volunteers. If you have a challenging one, maybe switch them out for someone else.

If you’re looking for a more proactive approach, ask last year’s teacher if the volunteer had any issues.

Problem #4: No Shows

While it’s easy to assume that lower economic areas would have fewer volunteers, we’ve actually found that not to be true. Many families do not have parents who are available during the day as they are both working. However, many of our families live intergenerationally. This means there are aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents who volunteer. When we have taught in more affluent areas, the parents tend to have very demanding jobs and aren’t available during the day.

If you have a school population where it’s challenging to get volunteers to remember their commitments, consider sending home reminders. Sometimes, parents get busy and forget they signed up to help months earlier. This could be a note home, an email, a phone call, or a reminder on your class website.

Plan your field trips as early in the year as possible and notify families as soon as they are booked to give people ample time to plan.

It helps to have a few extra people sign up in case you need to make replacements. Our school requires volunteers to have a criminal records check and sign a confidentiality form before they can volunteer. Try to get this done as early in the year as possible. We actually encourage all our families to do it, even if they don’t think they’ll volunteer. That way, they might be a good replacement at the last minute.

Explain the importance of volunteers. In many cases, field trips have to be cancelled if there is not enough supervision.

Problem #5: The Participant

Have you ever had a volunteer not only take over the activity but do it instead of the kids? This can be the case when the field trip is a unique experience. These are memories that children will remember for their lifetime. The last thing they want to experience is someone else’s family member getting to do something really cool.

Remind all your volunteers that the goal is for all the students to experience as much as possible first-hand. In the event there is extra time, then it might be possible for the adults to give it a try.

What are your field trip problems?

We could write a whole book on all the things we’ve learned. What field trip problems have we missed? Leave your ideas in a comment below and maybe we’ll write a whole other post.

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What is a Field Trip: Exploring the Benefits, Challenges, and Creative Ideas

By Happy Sharer

Introduction: What is a Field Trip?

A field trip is an educational excursion outside of the classroom environment. It is an opportunity for students to gain first-hand experience with the material they are learning in class. Field trips can take place at local attractions, museums, historic sites, nature centers, and more. They can also be conducted virtually, allowing students to explore faraway places without ever leaving the classroom.

Overview of Field Trips: Exploring the Benefits and Challenges

Field trips are an important part of any school curriculum. They provide an opportunity for students to gain real-world experience with the material they are learning in class. However, there are both benefits and challenges associated with field trips that must be considered before planning one.

Benefits of Field Trips

The most obvious benefit of field trips is that they give students the chance to experience the material they are learning in class in a real-world setting. According to a study conducted by the National Education Association, “Field trips provide students with experiences that cannot be replicated in the classroom. They offer opportunities to explore concepts from a different perspective, to observe firsthand what has been read about in textbooks, and to make connections between course content and real life.”

In addition to providing an opportunity for experiential learning, field trips can also help to engage student interest in the subject matter. A study conducted by the University of Texas found that students who went on field trips were more likely to remember the material they had learned than those who did not go on the trip. Furthermore, field trips can spark curiosity and inspire students to ask questions and seek out further knowledge.

Challenges of Field Trips

Despite their many benefits, field trips can present some challenges. One of the biggest challenges associated with field trips is the cost. Depending on where you are traveling and the size of your group, the expenses can quickly add up. Additionally, finding the time to plan and execute a successful field trip can be difficult for teachers who already have a full schedule.

Safety is another issue that must be taken into consideration when planning a field trip. It is important to ensure that all students are supervised at all times and that the destination is appropriate for the age and maturity level of the students.

Tips for Planning a Successful Field Trip

Planning a successful field trip requires careful consideration of multiple factors. Here are some tips to keep in mind when planning a field trip.

Establish Goals

Before planning a field trip, it is important to establish clear goals. Ask yourself why you are taking the students on the trip and what you hope to accomplish. This will help to ensure that the field trip is meaningful and relevant to the material being taught in class.

Choose an Appropriate Destination

Once you have established your goals, it is important to choose a destination that is appropriate for the age and maturity level of the students. When selecting a location, consider the interests and abilities of the students and make sure that the destination offers something that will be interesting and engaging for them.

Develop an Itinerary

Once you have selected a destination, it is important to develop an itinerary that outlines the activities for the day. Make sure there is enough time for each activity and that the activities are relevant to the goals you have established for the trip.

Manage Safety Issues

Safety should always be a top priority when planning a field trip. Make sure that all students are supervised at all times and that the destination is appropriate for the age and maturity level of the students. Additionally, be sure to review any safety policies or procedures with the students prior to the trip.

A Guide to Creating a Meaningful Field Trip Experience

Creating a meaningful field trip experience requires careful planning and preparation. Here are some tips to ensure that your students get the most out of their field trip.

Set Clear Expectations

Prior to the field trip, it is important to set clear expectations for the students. Explain to them the purpose of the trip and what you hope they will gain from the experience. Additionally, discuss any rules or guidelines that need to be followed during the trip.

Make Connections with Course Material

When planning the activities for the field trip, look for ways to connect the material to the course content. This will help to ensure that the students gain a deeper understanding of the material and that the trip is meaningful and relevant.

Utilize Time Wisely

Time management is key to ensuring a successful field trip. Make sure that all activities are planned in advance and that the students understand what is expected of them. Additionally, leave room for flexibility in case something unexpected arises.

How Field Trips Enhance Learning in the Classroom

Field trips can be an invaluable tool for enhancing learning in the classroom. Here are some of the ways that field trips can benefit students.

Engaging Student Interest

Field trips can help to engage student interest in the subject matter. Experiencing the material firsthand can make it easier for students to understand and relate to the material being taught in class.

Building Critical Thinking Skills

Field trips can also help to build critical thinking skills. Students are exposed to new information and must process it in order to gain a better understanding of the material. This helps to develop problem-solving abilities and encourages students to think more deeply about the material.

Developing Problem-Solving Abilities

Field trips can also help to develop problem-solving abilities. Students are exposed to new environments and must find ways to navigate them. This helps to build confidence and teaches students how to think on their feet.

The Value of Field Trips for Students

Field trips can be a valuable learning experience for students. Here are some of the ways that field trips can benefit students.

Developing Self-Confidence

Field trips can help to boost self-confidence. Being in unfamiliar surroundings can be intimidating, but it can also be a great opportunity for students to practice problem-solving skills and develop self-confidence.

Strengthening Interpersonal Relationships

Field trips can also help to strengthen interpersonal relationships among students. Working together to navigate new environments and solve problems can help to foster teamwork and collaboration.

Acquiring New Knowledge and Experiences

Finally, field trips can open students up to new knowledge and experiences. Seeing things firsthand can help to bring the material to life and make it easier for students to understand and remember.

Creative Ideas for Field Trips

There are many creative ways to incorporate field trips into the classroom. Here are some ideas for fun and engaging field trips.

Museum Visits

Museums are a great way to introduce students to a variety of topics. From art and history to science and technology, there are a variety of museums that offer educational experiences for students of all ages.

Local Attractions

Local attractions can be a great way to introduce students to the community and its culture. Consider visiting historical sites, parks, zoos, or aquariums for an interactive and fun learning experience.

Nature Walks

Nature walks are a great way to get students outdoors and exploring their natural surroundings. Not only can this be a fun activity, but it can also be a great way to introduce students to concepts such as ecology and conservation.

Virtual Field Trips: Taking Education Beyond the Classroom

Technology has opened up a world of possibilities for educators looking to take their students on field trips. Virtual field trips allow students to explore faraway places without ever leaving the classroom.

Advantages of Virtual Field Trips

Virtual field trips come with a number of advantages. They are often less expensive than traditional field trips, and they can be used to explore destinations that would otherwise be inaccessible. Additionally, virtual field trips can be tailored to fit the curriculum and the specific needs of the students.

Types of Virtual Field Trips

There are a variety of types of virtual field trips available. These include virtual tours of museums and historical sites, live video streams of events, and interactive simulations of different environments. Each type of virtual field trip offers a unique experience and can be used to enhance learning in the classroom.

Tips for Planning a Virtual Field Trip

When planning a virtual field trip, it is important to do your research. Check to see if the destination offers a virtual tour and make sure that the technology needed is available and easy to use. Additionally, make sure to set clear expectations and goals for the virtual field trip and to create an itinerary that outlines the activities for the day.

Field trips can be a valuable learning experience for students. They provide an opportunity for students to gain first-hand experience with the material they are learning in class and can help to engage student interest in the subject matter. Additionally, field trips can help to build critical thinking skills and develop problem-solving abilities. Finally, virtual field trips offer an exciting way to explore faraway places without ever leaving the classroom. With careful planning and preparation, field trips can be a fun and educational experience for everyone involved.

(Note: Is this article not meeting your expectations? Do you have knowledge or insights to share? Unlock new opportunities and expand your reach by joining our authors team. Click Registration to join us and share your expertise with our readers.)

Hi, I'm Happy Sharer and I love sharing interesting and useful knowledge with others. I have a passion for learning and enjoy explaining complex concepts in a simple way.

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27 Important Pros & Cons Of Field Trips

“ One day a week should be set aside for field trips.”

Frank McCourt, Author

Advantages & Disadvantages of Field Trips

School excursions have become increasingly popular over the past decades.

Students from all over the world can benefit from those excursions in various different ways.

Yet, apart from the advantages of field trips, there are also some problems related to this concept.

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The pros and cons of school excursions are discussed in the following.

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Advantages of school excursions, school excursions can be educating, school excursions are fun, field trips can raise the awareness of pupils on important topics, can be used to get back to the roots, may broaden the horizon of students, pupils can relax, information can be presented differently, students can learn outside the classroom, may also improve the fitness of students, also teachers can expand their knowledge, new ideas for future teaching projects, even virtual field trips are possible now, students may become more motivated.

One advantage of field trips is that they can be quite educational for students.

Even though students learn a lot in school, the topics that are taught in school are often quite theoretical and students can learn some practice and fields of application of what they already learned in theory.

Hence, school excursions can give students the chance to learn from a different angle.

Many pupils also like school trips quite a lot. Learning can become quite exhausting from time to time and it can feel quite good to leave the school building behind for a day and to learn in a different manner instead.

Therefore, school trips may also improve the overall quality of life for numerous students all over the world.

Another benefit of school trips is that they can raise the awareness of students on important global topics and problems which we as humanity will have to solve in the near future.

For instance, while students may learn about deforestation in school, they will understand the topic much more if they see the problem in person.

This is not only true for deforestation, but also for various other topics and if we want to solve our environmental problems, it is crucial that we raise the awareness of the next generation on those topics through school excursions and other measures.

School excursions can also be used to bring students back to the roots.

Quite often, field trips take place in natural environments.

This is quite important in order to show children where we as humans originally come from and that our nature is important for all of us to survive.

In general, field trips can also be a great way to broaden the horizon of students.

While students learn all the mainstream stuff in school, they are not taught alternative approaches towards life at all most of the time.

However, by making excursions, students may get a broader picture of reality, which can benefit them quite a lot in later stages of their lives.

From time to time, it is also quite nice to relax as a schoolkid. School can be stressful and relaxing through school excursions can be a great way to reduce stress and to stay healthy in the long run.

Consequently, also from a health perspective, school trips can make quite a lot of sense.

School trips also offer the opportunity for teachers to teach students in a different way.

Students can see many things that they learned in school with their own eyes and therefore, they will become much more aware of certain problems and will also be much eager to behave in an eco-friendlier and a more social manner.

School excursions also offer a great way to teach children outside the classroom.

These teaching methods can be quite effective since teachers can educate schoolkids in a rather playful way.

In turn, kids will be more willing to learn and to keep the knowledge they learned.

Many children in our nowadays society also often suffer from overweight or even from obesity.

Moreover, the overall fitness level of students is often quite low since kids often do no longer exercise in a sufficient manner.

Hence, in order to improve the fitness level of students and to tackle the problem of overweight, field trips which require some level of exercise can also help in this regard.

Not only students will learn from field trips, also teachers can expand their knowledge quite a lot.

In fact, many teachers are quite surprised when they realize how little they actually know about the world we live in.

In turn, through this expansion of knowledge, teachers may also get better in teaching their students, which can also benefit the education levels of students in the long run.

Through field trips, teachers may also develop many new ideas for future school projects.

It is always good to get outside and away from the desk for a while to think about new projects that could be started in the future.

Chances are that the level of creativity of teachers will be much higher outside the school building and therefore, school excursions may also benefit the respective school as a whole as well.

Thanks to our latest technologies , there are even field trip opportunities right now that can be done in an entirely virtual manner.

