It is finally the last grading period of our state's public school year and the field trip permission trips are arriving home with eager children "needing" to go on the annual excursion to XYZ. Field trips, surprisingly, are a source of incredible debate and source of contention in the school system.
Where should the children go? Should the trip extend beyond the school day? How many chaperones are allowed? Are students and parents allowed to drive seperately and meet up with the group? Can siblings attend at the same price? Can siblings attend at all? Should 2nd grade go where 2nd grade has always gone or can they go where 1st grade use to go but doesn't anymore? and of course: How much will this cost each family?
In our poor, rural area students rarely leave our county. For some kids, a big city is one with more than a couple of redlights. Students have only seen the beach, the zoo, or a theme park in movies or books. So, should they have the opportunity to go to these places as part of the education they receive? I think they absolutely should have the opportunity but (and there is a but) it shouldn't put a financial strain on parents to send them. And I also think that the entire family should be able to attend if they choose to do so. Most of our families rarely have the chance to do things as a family due to financial strains.
Here are a few examples of what I'm paying for my kids:
One grade level goes to a close by zoo. This year the cost is $12 per person. Most of that cost is the diesel to pay for the school bus, not the entrance fee. The students will be taking a bag lunch to eat so that more money is not necessary for the trip. This trip is probably affordable for most families. I will go with Ciarra to the zoo and drive seperately. I cannot take being on a school bus with 1st graders! LOL!
Total cost of zoo trip with me driving: $40
Another grade level has several small field trips throughout the year that cost under $10 per person. This is my fifth grade group in which I am a teacher but I also have daughter in this grade. Because this is the kids last year in elementary school, we plan a big celebration trip to Universal Studios Theme Park. The regular cost of admission to Universal is $76 for the tickets we purchase that allow the students to go to both of the Universal theme parks in one day. Our price for the field trip which includes their ticket and the bus ride to Orlando on a school bus is $42. We allow the students to purchase extra tickets for family members. As an example, one family will be taking all 3 of their kids plus themselves. They will be driving seperately. The cost for them will be $210 as opposed to $380 that they would pay at the gate.
Not all of our students will attend this trip. Some cannot pay the $42 and others cannot afford to buy 2 tickets and don't want their kid that far away without a personal chaperone. We do try to work with the families and allow them to pay for part of the trip along and along if they need to do this. We also seek funds from PTO to cover the cost of some of the tickets for needy kids.
So, I will be paying $42 for Christin's ticket to Universal Studio. I will get in free because I am a teacher-chaperone and Universal covers my ticket. We will eat lunch in the park and dinner at a fast food place while gone so I'm adding in an additional $40 for food and snacks.
Total of trips so far: $122
My son Caleb's class will be going to Sea World for their 2nd grade trip. This is where the money is going to fly out the window. Second grade has arranged for charter buses to take the kids and chaperones to Orlando instead of using school buses. The charge is $50 per person for the ticket and bus ride (ticket is $20, charter bus is $30). So I have to pay $100 before we even get to Orlando. We will then be responsible for lunch and dinner in the park, so probably another $50. Total for his field trip alone will be $150 for the two of us; more than the cost of the other 2 trips combined.
Total of school field trips for the last half of the year: $267
I don't think that many families would be able to afford to pay the above amount, especially with the economy the way it is right now.
How do you feel about school field trips?
If you homeschool, how much are you spending per year to go on field trips? Does your entire family attend?
Should school continue the practice of field trips even though for many families the costs are prohibitive?
What are some alternatives to field trips?
Thursday, April 10, 2008
The Cost of School Field Trips: When is it worth it?
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11 frugal-minded friends say:
I remember field trips from middle school and highschool and LOVED them. I remember 2 of 4 fields trips that included going to Chicago to the Science and Industry Museum and Planet Hollywood. I also remember going to Cedar Point and the Gypsum mines. These are all great memories that I have from my school days. I do however understand that school funding has been cut greatly as well as classes that I treasured such as FFA. If the schools start to cut field trips what will be next? I do remember school for its educational value but also the fun that I had in classes that are now cut and field trips that look like they will be cut. In situations where children are left behind due to lack of financial responsibility truly break my heart because it is not their fault that they have to be left behind. Something that did work for our schools were to set up a "payment option" for parents. Instead of 1 lump payment lets send 2 or 3 payments to pay for the trip allowing parents time to pay for the trips.
Wow, I must have lived in the wrong school district. When I was in school, we went to local battlefields & musuems, nature parks, etc. My daughter's class now does the same thing. Field trips for us usually cost under $5.
When my older children were in public school (they've all graduated now) we had 3 in the same grade. My twins and my step-son are the same age. In middle school they were all in the honors program which allowed them the opportunity to go on some amazing field trips to NC, GA, TN and South FL. My twins were also in band so we had band trips every year. Over the course of 7 years (middle school and high school) we spent thousands of dollars on these trips...I chaperoned every one of them...but to me it was worth every penny. We were barely scraping by at the time but we just made payments and participated in fundraisers in order to pay for these trips. We still talk about "our memories" from different trips taken together.
