Stand back, it’s time for a rant.
This morning, a caravan of students parents and coaches pulled out of Newton South at 6:30 amidst cheers and celebration from their friends neighbors and community. Our award winning LigerBot team is heading off to the World Championship in St Louis, after overcoming many obstacles.
There’s a lot to love about this story and a lot that makes me proud of those kids, of those parents, and those incredibly dedicated coaches.
Over the last week, as the team and the parents were scrambling as fast as they could to organize this amazing caravan, I was biting my tongue. I didn’t want to distract from or complicate their plans. Now that they’re on their way, it’s time for me to vent a tornado of suppressed frustration.
As much as I’m proud of those LigerBot kids, parents, and coaches, I’m ashamed of our city government and appalled at the position those parents, kids and coaches were put in.
A quick summary: In the wake of a horrific accident a few years back, the school department instituted additional safety rules about transport for school sanctioned trips – that was a good and wise course of action at the time. Unfortunately, due to a confluence of circumstances (Boston marathon, little time, only two vetted bus companies) those rules prevented the LigerBot team from arranging public transport for the round trip to St Louis for the World Championship this week.
Then it was reported proudly that the school department and team had worked out a solution to the transportation problem – Yeah, great, problem solved!!! …. but here was the solution:
* Parents could get their own kids back and forth to St Louis by car – school dept has no say over that.
* Parents could drive to St Louis and take along some kids beside their own. I think that required a slight bend of some rule to allow kids to be carpooled by other parents.
* Parents could fly with their own kids to St Louis – school department has no say over that.
* Parents could not fly with kids other than their own – dept would be required to vet the airline and they had only vetted bus companies. Really!?!!? The NPS is going to out-vet the FAA. This item is just a minor footnote since it only potentially affected a few students but it illustrates part of the problem.
So with one hand tied behind their backs, the parents and coaches, in an amazingly short amount of time, organized a 47 person, 7 vehicle, two trailer caravan for the 2400 mile road trip. LigerBot parents are doing all the driving and taking the week off work to do it.
Just to be very, very clear. This solution was NOT dictated by safety concerns. It was only dictated by slavish adherence to the rules – which is a completely different thing. There is no one who can make a believable case that seven parents driving seven kid filled minivans, two of them with trailers, is safer than one professional driver driving a single bus.
In a technical sense, nobody did anything wrong. Everybody was just following the rules as written. Each rule by itself had a reasonable rationale and once a rule is in place, no one ever wants to take responsibility for waiving it when it becomes counterproductive. That’s the essence of mindless bureaucracy which is what drove this from start to finish.
What was called for was something very simple – brave, clear leadership. When it became clear that in this particular case, the rules had become counter-productive, that those rules were decreasing safety, that they were creating an immense burden for the parents and team, a leader or leaders needed to stick their neck out and take personal responsibility for bringing back a modicum of common sense to the situation.
I’ll leave it to others to pick their favorite villain but no official stepped up to say STOP, THIS MAKES NO SENSE! The school committee, the superintendent, the NPS transportation dept, the mayor – nobody said boo. Nobody was willing to say what was obvious and offer a solution, to recognize the elephant in the room – FORCING PARENTS TO DRIVE THE LIGERBOTS TO ST LOUIS DOES NOT INCREASE SAFETY.
I find the whole episode immensely depressing and I despair for our city if slavish technical adherence to legal liability minimization trumps true safety concerns and common sense.
The only ray of hope for me was that there was an outbreak of true leadership amidst this fiasco. The LigerBot students, parents and coaches showed true leadership through it all. They refused to take no for an answer. They refused to be stopped by any obstacle. They made substantial personal sacrifices to make this happen. They gritted their teeth, didn’t complain and just got the job done.
Godspeed to the LigerBot Team. Win, lose or draw in St Louis, you’re all already winners in my book.
Jerry, let me be the first to say “very well said”.
Very well said, indeed.
But are you surprised? It would have been amazing to see a beaurocracy, a public one to boot, rise to the occasion and do the right thing. But who would have had the power, much less the responsibility, to override the legal liability rules as written, particularly concerning those relating to the safety of public school students. I really don’t know.