Sure, some of the benefits of going outside and exploring nature will be lost.

Yet, those virtual trips may be better than nothing and students may still learn quite a lot from those virtual field trips.

While many students just hate sitting in the classroom and school in general, they may really enjoy school trips since they will be able to get outside and to enjoy nature and the good weather.

In turn, those students may also become more motivated to learn in school if they get out of it from time to time and explore new things

Disadvantages of Field Trips

Field trips can be dangerous, school excursions can be costly, may not be possible if number of students is too high, transportation issues related to school trips, insurance problems may arise, parents may not agree with field trip activities, excursions may not be in line with the preferences all students, teachers may be personally liable during excursions, students may get lost, schoolkids may not show up for excursions, organizational efforts, field trips can be stressful, can be physically demanding, time cannot be used for other classes.

Apart from the important advantages of field trips, there are also some downsides related to school excursions.

For instance, one problem of school trips is that they can be dangerous in some cases.

For instance, if you go hiking, there might be some areas that are not properly secured.

Hence, if you organize a school trip, make sure that you keep it as safe as possible and also that you choose the destination in this regard.

Another disadvantage of field trips is that they can also be quite costly.

Especially students from poor families may struggle to afford those school excursions and therefore, make sure that you choose the destination of your excursion so that everyone could afford it.

School excursions are also quite problematic if the number of students each teacher has to take care of becomes too high.

Hence, if there is not enough qualified staff who can help with those trips, chances are that those excursions can’t take place in a safe manner.

Transportation is another big issue when it comes to school trips.

Quite often, big buses or other means of transport have to be organized.

In many cases, it is hard to find suitable tour operators and therefore, school excursions may also not be possible in this regard.

Another big downside of school excursions is that they often also imply significant insurance issues.

In many cases, insurances don’t want to pay in case students or teachers get injured during excursions.

This makes it quite hard to permit those excursions for schools since they might be liable for any damages that may happen during those excursions.

Moreover, in many cases, parents will also not be too happy with the field trip destination.

In fact, parents complain on a regular basis about such things and it is really difficult for teachers to find a common denominator so that everyone is happy.

Thus, also trouble with parents can be another issue related to school trips.

People are different and also students will have many different opinions regarding how fun looks like for them and what they want to do during their field trip.

Hence, it might be hard for the teacher to determine a destination that fits the preferences of all students in the class.

Since insurance companies will often refuse to pay in case a student gets injured during a field trip, teachers may be personally liable for any damage in the worst case.

This can lead to huge financial burdens for teachers and therefore, teachers may not be willing to take students on field trips anymore as long as the insurance companies don’t pay for any damage during those trips.

Another problem with school trips is that students may also get lost.

It is often quite hard for teachers to monitor all children at the same time and especially with a big group of students, the chance that students get lost over time is quite significant.

Students who don’t like school excursions at all may also simply not show up for those excursions. Instead, they may rather take the day off and play video games or other things instead.

This often makes it hard for teachers to plan an activity since they don’t know how many kids will really show up on time.

In general, there are also plenty of organizational efforts related to school excursions.

As a teacher, you have to figure out a destination, contact the tour provider and also make sure that nobody gets lost.

Hence, the organizational efforts can be significant and not all teachers are willing to put in this extra work.

While field trips can be quite educational, they can also be quite stressful .

There is often only a limited amount of time for certain activities and in order to make sure that every student will be back home in time, the timeframes are often rather strict.

In turn, this can lead to serious levels of stress, not only for students but also for teachers.

Depending on the destination and the activity of your field trip, it can also be physically demanding.

For instance, if you go on a hike which takes several hours, chances are that some students will not make it and you may have to end the trip sooner than planned.

It should be obvious that the time that is used for field trips can not be used for other learning activities.

Thus, if the learning effect of those excursions is rather limited, students may be better off by just being educated in a conventional manner.

Top 10 Field Trip Pros & Cons – Summary List

Do school excursions make sense.

As we have seen before, it can indeed make a lot of sense to organize school trips.

However, there are also many issues related to those trips and you as a teacher should make sure to solve all the problems of field trips in order to avoid any unpleasant surprises later on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_trip

https://www.schoolnews.co.nz/2019/07/what-makes-an-excursion-more-than-just-a-field-trip/

https://juliantours.com/how-to-prepare-for-a-school-trip/

About the author

My name is Andreas and my mission is to educate people of all ages about our environmental problems and how everyone can make a contribution to mitigate these issues.

As I went to university and got my Master’s degree in Economics, I did plenty of research in the field of Development Economics.

After finishing university, I traveled around the world. From this time on, I wanted to make a contribution to ensure a livable future for the next generations in every part of our beautiful planet.

Wanna make a contribution to save our environment? Share it!

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The Hardest Problems for Field Trip Organizers – And How to Solve Them

We’ve been asking field trip organizers a simple question over the past year: What is the hardest part of planning a school trip?

The responses have been interesting. While the teachers, youth group directors and administrators could write anything they want, the replies have broken down into seven major categories. They are funding, planning the trip, educational aspects, time management, engaging students, transportation, and weather. Here’s how their responses break down:

In this post, we wanted to go a step further and talk about the solutions to the four biggest problems. In each category below, we’ve included specific examples from organizers and our thoughts on the best ways to handle the problems.

With more than 35 years’ experience in the business, we’ve seen just about every way a school tour can become tricky. Fortunately, we’ve found many handy solutions, as well.

Problem 1: Funding

What Trip Organizers Say:

• “I need to make the trip affordable for all ranges of income.”
• “It’s difficult to raise funds for transportation and lodging.”

Just about every school or youth group has experience with fundraising. We could write about door-to-door sales, help from the PTA, social media and crowdfunding campaigns and more, but we’re guessing you know plenty about those methods already.

(And Googling “ how to raise funds for a field trip ” isn’t too hard, anyway.)

But what you might not know is that, in some cases, Title 1 schools are eligible for funding assistance for transportation and other expenses. This is especially true if the tour is curriculum-based and it can be demonstrated that the field trip will help students on state-mandated standards of learning exams.

There are other grants available, as well – for instance, the Civil War Trust has a field trip fund . It  “provides funding and assistance to K-12 teachers who are planning field trips to Civil War, War of 1812, or Revolutionary War battlefields or related historic sites.”

To qualify, teachers must apply online and include the date of their trip. There’s a “rolling admissions” policy, and the Fund grants $250 to $1,500 to groups that qualify.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that if the school is using a professional student tour company, the company may have the ability and resources to provide extra complimentary trips for deserving students. It’s worth asking.

Problem 2: Planning the Trip

• “How do I coordinate hotels, chaperones and scheduling the tour to get the most out of our visit?”
• “It is extremely difficult to find a place for 100 or more students to eat their bag lunches.”

They say there’s no substitute for experience, and when it comes to planning trips to busy cities, with multiple stops and large groups, that’s definitely true.

So the best solution to this problem is talking to someone who knows a lot about your destination. It may seem self-serving, but a good place to start is a student tour company — preferably one that has years of experience and belongs to an organization like the National Tour Association .

Reputable student tour companies also use local, professional tour guides on all trips, and professional tour managers on all overnight tours. These travel professionals handle logistics and make for smooth hotel check-ins, attraction visits, etc.

(If you go with a tour company, you also may want to read this post: 5 Crucial Questions to Ask a Tour Operator When Planning a Student Trip .)

We understand, however, that some teachers want to plan the trip themselves. For those who do and face a planning problem, the next best solution is to talk to others who know your destination well.

Are there other teachers at your school or in your school district who have taken groups there? Can you network online to find educators with experience? (You may be familiar with the #sschat community of social studies educators, which started on Twitter but also has a website and a Facebook page .)

Problem 3: The Educational Aspects of a Field Trip

• “I need to make sure that the places we visit are related to the state’s standards of learning.”
• “How do I encourage students to stay focused and create a learning experience rather than just a fun time out with friends?”

For most trips, making sure the tour relates to state requirements is not too difficult. Well-known destinations and attractions in cities like Washington, Philadelphia and Williamsburg are often recognized by state departments of education as relating closely to the standards of learning.

Obviously, one would expect that a class studying the founding of the nation would benefit from visiting the National Archives in D.C. or the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. But there are often other attractions that relate to curriculum and fly a little under the radar.

For instance, the Newseum in Washington, D.C. brings history to life through print, broadcast and interactive media. (Although it’s worth noting that, as of February 2018, there could be changes afoot at the Newseum .)

Balancing learning and fun can be harder on a trip. Again, experience can make a huge difference in finding attractions that walk this line best.

Trip organizers with this concern should look for attractions that approach history from a different angle. For instance, the National Museum of African American History and Culture has a wing devoted to sports . The sports fans in your group will have fun and still learn in this section of the museum.

Do-it-yourself trip organizers also can find help from sites like TripAdvisor or Yelp by looking for reviews from parents and others who travel with children. We’d suggest you read many reviews before making a decision, and read them skeptically. It’s not as good as counsel from a longtime tour operator, but taking the time to do thorough research online can improve your trip.

Problem 4: Time Management

• “We need to make sure everyone on this tour complies with the schedule — how?”
• “How do we choose the best places to focus our attention since we have a limited time span?”

We’ve learned a few tricks over the years that make a trip run more smoothly. We’re happy to share a couple.

For instance, we always build in extra time busing city-to-city and neighborhood-to-neighborhood, as transportation always takes a bit longer than one would think.

And we’ll add an extra 30 minutes to the itinerary for check-in at the hotel — it always takes longer than you think.

The NEA has a smart article on running a successful field trip , and the three words that jump out to us are “Plan, Plan, Plan.”

If a trip organizer does that, time management (and the other three common problems we’ve written about) will become much easier to handle.

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Student Field Trip Problems and Solutions

Two student travel experts reveal some of the newer travel issues and what they do to sidestep them

By Lisa Shames

When it comes to traveling — and really a lot of other things in life — Murphy’s law gets it right. “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong,” as the adage goes, is something all explorers can relate to. From smallish snafus like lost luggage and missed flights to major ones (medical emergency, anyone?) and everything in between, the roads less traveled are full of potential potholes (literally, if you’re traveling by car or bus).

And when it comes to student travel the potential for problems goes up in direct relation to the number of students on the trip. To get some insight into not only some of the newer pitfalls to be aware of but also what can be done to prevent them, we spoke with two expert student tour planners: Michael Embrey, National Festival Director of FunME Events , and Keith Snode, COO of Kaleidoscope Adventures .

Cell phones and student field trips

For Snode, one of the more recent challenges he’s experienced on student trips has technology to blame. “It used to be when you traveled, you never heard from the parents you left at home,” he says. “Now that’s not the case because everybody has cell phones.”

  Case in point: a parent who called the tour’s group leader when they got a message from their daughter that she was out of toilet paper in her hotel room. 

“For us, it’s a mix of the trip directors getting calls from parents or parents reaching out to the travel company and asking about a situation,” says Snode. “It has created a new dynamic of communication between group leaders and travel companies in terms of having to handle those types of requests.”

Part of the solution to this problem has involved creating a higher level of communication with his staff and group leaders. “You never want to respond to anything from anybody in a group without the group leader knowing about it,” says Snode. “It’s helping everybody understand what their role is in the group travel experience — and that now includes the parent at home too.”

The advent of cell phones, however, isn’t the only culprit in this conundrum, especially when it comes to parent chaperones. “There’s been an increase of parents on trips who are becoming more vocal what they think about things,” says Snode, who looks at this as a societal shift. “Post-Covid, parents have become more aware of their child’s every move and mood.”

One of the best preventative measures for parent chaperone issues is setting clear expectations before the trip begins. “As a chaperone, you are responsible for all the students that I assign to you and not just yours,” says Snode. “It’s creating that expectation up front that, ‘Hey, while you are with me, I’m in charge and your student is no different from the others I am responsible for.’”

Setting student travel expectations

Another aspect of constant communication and setting expectations also comes into play when something does go wrong. Snode recalls a group trip last year when the flight got cancelled. His on-call team got to work, but by the time they got an update, part of the group had fractured off and took a van on their own and another part of the group took a car. Because of that it took a year to settle a claim that normally would have taken a month.

“It’s important to make sure the group, whether at home or in front of you at the airport, understands that everybody individually reaching out to try and solve the problem isn’t helping but hurting,” says Snode. “We have hired a travel provider that is there to help us fix these problems and you have to let that process work.”

And it’s not just the parents who need clarity. “When I was teaching, I used to have long conversation with my students a week before the trip explaining to them how they’re not just representing themselves, but their school and community too,” says Snode. “Because of Covid, there are a lot of new teachers right now who need to understand that that conversation is critical for students.”

