Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Endangered

As I walked out of the school building on my way home this afternoon, I passed 2 colleagues in animated conversation. "There she is!" one of them pointed at me. "You know this whole safety oversight thing started with her!"

I took the comment as a joke and shrugged. "You know it," I replied. "Me and safety got nothing to say to each other."

"No seriously," the other colleague said, "you know I was on the phone the other day and they were telling me that anyone who wants to drive kids on a field trip has to be drug-tested, which I'm okay with," he added parenthetically. "But when they started talking about insurance, I said, 'I have an insurance story for you!'"

I knew what they were talking about then. Years ago, when the safety oversight office was first established, we submitted the paperwork for our annual sixth grade dolphin watching field trip. We had been chartering buses to take us to the coast for years, picnicking on the beach, and then going for a 2 hour cruise. The new office wanted a copy of the boat company's liability policy, and when I contacted the owner, he not only refused to comply, he was offended. "I've been doing business with a handshake all my life," he told me. "I'm not stopping now."

It turned out the guy didn't have insurance, and needless to say, we found another field trip to end the year. And these days? Even before COVID, our field trips were scaled back because of time and resources, and our sixth grade has stayed on campus for the end of the year activity for the last several years.

When people say it was a different time, this is what they mean, which is a little sad, really. As my students prepare for their spring conferences, I've asked them what they are looking forward to in 7th grade. All the field trips, wrote one. I didn't have the heart to tell him that he was probably looking backwards on that.

4 comments:

  1. The dolphin watching trip was a highlight, for sure. Does the county board know about cuts like this?

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  2. Fields trips...I kind of remember them.

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  3. OMG-You used to take dolphin watching field trips. Count me in, insurance or no insurance.

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  4. Insurance, shminsurance. I have heard the lore of the dolphin watching trip. If only it could be a reality again.

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