I wonder if it is those rules written after a tragedy that are causing the debate team so many problems. They all seem to be related to transportation and getting to competitions.
@Marti – As I understand it, these were NPS internal rules and guidelines. They were not laws or statutes, so I don’t believe it’s a case of no one having the legal power or authority to waive a rule.
So for all the trips that happen at the high school level – foreign countries during vacations – aren’t all those airlines “approved.” I have noticed that both schools offer abroad options over vacations. Why are those students allowed to fly? The student’s parents don’t fly abroad with them. I assume there is NPS staff that flies with the students.
Had that been my student, I would have felt AWFUL, as I could not take the week off to drive five kids to St. Louis. Nor, do I feel like I would feel that me driving five kids is the safest way to get there! When I drive to NY, I am exhausted, and when we have traveled further, then my spouse and I switch off driving.
Our city left these kids adrift, and I believe STEM is a BIG item for the mayor! No one stepped up to help the parents or the kids. These kids did an AMAZING thing, and only parents and staff directly related the group responded.
Oak Hill was a terrible, terrible loss, however, as a parent, I don’t think it is “safer” to have seven cars driving such a long distance.
I have to wonder had this been the NSHS Varsity Soccer or Football team, would they be in the same boat (mini van)?
Jerry – The issue wasn’t just a bureaucratic snafu and to claim that it was belittles the responsibility the school system takes on when permitting students to go on trips. Field trips are an enormous responsibility for the every adult involved, and cause teachers great anxiety – for all the right reasons. The safety of the students is the utmost of concern for all of the people to whom you referred.
Upon arriving back at school after every trip I’ve ever taken students on, I let out a huge sigh of relief that everyone arrived home safe and sound. While I understand these trips are an important part of the learning process, they also include an element of danger due to the unknowns involved in any situation off school grounds. To be very honest, I’ve been in unsafe situations on field trips more often than I care to think about. Some drivers simply aren’t qualified for the job. I’ve been on numerous trips where the drivers did not have the directions for the destination, have had drivers stop the bus in the breakdown lane of major highways to check on directions, on a number of occasions have been in busses going well over the speed limit on two lane roads, and even had a bus driver who was clearly mentally ill (talked loudly to himself the entire trip). On each occasion, I reported the incident upon returning to school. And that’s just the bus situation. I’ve been on numerous trips where students weren’t dressed properly for the weather, didn’t bring food, had to be shuttled across city streets, were approached by strangers, and the list goes on.
To ask others in the city to ignore well vetted rules and regulations that ensure student safety while you can blog about it, clear of any responsibility whatsoever is perplexing at best. It was most unfortunate that the timing of the competitions didn’t allow for a bus company to be vetted for the Ligerbots, but that doesn’t exempt anyone in the city from the personal responsibility as well as the legal liability for this decision. If the SC, superintendent, and Mayor allowed this group to bypass the regulations that every teacher abides by – down to the last detail – then what do they say the next time a group wants to bypass the regulations? Because there would have been a next time.
Speaking as a Ligerparent and mentor: The bewildering requirement that kids could only fly with their own parents upset me the most in all of this, and is why, in the end, my son was not able to join the team this week. We were preparing to have several groups of kids flying, each with a chaperone, which would have cut way back on the number of minivans and parent drivers required. But somehow, that wasn’t an acceptable option: we were told that any kid flying without a parent would not be allowed to stay in the team’s hotel rooms.
@Jessica – My apologies for referring to your situation as “a minor footnote”. I didn’t realize that any team members ended up staying home as a result of that ridiculous ruling.
“…dept would be required to vet the airline and they had only vetted bus companies. Really!?!!?”
Was that quote from a SNL skit?
Unbelievable.
@Jerry: oh, no offense taken at all. There were a number of factors that, all together, mean my son is home this week instead of running scouting for the team in St. Louis, but we thought we’d had it all solved until the frustrating, and frankly incomprehensible, plane ruling was announced.
@Jane – Yes, I do standby my statements that this was not primarily about safety, it was about mindless adherence to rules that were counter-productive in this situation.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration , bus travel is roughly seven times safer than travel by car. There were a number of possible options that could have been worked out for those students to be traveling by bus today. Aside from being safer it would have avoided putting some horrendously onerous obligations on a number of parents.