Dealing with student travel fee increases

For Embrey, many of his student trips revolve around music performances, which can create issues all their own. Having a constant awareness of fee increases – a general problem and not limited to student travel — is one area Embrey has had to address more these days.

“You could take a saxophone, a clarinet and flute on an airplane as a carry-on, but when you start getting to tubas and cellos that’s more of an additional fee,” he says. “Now, you’ve just added probably another 200 dollars onto the event price just to cover the shipment of equipment.”

And that’s not just limited to air travel. “Domestically, when you’re doing bus trips, the same thing happens, and you have to make sure you have the right space underneath the motorcoach.”

One way Embrey combats the inevitable fee increases is by booking student trips to cities that typically have flown under the radar and offer lower rates all around. “These secondary cities provide great opportunities, be it Cleveland, Nashville, St. Louis, Branson, Kansas City or Denver,” he says. “Exposing these music directors to other cities has been a challenge for our company, but when they are, they see it as an educational opportunity.”

Learning what — and what not — to pack for a student field trip is crucial.

Student travel packing tips

When it comes to space limitations, it’s not just about the musical instruments. “Many teachers don’t how to tell kids how to pack ,” says Embrey. “They don’t need to take 16 pairs of shoes. No swimming pool? Don’t take a swimsuit.”

Embrey and his team offer guidelines and rules on what to take and — more importantly — what not to take. For example, they advise not to bring a large bottle of shampoo or conditioner but rather just enough for their trip. Or perhaps not even bring it at all as many hotels offer that. Additionally, many of his student tour groups put three to four kids in a room. The roommates know ahead of time who they will be sharing their room with and can coordinate on items such as curling irons and hairdryers so not to duplicate.

Weather also plays a role in what students should include in their suitcases. “We always check the weather patterns and rain predictions, especially if they are doing an outdoor concert,” says Embrey.

Passports, or the lack thereof, is another concern for Embrey, who’s had to do some last-minute scrambling in the past for students who didn’t have one — or even for those who did. “If your passport doesn’t have at least 6 months longevity often you cannot travel,” says Embrey. “The agents are very firm with that.” To avoid airport snafus, Embrey requires the organization to provide photocopies of everyone’s passports for international travel ahead of time.

Food is another area that has seen changes over the years. “Years ago, we never had vegan, vegetarians or food allergies,” he says. “Now that has to be part of our booking profile.”

Recent changes in hotel policies and services, such as reductions in cleaning services, have also played a role in how Embrey and his team lead their tours. To avoid any issues, Embrey assigns one person to be the room captain. Their responsibilities include gathering all the room keys, making sure no items, such as towels, are taken, and ensuring the rooms are straightened up on a daily basis. “These are all life lessons for when they are adults traveling,” he says.

And when those inevitable problems do happen, Embrey has an answer for that too. “We have a 24/7 hotline so if they have a problem they can call or Skype with the person responsible for that tour.”

For more student planning tips, visit here and be sure to subscribe for FREE to Student Travel Planning Guide for all the latest information to help plan your next student trip.

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How to Have a Safe, Fun, and Successful Field Trip

When You Leave the Classroom, There's a Whole New Set of Rules

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New teachers might naively think that field trips are easier and more fun than a typical day in the classroom. But throw in crises like a lost group of children or wasp stings, and field trips can go from fun to frantic in no time.

But if you adjust your expectations you can come up with a new, more practical way to approach field trips and minimize the chances of drama and mayhem.

Tips for a Successful Field Trip

Follow these field trip tips and you'll likely create fun learning adventures for your students:

• Explicitly discuss field trip behavior rules with your students beforehand. Teach, model, and review appropriate field trip behavior with your students for at least a week before the big event. Drill into their heads that field trips are not the time or place to mess around and that any aberrant behavior will result in non-participation in any future field trips that school year. Sound serious and back it up with consequences as needed. It's good to have your students scared of testing the boundaries on field trips. Emphasize that they are representing our school's reputation when they are off-campus and that we want to present our best behavior to the outside world. Make it a point of pride and reward them afterward for a job well done.
• Give your students a learning task ahead of time. Your students should show up for the field trip with a base of knowledge on the subject at hand, as well as questions to answer before returning to the classroom. Spend some time in the weeks before the field trip discussing the subject matter. Review a list of questions they will be looking to answer during the field trip. This will keep them informed, engaged, and focused on learning all day long.
• Choose parent chaperones wisely. Field trips require as many adult eyes and ears as you can get, but unfortunately, you can't be everywhere at once. From the first day of school, observe the parents of your students closely, looking for signs of responsibility, firmness, and maturity. A lax or careless parent can be your worst nightmare on a field trip, so choose your parental allies wisely. That way, you'll reap the benefits of having adult partners in the field trip process.
• Make sure you have all the necessary medications. Talk to the school nurse and procure any and all medications that your students usually take during the day. While on the field trip, make sure you administer the medications accordingly. If you have students will allergies, you may need to get trained on how to use an EpiPen. If so, the student involved will need to stay with you at all times.
• Arrive at school early on field trip day. The students will be excited and antsy, ready to go. You'll want to greet the chaperones and give them instructions for the day. It takes some time to organize the sack lunches and ensure that everyone has what they need for the day. And one last pep talk on appropriate behavior never hurt anybody.
• Give your chaperones the tools they need to succeed. Make nametags for all chaperones and students. Create a "cheat sheet" of the day's itinerary, special rules, your cell phone number, and the names of all kids in each chaperone's group; distribute these sheets to each adult on the field trip. Procure and label grocery bags that each chaperone can use to carry the group's sack lunches. Consider getting a little thank-you gift for each chaperone, or treat them to lunch that day.
• Be proactive with regards to challenging students. If you have a student who causes trouble regularly in the classroom , it's safe to assume he or she will cause at least five times more trouble in public. If possible, ask his or her parent to be a chaperone. That will usually limit any potential problems. Also, when you are making groups, split any problem pairs into separate groups. This is a good policy for troublemakers, chatty kids, or bickering frenemies. And it's probably best to keep the most challenging students in your own group, rather than pawning them off on an unsuspecting parent chaperone.
• Count all day. As the teacher, you will likely spend most of your day counting heads and making sure everyone is accounted for. Obviously, the worst thing that can occur on a field trip is losing a student. So count accurately and often. Enlist the help of chaperones in this task, but do it yourself too, for your own peace of mind. Keeping track of each and every student is the number one priority of field trip day.
• Do a "debriefing" when you return to the classroom. If you have a few extra minutes after the field trip and before dismissal from school, put on some soothing classical music and have the students draw about what they saw and learned that day. It gives them a chance to decompress and review what they experienced. The next day, it's a good idea to do a more active and in-depth review of the field trip material, extending the learning further and connecting it to what you're working on in the classroom.
• Write thank-you notes after the field trip. Lead a class language arts lesson the day after your field trip, formally thanking the people who hosted your group. This serves as an etiquette lesson for your students and helps form your school's good reputation at the field trip destination. In future years, this goodwill could translate into prime perks for your school.

With proper planning and a positive attitude, field trips can be unique ways to explore the outside world with your students. Stay flexible and always have a Plan B, and you should do just fine.

• Field Trips: Pros and Cons
• 10 Ways to Make Learning Fun for Students
• 10 Ways to Keep Your Class Interesting
• 5 Fun Field Trip Ideas for Elementary School
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• Last Day of School Activities
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TERRATRIBES, THE TRIBES TO FIND YOUR TRUE SELF!

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Field Trips: Pros and Cons

Off-campus excursions can enhance learning, but they pose challenges

Edited by  Melissa Kelly photos by Terratribes

Are  field trips  worth all the time and effort required to make them successful? Most teachers have asked themselves this question at one time or another, typically when feeling overwhelmed as they prepare for a field trip. The truth is that field trips at any grade level can cause quite a few headaches for teachers. At the same time, well-planned field trips can provide students with truly educational experiences they cannot get in the confines of the classroom. Following is a look at the pros and cons of field trips.

Benefits of Field Trips

Field trips provide students with new opportunities for learning through experience:

• Information is presented to students in a way that meets different learning modalities. Field trips provide students with the ability to learn by doing instead of just passively listening to the information being taught in class.
• Students are exposed to new experiences that, hopefully, broaden their horizons. This can be especially helpful for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who may not have been exposed to these opportunities before.
• Concepts that have already been learned in the classroom can be reinforced. Sometimes seeing information being taught in a new way can make a big difference in student comprehension. There is quite a difference between being taught about something like  hurricanes  and  wind speed  and experiencing them in an exhibit at a science museum.
• Students are provided with shared reference points that teachers can then refer to and use in future lessons. There may be an opportunity to have two or more disciplines use a field trip as an enrichment activity. For example, a trip to an art museum (art) may couple with a timeline for social studies (political systems in place when art was created) or math (measurements) can combine with science in a biosystem (river, beach, and meadow). In this manner, several teachers can then refer to things that students saw and experienced during the field trip for the remainder of the school year.
• Students and teachers can see each other in a different light, helping to increase communication between them. Some students who might be overlooked in class because they are quiet might really come alive on field trips.
• If parents are involved as chaperones, they can feel more connected to the teacher and the lessons being taught. They can get to know the teacher better and understand what teachers deal with daily.
• Standards in  social studies  and  science  require students to have experiences related to concepts in the discipline. In social studies, students are required to take informed action. In science, students need to be exposed to a series of concepts to help them to better understand the world around them. Field trips help teachers meet these objectives.

Problems With Field Trips

Teachers face a number of concerns and challenges when designing field trips that they need to recognize and address before planning a field trip.

• Field trips take preparation if teachers want to make them meaningful. They have to coordinate locations and transportation. They also need to create an effective lesson plan that they will follow when on the excursion.
• Students will be out of the school building for a field trip, which means they will miss other classes—at least in middle and high school. If each core subject area (ELA, math science, or social studies) offers one field trip during a school year, students would be out of the building for four days. School attendance policies may count these as excused absences, but any field trip that removes students from class reduces the number of classroom hours.
• Field trips can be expensive, and some students may not have the funds to attend. Organizers of the field trip may consider asking for parents to add a few dollars to help students in need. School boosters may need to host a fundraiser for students to raise money for more expensive trips.
• Teachers have to organize the collection of money and the assigning of chaperones. Teachers need to spend some time creating student groups that work for all students and ensuring that chaperones are assigned accordingly.
• Teachers will likely have to deal with red tape as they plan field trips including permission slips, medical information, and emergency procedures. Schools typically require paperwork from teachers and their students.
• Students will be placed in a larger environment than the classroom. New surroundings could possibly lead to additional discipline problems. Because teachers typically only lead a small group (such as 30 to 40 students), they may not be able to maintain control over the behavior of every student on the field trip, especially if the group is large. Teachers should go over rules and expectations before the field trip, enforce the rules strictly while away from school grounds, and create effective consequences for misbehavior.
• The field trip destination might not live up to the teacher's expectations. The location might not be as interesting as the teacher thought it would be. The time to complete the field trip might be considerably less than was expected. Therefore, it is a good idea to have some contingency plan in mind just in case.
• There may be students who, for one reason or another, will not attend the field trip. Teachers must leave lessons, usually enrichment offerings, that mirror some of the concepts being experienced on the field trip.

Requesting Feedback

One of the best ways to measure the success of a field trip (other than returning all students back to the school) is to ask for feedback. Teachers can post a survey for participants and for other chaperones asking them to express how they would evaluate the trip.

Students should have the opportunity to reflect on the trip and write a response in a journal or essay. Requiring  journal responses  after the trip can solidify the information learned as students reflect on their new experiences. Asking students to write a thank you to the school principal for allowing the trip may even smooth the path to additional field trips.

Many teachers feel that well-chosen field trip destinations are worth the difficulties they may create. The key is taking the time to plan each aspect as much as possible. Teachers should be proactive when thinking about and planning field trips. Students, on the other hand, may remember the experience of the school field trip as a highlight of the school year, and the time they learned more than anything taught in class.

The Miraculous Comeback of the Field Trip

What we can learn from a group of third graders on their first school outing since the start of the pandemic

This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic , Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here.

You could hear them getting antsy through the bus windows. “I want to see a meerkat!” “Finally, I get to feel my feet!” And a deeper voice, just as emphatic: “SIT! DOWN!” It was a little after 10 a.m. on May 6 when three busloads of third graders poured out into the heat of a dusty parking lot at Out of Africa, a wildlife park about 90 miles north of Phoenix, Arizona. As a billboard had promised us on I-17, here in the high desert scrub, next to the Yavapai County jail: Adventure awaits.