We struggle with this every year. I want my kids to experience lots of the opportunities out there, we just can't afford them all.
We pick and choose the ones that seem the most frugal and yet the most interesting and educational.
We do not go on field trips to theme parks because we know enough people who work at them that we can get in for free. We also have season passes to Sea World (a season pass is the same price as a 1 day ticket - you may want to look into that for future trips down this year).
Field trips where I am are not that much out of pocket and are usually between 5-7 dollars. That aside, one must remember the students who unfortunately do not have the family support to go and do these kind of activities on their own. Many times the only opportunity some children will have to go to the zoo, baseball game, bowling, state capitol, historical site, museums, etc is through a school field trip. There is so much to be learned on a field trip for all grade levels and all ability levels. Just the material at hand is not the only educational value in field trips, but bus safety, social skills, and appropriate behavior for society. As a past teacher of kids with autism, we had many field trips to the grocery store, or a restaurant. When I would speak of these events to friends of mine they would accuse me of getting to go have fun all day long, but what they didn't see is the objectives of which we were accomplishing. It wasn't so much that the students were able to eat lunch out for the day, or that I was able to go with them, but to prepare for the field trip and test the tools that we had been teaching for that type of activity. Unfortunately I know of teachers and staff who do not have that perspective and view it all as "fun", but the educational advantages are endless and I feel definately worth the few dollars to get that experience that is unable to be reproduced with in the walls of the school building. Just my 2 cents ;)
Ahh!! That's a lot of money and quite a dilemma. I'm thinking of this for our family x 7 and I'm breaking out in hives here- especially when I think of adding all that cost to the other "extracurricular" stuff we do like art class, piano, basketball.
We do homeschool and do all the free stuff we can for field trips. Tours at the statehouse, nature center classes, library programs, state parks, farms, dairies, post office, fire station, festivals... there are some great books out there that are state specific with prices. We do buy a children's museum membership every year and definitely get our money's worth going back many times for various exhibits and classes they offer. Our homeschool group also plans field trips which range anywhere from free-$10/child.
It would be a real burden financially to do the field trips that you do, but equally as hard not to allow my child to experience them with their classmates. I think that parents should know at the beginning of the year what the total cost for field trips will be so that they can plan/save/pay as they can.
Great question.
What ever happened to a picnic out in the school yard on the last day of school?
I came from a small town in PA and I never went on a field trip during elementary school or junior high. The only time I ever remember going on a field trip in high school was to Slippery Rock University for a writing contest I was in.
Are field trips to amusement parks educational?
I feel if the school is going to have field trips-then the school pays for them. Guess what? I bet the field trips would end.
I would rather take my own family to an amusement park together than send them with people from their school.
We also struggle with this every year and I would feel bad if my daughter missed out on a trip when her other friends were going because of money. It's not that we don't have it-it's just the principle behind the whole thing. Know what I mean?
I think that having field trips that cost more than a small amount (say, 100 dollars) should not be allowed. If families cannot afford it, it is not fair to the children. Children are ridiculed for anything and everything, including not being able to go on a field trip!
When I was in school, we had filed trips often. Very often in elementary school, and less often in middle and high school. In high school, we actually went on multiple day trips (Toronto, DC, Boston, New York) that we didn't have to pay for. Of course, we could bring as much or little money as we wanted for the trips, but everything was paid for by the school! THAT is the way field trips should be.
We home school and we do a lot of field trips like going strawberry picking, where the cost is for whatever strawberries you pick. There are trips to see plays at the college that are in the $8 range. We have gone to the Parthenon in Nashville, Chattanooga Aquarium, Six Flags in Atlanta, Outback restaurant, Olive Garden, police station, post office, Gayfers- got to see how they unload trucks that come in by conveyer belts and see the security cameras,science museums, took a walking tour of Huntsville, beach and bay trips, went sailing on a sailboat named Nathaniel Bowditch in Destin and learned about shooting the moon and saw dauphins. Today we went to a pioneer day- you can see photos and read about it on my blog. We have been to pumpkin patches, on hay rides. As a family, we have gone to the Abe Lincoln museum in Indiana, Indianapolis Science Museum, Kelloggs museum in Michigan, Amish community in Indiana, saw dinosaur footprints in New Mexico.
I don't have a set amount for trips but we spend about $25 a month to do things.
Wow. Those are pricey field trips.
When I was teaching we used to take trips to local places like the police station, post office, grocery store, pizza parlor, and fire department that were free. Of course I taught the lower grades and bigger kids may not appreciate these as much.
But we've also gone to the zoos that take donations, u-pick farms, and museums at a discounted price.
I think those were good choices because they are either free or low-cost. If there were students whose families couldnt afford to send their kiddos our PTA would sometimes throw some money in, or I would myself.
It's a shame to have students miss out on such great opportunities for hands-on learning.
:)
That seems like a lot of money, my question is what is educational about going to a theme park? I can see maybe Sea World, but I don't understand the others. I don't have a kid that age yet, but even if I did I can't see spending the money. Personally, I would rather save up a little more and put it in the family time slot instead of calling it educational.
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