Even worse was the rule that Jessica mentions above.
If the main reason for not allowing it is “then what do they say the next time a group wants to bypass the regulations?” – Yes, I call that bureaucracy at it’s worst.
There’s a simple answer to your question: the next time you say no …. unless there is some very compelling reason that the standard rules should be waived. To say that all rules must always be enforced, at all times, under any circumstances, no matter how counterproductive – that’s almost a textbook definition of mindless bureaucracy.
Jerry, I meant “power” in the aspect of beng able to say “this time we will waive the rules and accept the liability.” Someone would have had to be the responsible party, with the buck stopping with them. Not just anyone can make that decision and have it carried out.
That’s not to say I think it shouldn’t have been done. It should. I’m really sorry some of the team couldn’t go. The refusal to let students stay with the others if they flew with a chaperone other than their parents really makes no sense at all.
Being, not beng. Not being able to stay.
… And somehow our school committee members keep getting re-elected… hmm…
Jerry-I’m deeply sorry you have so little confidence in this city that you believe it would do something so intentional to deprive students of an excellent learning experience. These regulations are the same for everyone, and as one who ran many field trips before they were in place, I can attest to their wisdom.
This was a situation you were involved with, so you had a personal investment in the city breaking its own well vetted regulations. In another situation, other people will have the same personal investment, one you may not think is so important, and they will want the city to break the field trip regulations. The regulations are there for a reason and are not good and wise for some time in the past. The regulations are there to prevent the kind of terrible tragedy that 4 families live with every day of their lives.
More often than not, leadership means saying no to the public pressure to say yes. This group of parents, mentors, and students should be beating down the doors of the people who run this event with just one week’s notice for students to make travel plans, yet I’ve heard of no complaints about them. Why is this organization’s feet not being held to the fire?
Do students still read Animal Farm these days? You know – the book that talks about some being “more equal” than other? It was a transformative read in my high school experience. I wish the Ligerbots well, but a lot of Newton students don’t have anyone in their corner fighting for them as they do. It’s the job of the superintendent, SC, and mayor to ensure that all students have equal opportunities to an excellent education and it’s a tough job, made tougher by people who think they make “mindless” decisions.
@Jane – I agree with you that overseeing and chaperoning these sort of trips is a tremendous responsibility and that those who do it do not take those responsibilities lightly.
You mentioned that you have had a fair amount of experience yourself doing this. So let me ask this. If you were one of the coaches or chaperones charged with getting this group of students safely back and forth to St Louis, would you be comfortable driving a car yourself full of students on a 2400 mile round road trip? Would you think that was the safest, most prudent, most reasonable means of transport? If safety was your paramount concern, would a caravan of parent drivers be your first choice?
Also, you suggest that I may be a bit biased because I have a personal involvement in this. I’m not sure what you’re referring to. I have no involvement with the LigerBots, the team, the parents or the coaches. My only involvement is reading the stories on this blog and then going to one meeting briefly to find out if the “facts” I had heard were indeed correct. So my involvement is strictly as an outside observer/citizen with no skin in the game.
From what I have heard second hand, the LigerBot Team has indeed taken this issue up with the governing organization and is lobbying to change the schedule for next year.
The part I find most astounding is that students weren’t allowed to fly without their parents. Zillions of kids fly as unaccompanied minors each year. If you don’t want parents responsible for kids other than their own, then have them registered officially as unaccompanied minors and let the airlines be responsible.
As to not having vetted airlines, words fail me.
mgwa – NPS never nixed kids flying unaccompanied, though clearly they would have. That would have been unmanageable for the coaches and parents in St Louis if they were responsible for meeting lots of kids coming at different times, on different flights, etc.
What was nixed was a non-related kid, flying out with a family other than their own- figure that one out.
FIRST did lease buses to take contestants. They just didn’t follow all of NPS rules.
Sometimes after a tragedy, new rules are put into effect that might be too restrictive and with no exceptions available because emotions are running high. After a while they might need to be reviewed to see if exceptions could be made under certain circumstances and reviewed on a case by case basis.
How does NPS vet airlines? What is the point of not letting contestants stay with the others if they flew out with chaperones who were parents of other students and their parents had approved? With signed specific proxies?