After a year of Zoom school, followed by another year of mostly in-person learning characterized by stringent masking, constant hand sanitizing, and extended absences because of COVID-19 cases and possible exposures, the Academy of Math & Science Glendale had finally taken the plunge and returned to field trips. Now some 140 third graders were milling about, awaiting their next round of instructions in the unending sequence of logistics involved in a school outing.

AMS Glendale, a charter school in a working-class suburb of Phoenix, is more than two-thirds Hispanic; many parents are immigrants. About 80 percent of the students qualify for free- or reduced-price lunch. For most of the kids, this was their first field trip since before the pandemic; for some, it was their first field trip ever; for a few, it was their very first taste of Arizona beyond the edge of Phoenix’s sprawl. The school had been building anticipation for weeks with lessons about mammals and vertebrates, and a “habitat diorama” project planned for the kids’ return. I doubted whether Out of Africa, with its chain-link fencing and lethargic rhino, was the best place to learn about habitats, but the value of an outing to break the kids’ collective cabin fever was impossible to miss.

Field trips have been on the decline in American schools since well before the pandemic, much like art and music classes, and even recess. Administrators cite the usual culprits: money, instructional time. And research about the educational value of visiting zoos and museums has been mixed—sometimes kids aren’t even aware of what teachers hope for them to learn. But another strand of scholarship broadens the lens: It may be less important to absorb the particulars of what makes an ungulate an ungulate than it is to simply lay eyes on a giraffe, and, as a result, find yourself more interested in science than you were the day before.

Read: Why the demise of the field trip is bad news

One parent-chaperone joked that the years of cancellations and postponements during the pandemic have felt more like dog years in terms of child development. He was talking about his sons’ three missed seasons of Little League, but for children this age, the pandemic lines up, roughly, with not just the years when they learn to catch and throw but also the years they learn to read and write, ride a bike, tie shoes, establish deeper friendships, and develop a sense of self outside their parents’ orbit. A field trip couldn’t compensate for the long months of learning over a bad Wi-Fi connection. But it did promise to deliver a jolt of what parents told me their kids have missed: socialization, time outdoors, and a break from the pandemic doldrums.

We’d missed the turnoff for a planned bathroom break on the drive up, and now chaperones were eyeing a bank of porta-potties nervously as the kids squirmed. When I asked if she was excited for the occasion, Miley, shuffling in her patent-leather boots and bobbing a head full of twists, couldn’t yet focus on the attraction at hand—“It’s just another day until I get to use the bathroom.” Her classmates giggled in agreement. Half the charm of a field trip is in the waiting: the bus rides, the snacks, the jumbling of the social order as a school gets transposed onto a new environment. Standing in line to get into the park, Miley and her friends tested one another on the proper pronunciation of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious . The moment when this are-we-there-yet energy transformed into full-on catharsis finally came when we boarded a park bus inside the gates for a loop of the Serengeti section, where, we were told, we’d get to feed a giraffe.

After a quick advisory on volume control, we rumbled forward, each clutching tiny sprigs of acacia leaves. Around a bend, Pilgrim came into view, towering over a fence beside the road: 23 feet of legs and neck covered in brown puzzle pieces, somehow both muscular and gangly. The row behind me let out an electric squeal, and the driver crackled over the loudspeaker, telling us to wave our acacia around outside the windows. Bracketing for a moment the question of whether a life of being hand-fed by screaming children in an enclosure on the juniper savanna is a good and humane one for a giraffe, the next 60 seconds were an ear-splitting assault of juvenile joy. The giraffe bent low and unfurled a gigantic black tongue, plucking the wisps of cool, green acacia from outstretched hands to choruses of “Oh my God!!!”

And yet I wondered whether the thrill owed more to the giraffes or to the social outlet provided by such a concentrated dose of other kids. When a squirrel crept along the fence line to see what the fracas was about, one student shouted, “The squirrel! The squirrel!” This pattern repeated itself throughout the day as we explored the park on foot—outbursts of euphoria triggered by things that seemed impossibly mundane. Yes, the kids screamed at the baby tigers splashing around a shallow pond with their handlers, but they screamed just as loudly at the sight of lizards crossing the road, a daily sight in Phoenix at this time of year. I remembered how invigorated I’d felt on the few occasions in the past year when I’d been surrounded by the freewheeling energy of a crowd—high in the stands at a WNBA game or dancing at a friend’s wedding. In this case, the crowd was one the kids saw almost every day, but schools are like airports or offices; your visits unfold on somebody else’s terms. Here, perhaps for the first time in years, they were out in force and (relatively) free to set their own agenda.

On the way up, I rode in the back seat of a Chevy Suburban as the fifth wheel to a group of chaperones—three mothers and an aunt—who pulled up photos from the school-bus convoy that teachers had uploaded in real time on an app called ClassDojo. Dalia Garcia said that her daughter Elena had woken up at 5 a.m.: “Today is the excursión !” Ana Laura Santiago and Katia Duran, sisters with daughters born a day apart, said that their children had been talking about it all week. Santiago adopted the tone of a child paraphrasing Very Serious Orders from her teacher. “I have to finish my homework, because if I don’t, I won’t be able to go on my field trip.”

Gauging exactly what we’ve asked kids to give up throughout the pandemic is hard. Fully grasping COVID-19’s impact on school learning and child care—to say nothing of the illnesses and deaths of millions—will take decades. But the lessons we take from childhood experiences can veer sharply from what adults might expect. My informal poll of students crowned Zoom school a clear winner over in-person classes, for reasons only third graders would think of: “You can’t get sent to the office”; “You can sneak onto YouTube”; “You can turn off your camera to go … ”—here, my respondent mimed the bliss of nodding off in class. It’s possible that they were serious. For an 8-year-old, the sacrifices and disruptions of the pandemic have now colored more than a quarter of their life, and perhaps as much as half of the time that they actually remember.

Even parents who professed relief at the strong return-to-normal energy of an all-day field trip acknowledged that it required some adjustment from them too. During the past school year, Alyssa Gastelum told me that she had felt mounting anxiety over the fact that her daughter, Melyssa, an only child living with her mom and grandparents, was “only around adults.” But she got emotional when she heard that the field trip would take Melyssa an hour and a half from home. “It was excitement, and then a little bit of fear,” she said. “I wasn’t comfortable with her being so far away.” Chaperoning was, for her, a kind of trip back to the realm of parenting in normal circumstances, a chance to get used to seeing Melyssa venture farther afield.

Maria González had left Yuma, a farming town on the Mexican border, at 4 a.m. to meet her granddaughter on the field trip, and at the end of the day she waited in the shade of a juniper tree until she was sure her nieta was safely back on the school bus. “This is very good to restore the confidence of the kids,” González said, keeping her eyes on the idling bus. “They finally feel a bit free—running around, not wearing a mask. Kids will pick up on the confidence we project.” Her own children had lost patience with COVID-19 precautions, but she still wore a mask, and her nieta did too, at least when she was hanging out with grandma. Today, though, it felt good to put the pandemic out of mind.

17 Tips to Survive School Field Trips

Field trips are a blast! And field trips are also a lot of work! They can be exhausting, but they are always worth the effort!

To make your field trip planning a bit smoother, I am going to offer these 17 tips that I have accumulated after many years of teaching and many years as a principal. And also lots of experiences taking field trips with all age groups from K-6th grade.

If you are new to teaching, you may also want to read my article that I wrote that has tips for new teachers. You can read it here.

12 Reliable Survival Tips for First-Year Teachers

Here is the list of 17 field trip tips for your quick reference. Below that I will discuss each one – through the lens of an experienced teacher and a concerned administrator.

17 field trip tips for you

• Wear comfortable clothes and shoes!
• Assign each student a partner (someone they like).
• Number your partner groups and practice to be sure each pair knows their number.
• Keep all the students with you.
• Take along a mini-first aid kit.
• Keep all lunches in two boxes (with handles) on the front seats of the bus.
• Don’t allow eating or drinking on the bus.
• Don’t allow young students to bring money or cell phones.
• Make students go to the restroom with their partners.
• It’s a good idea to make the trip be about learning.
• Review all the rules the day before the trip.
• Only take a certain number of parent helpers.
• Ride the bus with your students.
• Take all students’ contact information with you in a small notebook.
• It is best to go with another class in your grade level.
• Don’t plan anything after work that day.

Details on the 17 tips for field trips

Here you go…..

1. Wear Comfortable clothes and shoes.

I know this sounds like a no brainer, but I just feel I need to remind you. Don’t make this the day you wear your new hiking boots.

Don’t buy new tennis shoes for today unless you spend at least two days wearing them to break them in. I speak from experience because I did that once and ended up with blisters.

2.  Assign each student a partner (someone they like).

There are numerous reasons for assigning partners. The first is that it makes the day nicer for many of them. Your bus seating is already worked out by doing this.

If they are very young they m igh be three to a seat and then you have some partner group sit front and back for the ride there. I’ll discuss two other reasons coming up.

3. Number your partner groups and practice to be sure each pair knows their number.

This is my favorite tip. Make them stand together and hold hands with their partner that they then hold up in the air (yes, even sixth graders); probably not middle schoolers.

Then you only have to count to 12 or 15 for your quick scan to be sure you have everyone. Say “one” and the pair says “here” or some other cute word. Then, “two” and on until you have them all.

With young students begin practicing this two days before the field trip. After a few tries, they will get pretty good at it. You can think of a catchy phrase like “Buddy Up.”

4. Keep all the students with you!

I know right away that some of you will disagree with me on this one. But take a minute to read why I say this.

First and foremost, you are the one responsible for the students. You cannot give away this responsibility. If something happens to a child and they were not with you when it happened. Yikes. You don’t even want to think about that possibility.

I know that you take parent volunteers with you and you are tempted to assign four children to a parent and allow them to go off on their own.

DON’T DO IT!!!

It’s fine to assign each parent a couple of students to watch over, BUT keep the whole group with you! That way, you can deal with any issues that come up, any arguments between students, a skinned knee. Whatever the issue, you are there!

Here is a REAL incident that happened when I was an Assistant Principal.

There were some classes on a trip to the zoo. Since these were Kindergarten students, we had them wear a tag with the name of the school and the office phone number on it (that’s a good tip too).

I got a call from the zoo security office telling me that one of our students was in his office because he got separated from the group.

He said that a nice couple saw him and brought him to security. I asked him if he had contacted the teacher and he said no he didn’t know where in the park she was. I took down his phone number and said I would contact her and get right back to him.

Now here is the “TROUBLING” part of the story.

When I called the teacher’s cell phone, and asked her if she knew where Jose was, she said NO? She said that he was assigned to a parent to watch. I told her he had gotten lost and that he is currently at the security office and she must go there immediately to get him.

Then, I had to phone the district office to notify them that this had happened and I had to phone the parents to tell them about it also.

Do you now see how the ramifications of what you do can involve many other people? I didn’t want to have to explain to parents that their child had been lost for a few minutes (but is fine now).

So, keep those kiddos with you!

5. Take along a mini-first aid kit.

If your school does not have a mini-first aid kit for field trips already made for you, I suggest you make your own. You only need a few items like band-aids, gauze, tape, disinfectant wipes and ointment.

Hopefully you won’t need to use it, but when you do, you’ll be glad you have it handy.

6. Keep all lunches in two boxes (with handles) on the front seats of the bus until lunch time.

This is another lesson I learned from trying it a few different ways. One year I had each child carry their own lunch onto the bus. This ended up being a HUGE mistake!

I had some students sneakily trying to eat some of it on the way (before lunchtime). They ended up making a big mess on the bus.

Another time, I had the driver put the boxes under the bus. That was a mistake also because it gets very hot under there and some of the food was yucky afterwards.

So, the best place is inside the bus (where it’s cooler). But all together until time to pass them out for lunch.

7.  Don’t allow eating or drinking on the bus.

You can get the idea from my explanation above why you don’t want any children eating or drinking on the bus. Usually, the drivers tells the students that before leaving the school parking lot. But you really need to enforce it.

More Tips for Field Trips

8.  don’t allow young students to bring money or cell phones..

I realize that if you teach middle school or high school this rule won’t apply. But I strongly suggest this for elementary age students. One year I allowed them to bring money and I had students wanting to stand in line at the concessions stand or go into the gift shop.

Of course, you don’t want them to buy things and not the ones without any money, so either way , someone is disappointed. If you make the rule “no money allowed” you don’t even have to deal with this issue.

Of course for cell phones the main issue is the games they might play or the apps they might try to access. With older students this might be more difficult to control, so I don’t have advice for that. Sorry.

9. Make students go to the restroom with their partners.

This rule helps students stay safe from strangers. When there are two together, they can watch out for each other. I would suggest making a group of three rather than partnering a boy with a girl.

And a PRO TIP is to have them use the restroom in the morning at school before they board the bus.

10.  It’s a good idea to make the trip be about learning.

Since this is a school trip, it is always best if you can tie some learning into the trip. A zoo, museum, national park are all excellent ideas.

One year when I taught sixth grade, our town had the sheriff’s office next to the courthouse, so we took a trip to both. The sheriff gave them a tour and then in the courthouse we went into two courtrooms to observe the proceedings.

11. Review all the rules the day before the trip.

Go over the rules in detail the afternoon before the trip. With older students you can ask them why you think you have made that item a rule. It is interesting having them explain to their peers why you designated those rules.

I also suggest that you review the most important items that morning before boarding the bus.

12. Only take a certain number of parent helpers.

Over the years, I found that more parent helpers was not actually better. With older students I took between one – three. For primary grades I tried to take four – five.

Of course, the choice is yours to make. But I found that when you take extra some of them actually slack off and don’t really help.

Also, you need to try to find ones whose children will not cling to them all day. You want the students to enjoy their classmates and the venue instead of clinging to their mom the whole trip.

Of course, I realize there may be certain circumstances where a parent may be going specifically to be with their child (for example Special Education or behavior issues). And then that makes it allowable for them to help their child.

13. Ride the bus with your students.

You need to be on the field trip bus to supervise your students. This is so that you can supervise their behavior. Make them behave on the bus in the same way you make them behave in the classroom. Don’t assume the driver will discipline them, he/she is driving. You need to supervise.

Sometimes when an entire grade level goes somewhere together some of your students may have to ride the other bus. If this happens, make sure you write the names of those students down and give the paper to one of the teachers on that bus and “make then in charge” of your students for the bus trip over.

14. Take all the students’ contact information with you in a small notebook.

You need to have the names and addresses of your students’ parents along with a contact phone number. Its best to have both a work number and their cell phone number.

Also, if any child has an allergy, document that in the notebook. And if there are special concerns about that child, note it in the notebook. It’s best to have it handy and not need it than to be wishing later that you had it.

15. It is best to go with another class in your grade level (if possible).

There is always more safety with two teachers than with going by yourself. When I was a principal, a student passed out on the field trip and was taken in an ambulance.

Since the classes were together, the child’s teacher was able to go with her to the hospital while the other teacher assumed responsibility for both remaining classes (with the parent helpers there also).

The likelihood of this happening is slim, but as you can see from the incident I described above, it does periodically happen.

16. Don’t plan anything that day after work.

When you get home after field trips you will be EXHAUSTED! If not physically exhausted (which I always was), at least you will be mentally exhausted. You don’t want to have to go anywhere except a comfy place to take a nap and/or just chill out.

17. Have fun!

ENJOY your field trips as much as you can while staying diligent about student safety and behavior. As an added bonus, on the bus ride home, at least a fourth of the students will fall asleep (especially the young ones – maybe even more of them).

If you found these tips helpful, you might also be interested in my list of 101 Teacher Tips. You can download it for FREE by filling out this form below.

Until Next Time,

Your Teacher Buddy

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The five things that can go wrong on a field trip (and always do)

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Field Trip Safety 101: Tips to Keep Kids Safe

Apple-picking, aquariums, and museums, oh my!

These are just a few of the many field trips that some students are fortunate enough to go on.

Designed to be enriching and educational, field trips offer students  many benefits  and unique opportunities. They can also pose potential dangers and risks.

From bus crashes and negligent security to trips and falls, accidents happen. Once students exit the building or campus, who’s liable for their injuries?

Here we’ll cover field trip safety to help prevent these incidents and offer helpful information to protect both you and your students when the unexpected happens.

Most Common Field Trip Accidents and Injuries

Knowledge is power when it comes to preventing school trip accidents and injuries.

Understanding where danger lies can help ensure personal safety and keep students safe.

Bus Accidents

In 2019 alone, 109 people were killed in  school bus-related accidents . Another 13,000 people were injured.

While these statistics include both bus passengers and other motorists, the potential for accidents is still present.

Motor vehicle accidents, in general, can be a cause of death among young adults. While you can’t prevent every accident or control the negligence of other drivers, you can protect students by doing your due diligence.

Bus accidents can be caused by drowsy, distracted, or intoxicated drivers. Be sure to perform adequate background checks on all drivers transporting students.

Dangerous Environments

Depending on where the field trip is held, there can be many dangers on-premises.

Sports games, hiking trails, and amusement parks all carry a certain level of risk for students. Even seemingly innocent environments like museums and theaters can still pose danger.

Students may be  at risk of falling from high areas, having objects fall on them, or tripping. Preventing these types of accidents comes with a certain level of personal responsibility, but adult chaperones should be on the lookout for all potential hazards.

Insufficient Security Measures

Most public establishments that welcome field trips offer a certain level of security on site.

Whether it’s a security guard, camera system, or bag checks at the door, all of these measures help protect students against outside dangers.

In addition to monitoring the safety of students, lack of security equipment and barriers can create potential threats. Missing or inadequate barriers and warning signs, as well as damaged equipment, put unsuspecting students at risk.

Field Trip Accident Prevention 

Accidents happen — and although you can’t prevent them, you can take preventative measures to reduce risk and protect student safety and your best interests.

Appoint Qualified Staff

Not just any chaperone will do. Allocate experienced, knowledgeable staff members based on the type of field trip.

For example, if the trip involves swimming, only send staff members who are confident swimmers or have previous lifeguard training. Outdoor enthusiasts might be the perfect choice for a hiking or camping field trip.

The same goes for hired staff. If students are transported by bus, perform a detailed background check on both the bus company and its drivers to ensure student safety.

Practice Bus Safety

Since a majority of field trip accidents occur en route, bus safety is a top priority.

Ensure that all students remain seated and wear their seatbelts for the entire ride. Go over safety rules and behavioral expectations.

Students that are too loud, stand up or walk around the bus while it’s in motion pose a threat to passengers. This behavior also distracts the driver, increasing the risk of an accident.

Get to Know the Area

Whether students are going to a museum, park, or outdoor area, all chaperones, staff, and students should familiarize themselves with the environment and posted safety guidelines.

Avoid restricted or unsafe areas. Make sure students stay together and each group has an appointed chaperone.

Alert teachers, supervisors, and students of any potential dangers and safety hazards.

When Accidents Happen, Who’s to Blame? 

There’s no cut and dry answer to who’s at fault for an accident or injury during a field trip. Several factors come into play including whether or not the event was truly an accident or caused by negligence on the part of the teachers or school district.

Most school districts have measures in place that help protect students even when they’re taken off-campus as part of a school trip.

Things like signed permission slips, clearly defined rules, and precautionary measures help ensure the safety of students and protect school districts from being sued.

Before a decision about who’s at fault is made, several factors must be considered. These include, but aren’t limited to:

• Did the supervisor take appropriate action to protect the children?
• Did the danger or accident directly result in the student’s injury?
• Was the student actually injured and if so, how extensively?
• Was lack of supervision a factor?

With so many underlying questions and concerns, every field trip accident and injury should be handled differently.

In the event of an accident, be sure to remain calm. This will help keep the student calm and comfortable.

Administer appropriate first-aid or call someone who can. Notify the parents as soon as possible and wait for a full investigation before admitting blame or taking responsibility for the incident.

The beauty of our insurance is that regardless of what happened, out-of-pocket medical expenses are covered. Now, you can worry less about legalities and costs and focus more on student safety and wellbeing.

Reasons to Purchase Accident and Health Insurance 

Purchasing  accident and health insurance is another preventative measure you can take to help protect not only your school but your students.

In the event that a student is seriously injured during a field trip, your insurance can pay to make them whole again.

A willingness to pay and make the student whole again is a sign of good faith and could prevent an unwanted lawsuit. Preventing lawsuits and having proper coverage in place is another way to help protect your reputation. It also shows both students and parents that you’re invested in their safety and wellbeing.

General liability coverage with a competitive supplemental option will cover most costs associated with student injuries, both on- and off-campus.

Give Students the Safe, Positive Experience They Deserve

A field trip offers both students and teachers a rare opportunity to learn, grow, and experience outside the four walls of the classroom.

These hands-on encounters will leave a lasting impression on students.

Unfortunately, an  accident or injury can do the same.

Help prevent these incidents by being aware of your surroundings, educating students on personal safety, and offering compensation when appropriate.

At pomi, we offer peace of mind insurance so that you can focus on what matters — the students!

Get the coverage you need to provide a safe, enriching environment with confidence.

These posts are for informational purposes only and should not be considered as specific financial, legal or tax advice. Depending on your individual circumstances, the strategies discussed in this post may not be appropriate for your situation. Always consult your legal or tax professionals for specific information regarding your individual situation. In providing such information, Great American does not warrant that all potential hazards or conditions have been evaluated or can be controlled. The liability of Great American Insurance Company is limited to the terms, limits and conditions of the insurance policies underwritten.   © 2024 Great American Insurance Company. All Rights Reserved. Great American Insurance Group’s member companies are subsidiaries of American Financial Group, Inc. (AFG). AFG is a holding company whose common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Policies are underwritten by Great American Insurance Company, an authorized insurer in all 50 states and the DC. Please see Great American Insurance Company’s Legal Disclosures/Terms and Conditions here.   https://www.greatamericaninsurancegroup.com/contact/legal-disclosures

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Kids With Disabilities Have a Right to Outdoor Field Trips

But all too often, they miss out.

By Allison Torres Burtka

November 30, 2019

Photo by  LaserLens /iStock

The benefits kids reap from nature are well documented, which is part of the reason school field trips often involve excursions into the Great Outdoors. Children with disabilities, however, sometimes get left behind. 

Ryan Neighbors is a Kentucky 10-year-old with spina bifida who uses a wheelchair. She didn’t want to miss out on her class field trip to a state park, but the terrain was going to make it difficult for her to participate. So a teacher volunteered to carry her, and that story went viral—all the way to the Today show , on which Ryan, her mother, and the teacher shared their story, emphasizing the importance of inclusion and celebrating the teacher’s generosity.

But kids with disabilities should be able to join their peers on field trips, such extraordinary acts of kindness notwithstanding. 

The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act require schools to provide accommodations to students with physical or mental disabilities, so they have equal access to programs and services. In the classroom, these laws, along with the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), might mean that a one-on-one paraprofessional or a sign language interpreter be assigned to a child, for example. 

The ADA and Section 504 also extend to field trips and extracurricular activities. But sometimes, kids with disabilities are told that they can’t go on the field trip, or that a parent will need to come along.

The problem often boils down to a lack of adequate planning. This is according to Bruce Goldstein, a Buffalo, New York–based lawyer who has worked with numerous families whose children faced field trip problems. These students’ needs have varied—from a child who has diabetes and simply required access to the right kind of food in the event of low blood sugar, to a student with asthma who needed someone to administer treatment, to a deaf student who uses sign language. 

If the school says it can’t provide the necessary accommodations, sometimes a parent steps in. “Some parents feel boxed into the corner, and they end up going, just to allow their child to participate,” Goldstein says. However, “for the school or school district, it is not a reasonable accommodation to require the parent to go along. It’s something that the district has to take on as its responsibility.” 

Goldstein also points out that having the parent there on the field trip changes the dynamic for the kid.  

Ryan Neighbors had missed field trips before. Normally, she gets an educational day off, and “we’ll kind of create our own field trip,” says her mother, Shelly King. “Well, when she comes back, she is not really included in the lesson plan, because what they learn on the field trip, they work into their lesson plan at school.” 

When King found out that this field trip would involve an outing to the fossil beds at Falls of the Ohio State Park, she figured Ryan would have to miss this one as well. But ultimately, despite knowing that it would be physically challenging to carry her daughter up and down the boulders and steps the group would traverse, King decided she would use a backpack carrier to bring Ryan. That’s when a teacher at Ryan's school, Jim Freeman, heard about the situation and volunteered to carry her. 

Some areas of the park were accessible—a ramp went part of the way down to the fossil beds, King explains. So Ryan could have gone down to the end of the ramp in her wheelchair, but she would have had to stop there and watch her friends explore from afar. 

“She loved being down there in the fossil beds,” King says. “She was like, ‘I got to pick up the rocks and feel them and hold them, and I got to be really close to the fossils, and if I was up on that ramp, I wouldn’t have really been able to see the fossils.’” 

The difference between stopping at the end of the ramp and going all the way into the fossil beds is something the school may not have fully considered. It’s not that schools are trying to shirk their obligations—it may be that occasional field trips simply don’t get thought through far enough ahead of time. “The day-to-day is in the forefront,” Goldstein says, “and this sometimes kind of slips off the radar.” He adds, “If parents are aware of what their children’s rights and their rights are, and the school district’s obligation toward those children, these are issues that ought to be addressed and discussed at the planning meetings that are required to be held under law [as part of the child’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) or 504 planning meeting].”

This issue comes up frequently in the San Francisco Unified School District, says Alida Fisher, past chair of the district’s Community Advisory Committee for Special Education. “There are so many schools that do overnight experiential field trips, and our kids with differences who need extra help either get left behind, or parents come along.” 

Fisher’s son has behavioral issues that require a one-to-one para in school. But when his fifth-grade class was planning an overnight field trip for two nights at NatureBridge, a rustic recreational center in the Marin Headlands north of San Francisco, his para couldn’t go with him. Without any other alternative that would allow her son to go, Fisher and her husband “basically rearranged our lives for three days,” driving hours back and forth to trade off duties accompanying their son, and meanwhile finagling work and responsibilities for their other children.  

Alida Fisher and her son at NatureBridge in the Marin Headlands | Courtesy Alida Fisher

Two other kids on that field trip had parents come along to help manage their disabilities, Fisher notes. “That was the only way these kids could access the field trip—with parental support,” she says. “When you’ve got a kid with unique needs, you go above and beyond when you can, but unfortunately, not everyone can.” 

A parent’s inability to take time off work or other responsibilities to accompany their child shouldn’t mean the child has to stay behind.

“Field trips are still part of education,” says Nina Boyle, who works with Support for Families of Children With Disabilities , which provides families with education, support, and understanding around children’s rights. “They’re opportunities for all students to learn about and advocate for their world. They’re also social opportunities—social skills are part of what students are learning.”

Boyle’s son has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. In school, he’s always had a one-to-one para or aide who would accompany him on field trips. “We’ve been really lucky in that his teams overall have been thoughtful and planned ahead of time [to make sure his needs would be met],” she says. 

Boyle recalls a field trip to the beach when her son was little. Wheelchairs are difficult in sand, but this beach had a path that ran close to the shore, and his aide took supplies such as blankets and pillows so that they could transfer him out of his chair and onto the sand. “They did some thinking ahead of time about what they would need in order to allow him to sit on the beach with everybody else.” 

In providing adequate accommodations, cost is a concern—and overnight camping trips requiring paras clearly incur them. But Goldstein notes that the law requires the school to provide reasonable accommodations—and that one element of reasonability is cost. “But whatever the [school district’s] cost is going to be for this particular student, it’s going to pale in comparison to the annual budget, so it would be hard to argue it’s too costly.”

Fisher notes that her district’s Community Advisory Committee is working on a proposal that would set aside some funding specifically for situations like paying a para to accompany a child on a field trip. 

Schools sometimes offer an alternate activity for a child who gets excluded. But it’s important for kids with disabilities to be included, Goldstein says. “They’re already aware of being different, and as much as we can do for inclusion and normalization—in terms of developing whole individuals and allowing them to grow into adults and feel like an integral part of society—we have a responsibility to support and encourage,” he says. “The message that’s sent by exclusion is one of those things that can have just horrible, lasting effects.” 

Fisher agrees, noting that most of the kids with IEPs are usually in general education. “They sit in the classroom with their neurotypical peers for the majority of the day. To watch all your friends be able to go on this really cool experiential field trip and then come home a couple days later and be talking about it—can you imagine just how ostracizing that would be to not be able to go?” 

She adds, “Morally and ethically, inclusion is critically important. I would say it’s even more important for our kids with various disabilities to be included, because we’ve got kids who learn and think in so many different ways.”

Fisher’s son is a hands-on learner. “The way he learns is through the kind of experience the whole class got at NatureBridge,” she says. He’s now in eighth grade, and he still talks about what he learned on that fifth-grade trip. “He can still give you a whole dissertation on banana slugs, because he got to hold one—because he got to feel its slime.”

Getting out in nature is especially critical for city kids who “barely step outside of the city,” Fisher says. And they don’t have to go far to feel like “it’s a completely different world. It’s that first step for so many of our students in understanding that the world is bigger than what they see and do on a daily basis, which is the first step in building empathy, which is the first step in making us a strong and healthy community.” 

Courtesy Alida Fisher

Allison Torres Burtka is a freelance writer and editor in the metro Detroit area. 

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Creating Effective Field Trip Safety Policies

Field trips have long been an exciting part of the educational experience, offering students a break from the classroom routine and a chance to explore the world beyond their textbooks. These educational outings are also linked to improvements in students’ academic performance , social-emotional development, and long-term career prospects. Regardless of gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status, students who take part in school trips are gaining meaningful benefits.

With that being said, there are many field trip safety concerns and potential risks associated. This emphasizes the importance of well-structured policies and procedures to ensure that students and accompanying adults can enjoy their outings with peace of mind.

In this blog post, we will discuss the steps to create effective safety policies for field trips including examples of safety rules and safety checklists.

Conduct a Thorough Risk Assessment

Before you can create effective safety policies, it’s crucial to first identify potential risks and hazards associated with trips off school grounds. This process involves the examination of factors such as transportation, location, activities, potential emergencies, student abilities, and more. By pinpointing potential dangers in advance, strategies can be developed to reduce these risks.

When conducting a risk assessment, consider the following key areas:

• Transportation: Assess the safety of the various modes of transportation including buses, walking, or other means.
• Location: Evaluate the climate, terrain, accessibility, and availability of healthcare facilities in the chosen destinations. Keep in mind unexpected weather changes.
• Activities: Examine the equipment used during activities and assess the physical challenges involved. For example, consider the potential risks associated with contact with animals.
• Potential Emergencies: Identify potential emergencies such as slips, trips, falls, bus accidents, dangerous environments, or insufficient security measures.
• Student Ability: Consider the physical capabilities, medical conditions, experience, and age of the students participating in field trips.

Assess the level of risk based on the likelihood or probability of the risk occurring and the possible consequences. This will help guide and prioritize risk management efforts.

While complete elimination of risk is often impossible, school field trip safety policies should provide assurance that all reasonable care and sensible preparatory arrangements have been made to manage potential hazards.

Adapt Field Trip Safety Policy and Procedures Based on Risk Assessment

Once the risks are identified through the risk assessment, safety policies should be adapted accordingly. This means addressing each potential risk with specific measures. Some examples of risk management strategies include the following:

• Having emergency contact information readily available.
• Ensuring appropriate insurance coverage.
• Designating trip leaders and chaperones.
• Setting aside emergency funds.
• Establishing adult-to-student ratios (with lower ratios being preferable, such as one adult per 4-6 children).
• Outlining emergency procedures.
• Setting age requirements for participation.
• Maintaining first aid kits.
• Specifying dress codes.
• Keeping families informed about trip details.

Schools are obligated to carry out suitable and sufficient precautions in terms of supervision, protection, and training before, during, and after the trip.

The following sections include a more in-depth explanation of effective safety policies in the top areas related to school field trips.

Train Staff on their Responsibilities

One crucial detail in effective field trip safety policies is the training and responsibilities of staff. Teachers and staff involved in field trips should always review school policies and procedures well in advance of the excursion. Being familiar with these guidelines ensures that everyone is on the same page regarding safety protocols and expectations.

Staff training can include the following:

• CPR and First Aid certification.
• Crisis management training.
• Familiarity with emergency protocols.
• How to identify potential hazards related to the trip’s destination and activities.
• Responding appropriately in emergency situations.

It is advisable to request that volunteers obtain CPR and First Aid certification. This extra layer of preparedness can be invaluable in ensuring the safety of all participants.

Another important responsibility of school staff is effective communication:

• Administrators should communicate with staff beforehand on safety policies and protocols.
• Teachers and staff should maintain communication before, during, and after the field trip with students, families, and school administrators. Open channels of communication should be created to ensure everyone is informed and prepared.
• Teachers and chaperones should establish and communicate clear behavioral expectations and guidelines for students to follow during the trip.

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Generate Field Trip Emergency Preparedness and Response Plans

One of the cornerstones of effective safety policies for school field trips is a comprehensive emergency preparedness and response plan. This plan should be an integral part of staff training and responsibilities. Teachers and chaperones must be skilled in emergency procedures, and everyone should know their roles and responsibilities. The following includes examples of what should be included in emergency preparedness and response plans:

• Teachers and staff should carry a well-stocked first aid kit along with essential items such as bottled water, sunscreen, a working cell phone, any emergency medications students may need, a list of emergency phone numbers, and parent/guardian contact information.
• Following any medical assistance, if needed, teachers should contact the student’s parents/guardians as soon as possible to keep them informed. Documenting the incident through an accident report is also essential for maintaining records and assessing the effectiveness of the response.
• Teachers and chaperones should be made aware of the prevention of lost or missing students. Matching t-shirts or bracelets can help identify students quickly. Clear instructions should be given to students regarding where and when to meet up, emphasizing the importance of always staying with their assigned buddies. Teachers and chaperones should maintain a roster and check students against it multiple times throughout the day to ensure that no one is left behind.

Emergency preparedness, clear procedures, and prevention measures all contribute to a safer and more enjoyable trip for everyone involved.

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Medical Considerations and Consent Forms for Field Trips

Before embarking on any field trip, it’s essential to collect medical information and signed consent forms from parents/guardians. This step is not just a formality; it’s a vital component of ensuring the safety of every student. Medical information helps educators and chaperones be prepared for any unexpected situations that may arise during the trip. Including this as a safety policy will guarantee its completion.

Consent forms serve as a legal agreement between the school and parents/guardians, outlining the details of the trip and giving them peace of mind about their child’s participation. The forms should provide a comprehensive overview of the trip, including its cost, specific clothing requirements (such as sunscreen, raincoats, or closed-toe shoes), lunch details, and transportation arrangements.

For students with allergies, especially severe ones, it’s crucial to make all participants aware of these allergies so they can respond quickly in case of an emergency. Additionally, any necessary medications should be properly labeled with the student’s name, medication name, dosage, and the time it should be administered.

No child should be excluded from field trips due to their medical condition. Accommodations should be considered and made in advance.

School Field Trips Transportation Safety Measures

Transportation is often a significant aspect of school field trips, and addressing safety considerations related to it is vital. School buses are often the chosen mode of transportation for field trips due to their safety record. However, it’s crucial for everyone involved, from drivers to parents and students, to understand school bus safety.

The qualifications of the drivers operating the vehicles are critical. It should be ensured that buses or cars used for transportation are driven by trusted adults who are responsible and qualified drivers. Drivers should not only be licensed and experienced but also familiar with the specific route and the needs of the students on board. Including regular background checks and training in your safety policies can help maintain the quality and reliability of the drivers.

There should be contingency plans for transportation-related emergencies such as vehicle breakdowns or accidents. These plans should outline:

• Steps to take during a vehicle breakdown or accident.
• Communication protocols.
• Evacuation procedures.
• How to contact emergency services if necessary.
• Having a backup plan in case a vehicle breaks down.
• Plan for students with disabilities or special needs .

Furthermore, schools must ensure that an adult is present in the vehicle whenever children are on board. No child should ever be left unattended. Regular inspections of the vehicle should also be conducted after each trip to ensure no child has been inadvertently left behind.

By having these plans in place beforehand, schools can help ensure that all students reach their destination safely and securely.

Gather Post-Trip Evaluations and Feedback

Accidents can occur even with the most comprehensive safety protocols in place, and when they do, it’s essential not to assign blame but instead focus on improving the system. Post-trip evaluations provide a platform for schools and organizations to review the incident objectively, dissect the events leading up to it, and understand the root causes. By doing so, schools can avoid making the same mistakes in the future and continually refine their safety protocols. The goal is not to point fingers but to create an environment where learning from accidents leads to safer field trip experiences.

One of the most valuable aspects of post-trip evaluations is the input from those directly involved: teachers, students, and parents/guardians. Each of these stakeholders brings a unique perspective to the table.

• Teachers, who are responsible for organizing and supervising the field trip, can provide insights into logistical challenges, communication gaps, or unexpected issues that may have arisen during the trip.
• Students can share their observations about their own behavior and the behavior of their peers, helping educators and organizers understand potential risks or lapses in safety awareness.
• Parents, being concerned guardians, can offer valuable feedback from an outsider’s perspective, pinpointing areas where safety could be improved.

The importance of conducting a post-trip evaluation cannot be overstated. It’s not just about reacting to accidents; it’s about proactively seeking opportunities to enhance safety policies and procedures for future field trips. By involving all participants in this process, schools foster a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement, ensuring that each field trip is safer and more enriching for all involved.

As we’ve explored in this blog post, ensuring the safety of students, and accompanying adults during field trips must remain a top priority.

To recap the key points covered:

• We’ve highlighted the need to establish thorough safety policies and procedures for field trips. These policies should encompass all aspects of the excursion, from transportation and supervision to emergency response plans.
• We’ve stressed the significance of continuous improvement in safety protocols. The ever-evolving nature of risks and challenges means that safety policies should never remain static. Regularly reviewing and updating these protocols ensures that schools stay ahead of potential hazards and can adapt to new circumstances.

Comprehensive safety policies, diligent supervision, and adaptability are the cornerstones of a successful and secure field trip experience. By prioritizing student safety and continually refining safety protocols, educational institutions can provide students with the best of both worlds: valuable educational experiences and peace of mind for parents and educators alike.

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• Christian Mason
• March 14, 2023

How to Ensure Safety On Field Trips

Field trips offer a valuable learning experience for children, allowing them to explore, engage in fun activities and gain exposure to new experiences. The educational benefits of field trips are easy to see, but we can’t forget that children’s safety on these trips is priority number one. To help keep your next field trip as safe as possible, we’ve outlined some of the most common field trip accidents and injuries, and the top eight ways to ensure your little ones stay safe on their educational adventure!

Common Field Trip Accidents and Injuries

Slips and falls are likely the most common type of accident that can occur on a field trip. Children should always be supervised, especially when walking on uneven or slick surfaces such as wet grass or slippery steps. Keeping parents informed about the location and dress code for a field trip can help ensure that your kids are wearing appropriate shoes for wherever you’re headed. Send out a quick reminder to parents the day before via a parent engagement app or email to make sure that everyone comes prepared.

Sunburns are another common injury among children; make sure they wear sunscreen with at least SPF 15 and have them reapply it throughout the day if needed. Taking a few precautions to prevent simple, yet common field trip injuries like these only takes a few moments of work but will help ensure a safe trip for everyone involved!

Top 8 Ways to Ensure Safety on Field Trips

So you’ve got signed field trip permission slips in hand and you’re feeling ready to go, but if you want to make sure you’re truly prepared, check out these top eight ways to ensure safety on your field trip:

Make Sure You Have Signed Parental Consent

Parents should be informed of every stop, activity and detail that involves their child during a field trip. Having a signed document provides peace of mind for both you, as an organizer, and for parents who want to know that their children will be safe during an outing. A child’s attendance is ultimately their parent’s call. If they feel a certain location or activity isn’t safe for their child they may decide to pass on it.

Set Age Requirements

When planning a field trip, it’s important to consider the age appropriateness of the activity. Field trips can be an exciting way for students to learn outside of the classroom, but they should only participate in activities that are appropriate for their age group. Make sure to research any venues ahead of time and ensure all participants understand expectations before leaving. Additionally, it’s important to have adults present who can handle any issues that arise during the course of the field trip.

Fully Plan Out Transportation

It is imperative to have an organized plan for how students will get to and from the destination before embarking on a field trip. This could include arranging transportation such as buses or cars driven by trusted adults or making a backup plan in case a vehicle breaks down. By having a plan in place beforehand, you can help ensure that all of your students reach their destination safely and securely!

Keep Emergency Materials Near

Sometimes, despite preparations, accidents do happen. It’s a good idea to carry a basic first aid kit with you. Depending on the needs of the children in your care, additional supplies may be necessary.

Make Sure Your Staff Is Trained

Providing training for staff members who are leading the field trip is another great way to ensure safety. Depending on the type of field trip and its location, there could be a number of potential safety risks that need to be addressed. Staff members should receive the appropriate training on how to identify hazards, develop plans and respond appropriately in an emergency situation. If your trip will have parent volunteers, ask that they get CPR and First Aid certified for added safety.

Be Aware of Your Surroundings

If you haven’t already, take the time to educate your students about stranger danger . Keeping an eye out for suspicious activity is essential to maintaining safety on field trips. Encourage students to be aware of their surroundings and any people or vehicles that appear to be out of place. Pay attention to body language and facial expressions, as these can indicate potential danger or concern from the children in your care.

Teach your kids to use a buddy system or stay in groups to help them stay safe. Having a set meeting point if anyone gets lost during the field trip is another helpful way to make sure everyone gets home safely.

Be Aware of Allergies in Students

It is important to be aware of allergies that students may have when planning a field trip. Make sure to check with each student’s parents before the trip and ask if there are any specific allergies they need to know about. Some child care management software will track this information so you can easily reference it on the fly. It is also important that all teachers and staff members involved in the field trip are aware of these allergies so that they can quickly react if any of these allergens present themselves.

Stay Cool, Calm and Organized

Whether things are going to plan or an emergency happens, keeping a level head can be extremely beneficial. Try to remain calm during any difficult situations. This can help lower stress levels and allow you to think clearly about how to best respond or handle the situation. Staying organized helps reduce confusion in children and other adults, especially during an emergency.

When planning a field trip, it is important to take all necessary precautions to ensure the safety of everyone involved. Additionally, it is also important for everyone on the trip to be properly informed about safety guidelines and appropriate behavior while away from home. It can be a lot to prepare for but we know you can do it! By taking precautions, childcare centers and teachers can help reduce the risk of accidents on a field trip leading to great educational experiences and lasting memories for your students.

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• The Education Gradebook

Florida schools want to improve attendance. Are field trips an answer?

• Jeffrey S. Solochek Times staff

The big story: It’s one thing to notice that students aren’t coming to school as often as they used to.

It’s quite another to do something about it.

In Pinellas County, schools superintendent Kevin Hendrick has made it a priority to find ways to have students want to come to class. He’s been emphasizing engaging lessons and plenty of enrichment activities, from clubs to academic competitions.

Field trips play a key role in the initiative. As Kim Hill, the district’s new director of student experience put it, “There is power in going off campus.” Read more here .

Speaking of competitive academics, the coach of an Alachua County high school’s nationally successful math team will start a private school focused on academic competition , Main Street Daily News reports. “America is very competitive, but we channel our competition in sports, for the most part. And I feel like we ought to be taking education a lot more seriously and channeling the competition that way,” Will Frazer said.

Book challenges: Alachua County residents are sparring over the school district’s new rules governing book challenges , WUFT reports. • The Hernando County School Board has scheduled an early-morning meeting in May to consider the fate of 24 challenged books , Suncoast News reports. The board set a separate session for the issue to avoid running well past midnight.

Charter schools: The community vote on whether to convert three Alachua County district schools to charter status ended, with the results to be announced mid-week , WCJB reports. • The city of Cape Coral is seeking new revenue sources to fund its charter school system, Cape Coral Breeze reports.

Mascots: A St. Johns County K-8 school will have Sasquatch as its mascot when it opens in the fall, WJAX reports.

Pandemic relief: Hundreds of Volusia County teachers could be displaced , with their programs ended, as the school district’s federal pandemic relief funding runs out, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reports. District officials said they need to revamp their budgeting systems.

School board politics: Former Martin County superintendent John Millay has dropped his school board candidacy , saying it could jeopardize the relationship his new employer has with the school district, WPTV reports.

Student health: Four students at a St. Lucie County middle school were taken to the hospital after eating what was believed to be THC-laced gummies , WFLA reports.

Superintendents: The deadline to apply for Duval County’s superintendent post is Monday. So far, six people have submitted their paperwork , WJXT reports.

Weather report: Leon County’s Godby High will reopen Monday after having been closed because of severe flooding, the Tallahassee Democrat reports. • Parents at a Flagler County middle school are upset about the dearth of information provided during a tornado warning, Flagler Live reports.

From the police blotter ... A Miami-Dade County high school teacher was arrested on accusations of sending inappropriate text messages to students , the Miami Herald reports.

In higher ed

Florida Atlantic University: FAU is planning to build a Holocaust museum after receiving a “significant gift” toward the project, WPTV reports.

New College: The FAA rejected a planned land deal between New College and the Sarasota Bradenton International Airport, the Herald-Tribune reports.

University of Florida: A UF official has proposed doing away with the current representative student selection process at PK Yonge Developmental Research School, and implementing a more selective process instead, the Gainesville Sun reports. The university wants to boost the school’s rating.

Student debt: More than 21,000 Floridians had their federal student loans erased on Friday, USA Today Florida Network reports,

Don’t miss a story. Here’s a link to Friday’s roundup .

Before you go ... Are you ready for X Games meets Ninja Warrior? Check out Japan’s latest competition show.

Jeffrey S. Solochek is an education reporter covering K-12 education policy and schools. Reach him at [email protected].

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Virtual Field Trip Problems, Mistakes, and Things to Avoid

July 24, 2023

If you’ve been wanting to try your hand at taking a virtual field trip in your classroom, here are the biggest things NOT to do – learn from my mistakes so you don’t have to! Virtual field trips can be such a great learning experience for students, but just like anything digital there are some problems you can run into. Here are some virtual field trip problems to avoid!

Watch the Video

Virtual Field Trip Problems to Avoid

Here are the biggest issues I’ve run into when planning a virtual field trip in my classes:

• Forgetting to check the tech on a student device
• Using a website that’s really cool, but costs $ or just overcomplicates things
• Media Time Trap
• Giving the handouts right away
• Not having a fast finisher/next step

Let’s talk a little bit more about each of these!

Virtual Field Trip Mistake #1

Forgetting to check the tech on a student device is the first virtual field trip mistake to avoid! Often we set up or build the virtual field trip on our teacher computers, which is just reasonable. The catch here is that sometimes a district has different security settings for teachers than they do for teachers.

The easy way to fix this is to snag a student device either during a passing period, a quiet moment in class, or when students might be working in a small group without their school issued laptop. Pull up the site to make sure you can access it.

Virtual Field Trip Mistake #2

Using a website that’s really cool, but costs money or overcomplicates things unnecessarily . Listen, I’m all for tech in the classroom, but there are times where tech becomes the focus instead of language learning . And money – well, we all know there are tons of things we could spend our money on in the classroom. Choosing wisely is important, and when there are free tools that are awesome, why spend your budget here?

Virtual Field Trip Mistake #3

Getting sucked into the scroll for the “perfect” piece of media. It’s easy to spend hours scrolling YouTube and Pinterest looking for just the right video or infographic. Embrace the “done is better than perfect” attitude here, or every virtual field trip you make will take days of your life. Of course, there are a few strategies to streamline your search! Check out my blog post with tips here .

Virtual Field Trip Mistake #4

Giving your students the handouts right away . Of course, handouts are optional and I talk about that here in my Behind the Scenes: Create a Virtual Field Trip with Me! blog post . BUT – if you do create a handout, graphic organizer, or comprehension activities of any kind, make sure you don’t give the students access to it right away. Let them explore the map and enjoy the “trip” first!

Virtual Field Trip Mistake #5

The last mistake you may make is forgetting to have a fast finisher handy for your students . One of the neatest things about a virtual field trip is that students are able to explore and discover on their own, working at their own pace! However, because they’re working on their own, they’ll all finish at different speeds. Neglecting to have a next step or options for your students to choose from is just asking for classroom management issues, in my opinion! Here are a few related posts for you to consider:

• Classroom Management Strategies for MS & HS
• Low Prep Fast Finisher Activities

More on Virtual Field Trips for Spanish Class

If you want to learn even more about virtual field trips, check out this in-depth post with EVERYTHING you need to know – which programs you can choose from, how to include it in your lesson plan, different ideas for ways to use them in a unit – and more! Click here to read the post .

Example Virtual Field Trip Using Google My Maps

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Field Trips and Behavior Problems

Discussion in ' First Grade ' started by WonderW05 , Apr 24, 2008 .

WonderW05 Comrade

Apr 24, 2008

We are going on a field trip within a couple of weeks and I am not looking forward to taking one of my students. This student is mean and very hurtful to the students. I have talked to the mom several times and asked her if she could come to watch her. I still haven't heard from mom and am wondering if anyone has ever left a student behind during a field trip because they have been almost to much to handle? what are your thoughts?  

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TeacherShelly Aficionado

My daughter's teacher has left kids behind for field trips. This was the result of very off-track behavior during a previous trip. The student was told he could not go on the next trip, and he stayed with another kinder teacher until we got back.  

Calliope Companion

Maybe contact the parent again & tell her that she'll have to go with you as a chaperone for her son to be able to go.  

smalltowngal Multitudinous

It's not unheard of for teachers to leave students behind because of their behavior. I would give admin and whatever teacher s/he's left with plenty of advance notice though. Calliope came up with a great suggestion.  

mmswm Moderator

One of my mom's foster kids is banned from field trips for the rest of the year because of behavior problems on a previous field trip. Calliope's suggestion is great.  

Lives4Math Comrade

Apr 25, 2008

I have taken away field trips from students for behavior before on recommendation of the principal. In my school we also have more than a few students who are not allowed to go on any field trip unless they have a parent or grandparent or SOMEONE other than a person from the school goes with them.  

I talked with my principal and he agrees that if a child cannot behave that they should stay behind. I talked with mom about three weeks ago and told her she would have to go with us in order for her to go. I gave mom the information for fingerprinting, but I don't think she has gone. There was some hesitation when I gave her the information to call and make an appointment. I have another mom that has already gone and got fingerprinted as her son is afraid to even touch the pictures in our story books. I am trying to get him tested (it has been a long road) to see if he has autism. We are just waiting for the verification with him. The principal said that he would also talk with mom about him going and how it is important for her to stay with him during this trip. Calliope said: ↑ Maybe contact the parent again & tell her that she'll have to go with you as a chaperone for her son to be able to go. Click to expand...

firstgurl85 Companion

I have a student who is on a behavior plan working toward being able to join us on our trip. I have a deal w/ mom and students that if her daily behavior is not great overall she will not join us for the trip . i am determined to stick to it and so far its not looking good for her. I hate that i have to be so tough but otherwise she is just out of control.  

bonneb Fanatic

uh-oh -- it sounds like the fingerprinting is the hangup!! Here is what I do. I arrange the kids in groups of 3 or 4, assign a parent or 2 to each group, and I assign NO CHILDREN to myself. I am the general supervisor. Take this little person aside and describe the behavior you expect. Maybe put this child in a group with only one other child and an adult, and make the child someone who will model good behavior. Give the kid a chance. If the kid won't behave, then you put the kid as the only one in YOUR group. This is what I do consistently, and it works. This way a student with behavior problems gets to have the chance to learn how to behave on a trip. You might also have someone on hand who can take the child back to the school if the behavior is really bad, like a tantrum. I also put the groups in writing, with the parent who is in charge, and write something like "You are responsible for these 3 children from the time we leave the school until we get back into the classroom." I have found 2 things: 1)a problem child is usually worse if the parent is in charge of him 2) parents will often just visit with each other and not pay attention to the kids unless you stress to them THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE for Johnny, Susie, and Mary.  

I am definately sure that the fingerprinting is the hang up. I talked to mom again today after school and her reponse was, "Well, I have just been so busy, I am going to go on Monday." I told her three weeks ago that it takes atleast a month for them to get the results. So, I know now that mom is NOT going. From the way that she was talking that it was not a priority, and I know she doesn't work and have anyother kids. I told mom today that that her child had to have several time out today and was sent to another first grade class because of her behavior. I also told mom that if she doesn't have good behavior next week I am going to leave her with another class. Her response was that she agreed. So, we will have to see. Our trip is about an hour away from school so I can't see taking her back if she misbehaves. bonneb said: ↑ uh-oh -- it sounds like the fingerprinting is the hangup!! Here is what I do. I arrange the kids in groups of 3 or 4, assign a parent or 2 to each group, and I assign NO CHILDREN to myself. I am the general supervisor. Take this little person aside and describe the behavior you expect. Maybe put this child in a group with only one other child and an adult, and make the child someone who will model good behavior. Give the kid a chance. If the kid won't behave, then you put the kid as the only one in YOUR group. This is what I do consistently, and it works. This way a student with behavior problems gets to have the chance to learn how to behave on a trip. You might also have someone on hand who can take the child back to the school if the behavior is really bad, like a tantrum. I also put the groups in writing, with the parent who is in charge, and write something like "You are responsible for these 3 children from the time we leave the school until we get back into the classroom." I have found 2 things: 1)a problem child is usually worse if the parent is in charge of him 2) parents will often just visit with each other and not pay attention to the kids unless you stress to them THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE for Johnny, Susie, and Mary. Click to expand...

I think bonneb has a good idea about putting the child in your group. Maybe making him/her hold your hand if he/she continues to misbehave could work as well.  

jenglish97 Devotee

I teach 2nd grade inclusion and usually end up with one or 2 behavioral problem. Luckily there are 2 teachers in my class since it is an inclusion classroom so we usually make up the groups and I have a small group with the child who is a behavioral problem. I explain the expectations and the rules of the trip. I usually tell the child if they misbehave, I will take them back to the bus in they are on site or make them sit at a table with me until the trip is over. That seems to work. I have also spoken to my principal and ask her if she is going to be around if I need to call her about misbehaving. I am very stern and tighten the reins when we are on the trip. We seem to do fine. In fact, the other teacher will share the responsibility with me to give each other a break if needed.  

MrsPatten Comrade

Apr 26, 2008

I have had to tell a child that she can't go on a trip at all. It was funny because she came be-bopping in with her field trip shirt on the day of the trip like I wasn't serious. (She knew a week and was reminded the day before that she wasn't going) The principal ended up having to physically take her to where the kids who weren't going would be staying. Last year I had a couple who couldn't go without a parent. This year I have great kids but I know that usually kids act worse around their parents. I always ask the parents that have come to visit us in the classroom a lot to take other kids so they understand they still have to behave. I tell the kids that I will not be supervising anyone but that all the parents have my cell phone number and if they can't seem to follow instructions they'll just have to come sit with me at "x" location. I haven't had any problems...yet. (We're going to the Lock and Dam next Friday so I better not speak too soon.)  

cmw Groupie

I have seen students left behind and also parents required to attend. A student who is non compliant and disruptive not only poses a risk to himself/ herself, but also to all the other children by having so much adult attention focused on him/ her! I do believe students should have a heads up if they are not going. Students with behavior issues in the classroom should be put on a plan so they understand what is expected if the are to go on the field trip.  

jenejoy Companion

May 7, 2008

I will absolutely leave a student behind for behavior problems. They way that I bring it up to the parents is that it is a "safety concern for their child and the other children since they don't listen and follow directions" Before I leave a child behind I do ask the parent to attend or in some cases someone that I trust the child will listen to (I understand that some parents are unable or unwilling to go so if someone else will that's great!) That may help with the whole fingerprinting issue. Just make sure that it is someone they will listen and behave for. If someone can go that person is solely responsible for that child, not a group! I will have them go with a group but they have explicit instructions that the 1st time the child doesn't listen they have to come stay with me. I always send groups out and bounce between the groups so that I can be available in an emergency not responsible for a group of my own.  

r.hill New Member

May 12, 2017

I'm a long term sub/short term employee, I was told by admin that I couldn't keep a child out of the field trip because of behavior. I have a student who had been suspended several times throughout the year and 3 times in the last 2 months. I was told we need to give everyone an opportunity to go on the trip. He was very defiant and uncooperative on the trip. Really ruined it for everyone.  

miss-m Groupie

I have a student who missed our field trip yesterday because his behavior has been so bad lately - his mom was actually the one to decide that ("I don't believe in rewarding bad behavior." THANK YOU, MOM.), but if a kid can't follow expectations during a normal day, it's not fair or safe for the other students to have that student along on a field trip.  

MissScrimmage Aficionado

Here's the thing I struggle with - a field trip is a learning day. It's not a fun free for all. Its not a reward for behaving all year. It's an experience tied to the curriculum. Excluding a student further from the classroom community will not improve the situation. It's up to me, the teacher, to find a way to include this student. In the past, I have asked parents to come along to ensure their child's success. But I would not have left behind the child without them. 98% of the time the students are so engaged in the new learning environment that behaviour becomes a non-issue. I have only left a child back once. The day before the field trip he ran away while we were on a walk in the community. His mom decided I didn't need that kind of stress in a large city on our field trip, so she kept him back. That is a logical consequence. Being poorly behaved all year does not mean you miss the field trip. The field trip is not a behaviour reward trip.  

Peregrin5 Maven

MissScrimmage said: ↑ Here's the thing I struggle with - a field trip is a learning day. It's not a fun free for all. Its not a reward for behaving all year. It's an experience tied to the curriculum. Excluding a student further from the classroom community will not improve the situation. It's up to me, the teacher, to find a way to include this student. In the past, I have asked parents to come along to ensure their child's success. But I would not have left behind the child without them. 98% of the time the students are so engaged in the new learning environment that behaviour becomes a non-issue. I have only left a child back once. The day before the field trip he ran away while we were on a walk in the community. His mom decided I didn't need that kind of stress in a large city on our field trip, so she kept him back. That is a logical consequence. Being poorly behaved all year does not mean you miss the field trip. The field trip is not a behaviour reward trip. Click to expand...

Backroads Aficionado

I tend to fall in the camp that field trips are part of your learning and not a reward. That said... our last field trip, we had a kid booted off the bus before we left. I saw it as no different than being unable to handle oneself in a regular boring classroom. No, a field trip isn't a reward, but it's also not a learning opportunity immune to school rules and behavior expectations.  

Peregrin5 said: ↑ If a student can't handle that privilege, I've separated them from the rest of the class until they've proved that they were able to handle it again. Click to expand...

rpan Cohort

I've also had parents withdraw their kids from excursion but those are few and far between. I've excluded students from excursions because of consistent poor behaviour. If I can't trust the kid in class then definitely not on excursion - it's not fair to the other students on excursion if you have to take away from their experience when you have to deal with behaviour issues while on excursion. If exclusion is not an option then what I've done in the past is for the kid to be my shadow on excursion, they walk with me, they eat with me, they sit with me for the whole day.  

May 13, 2017

There is also the option of prevention. Judge us if you will, but this year my team did not plan a particular field trip because we had enough students we didn't think could handle it. Instead we replaced it with a similar one, less intense and closer to home.  

heatherberm Cohort

My former school had a couple of major issues on field trips the year before I started - the biggest being a couple of kids getting busted shoplifting from a gift shop at a baseball game - so all field trips were earned. We had a system where students could earn 5 points a class per day and in the two weeks leading up to the trip, they had to earn 80% of their possible points and have no out-of-school suspensions to go on the field trip. We left lots of kids back for every trip. It wasn't a perfect system and it was a pain in the ass to track, but at that point, it was either that or not go on field trips at all and I guess this was at least some kids got to go. At my current school, students and parents sign a behavior contract stating that participation in field trips and other similar events are a privilege that can be revoked based on behavior and grades, but I don't know of anyone who's actually been left behind for those reasons.  

Backroads said: ↑ There is also the option of prevention. Judge us if you will, but this year my team did not plan a particular field trip because we had enough students we didn't think could handle it. Instead we replaced it with a similar one, less intense and closer to home. Click to expand...

Luv2TeachInTX Comrade

The way I feel about it is that as their teacher, I am responsible for their safety. If I can't trust that child to follow instructions or make good choices while off-campus, I will not take them unless their parent comes to supervise them. I also agree with what a PP said about it taking your attention away from the other children when students with behavior problems have meltdowns. It becomes a safety issue for all involved.  

waterfall Virtuoso

It seems like you have a supportive admin and that's nice. At my current school it's common for kids to lose field trips for behavior. They do some type of less engaging/less fun activity back at school that covers the same learning topic. IME, unfortunately a lot of times kids are the same or even worse when a parent attends. Of course it depends on the family and I know there are some good parents who have kids with legitimate emotional disabilities, but a lot of times the parent is a big part of why the child behaves that way in the first place. In other situations, parents are genuinely supportive/trying to control the behaivor and just aren't able to. Several years ago when I was a classroom teacher our grade level was going to the orchestra. I had a child in my class who spent the majority of her time throwing fits, screaming, being violent, destroying property, etc. The music teacher had stressed that the orchestra was very strict and if there was a disturbance of any kind, they would bring up the lights, stop the show, and kick the offending party out. I advocated for my student to have a behavior plan in the weeks leading up to the trip in order to prove that she could demonstrate appropriate behaivor on the trip. I was accused of "targeting" her (even when I offered to have the same behavior contract for everyone) and wasn't allowed to do it. To make matters worse, I had a sub that day due to required new teacher training. For the performance, my student was placed inbetween the music teacher and one of my teammates and given a coloring book. As I predicted, not 5 minutes into the performance she threw a huge fit and the entire district is now not welcome at the orchestra.  

Ima Teacher Virtuoso

May 14, 2017

At our school students have to meet certain criteria to go on trips. The students who cannot attend the trip will be left at school. It is rare that students act up during the trip because they had to prove themselves able to hold it together. If they can't, their parent has to come pick them up.  

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