@Jerry – I meant taking the same flight but flying in a separate row as an unaccompanied minor.
Jerry – IMO, on a trip such as this, students are much safer in the hands of their parents or a trusted adult. A trip with a caravan of parents who know and understand the students, and know when they need to stop to rest is much safer than a 2400 mile trip with driver who no one has even met, much less know if s/he is competent to make the trip.
Marti – The regulations aren’t too restrictive, merely sensible. I haven’t heard complaints about field trip regulations from teachers. I continued to take trips after the regulations were put in place and never felt undue restrictions. In addition, my sons went on school trips overseas and the trips were extremely well regulated and that eased my mind. I just don’t get this one at all. I totally understood the students going to the SC meeting and asking for permission because they’re teenagers. But the parents wanting to bypass safety regulations? I just simply don’t get it.
Jane,
Sorry, but you’re defending the indefensible.
“Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.” — Sir Douglas Bader
It is a little sad to see this dialog descend into entitlement vs practicality. I shudder to think of the rolling thunder of condemnation and lawsuits that would ensue if the kids had been given permissions and exceptions, against standing rules, just because ‘we wanna go.’ As Jane rightly points out, blame and liability would be poured like boiling oil over all the hapless folks who might have let it happen. Sure, it’s a great opportunity, and these kids deserve our praise and support. But the short notice is the killer, no way around it, and you can’t blame the city and the schools for following simple commonsense rules. Take note also that this sounds like a classic ‘first world problem’ as against what most of the world has to deal with on a day to day basis, such as having enough clean, safe water to drink. Here we are whining and moaning that they won’t let my kid fly on a plane to a contest somewhere – what misery and deprivation that inflicts.
Interesting timing for this conversation as the 14th anniversary of the Oak Hill bus crash is coming up next week.
I understand the school department’s unwillingness to budge on the bus issue if there wasn’t enough time to vet a previously unapproved company. I don’t think you were living here 14 years ago, Jerry, but, if I remember correctly, the bus company in question had subcontracted the job to another bus company without informing Newton officials.
Not sure I understand why the kids couldn’t fly though, but the thinking behind this might not have been, “If we do this for these kids, what do we do next time?” Instead, it might have been, “We have hundreds of priorities. If we move something to the top of the pile for every group that has a legitimate cause, we’ll never get anything done.”
The rule about flying with the group is well established due to legal . Many years ago, we asked if our son could fly a day late so he could attend what we felt was an important family event, and the answer was no and that was well before the new regulations. We accepted that and left the choice to our son – go with the kids or attend the family event. No need to tell you what his decision was.
Robert Wellbourn-How many times in your life have you taken on the responsibility for the safety of 50 or so children? I suspect the answer is zero, but I may be wrong. For better or worse, I’ve done it many times and I take that responsibility very seriously. That you should be so dismissive of the seriousness and complexity with a silly Bartlett quote is off-putting at best, and offensive at worst. Just once in my career – as a much younger teacher – I allowed parents to pressure me into taking students on a trip that I knew wasn’t safe. Upon return, I let it be known that it would never happen again.
Never to write after 9PM again. First sentence: The rule about flying with the group is well established due to legal issues.
“This solution was NOT dictated by safety concerns. It was only dictated by slavish adherence to the rules – which is a completely different thing.”
Agreed. One should always understand *why* rules exist (and when they need to be bent), not just understand how to implement them with ironclad rigidity. The former is often more important than the latter. And it’s not as if *every* rule needed to be waived/ignored. Some of the things like the airline decision are the demonstration of slightly myopic rigidity, while upholding the bus vetting rule probably makes more sense.
I do, however, also agree that the event organizers need to spread out qualifications and the major tiers of competition over longer periods to allow for organizing travel more effectively. The Newton South Speech & Debate Team, for example, qualifies students each year at the state or regional level in the late winter/early spring for the two national tournaments to be held around Memorial Day and in June. I know it might not be the exact same situation for the robotics competition, but this is generally a more sensible approach. The national organizers *also* need to be aware of how and why rules are applied and take these things into consideration.
Totally different flying situations. Not letting a student fly in alone a day after the planned school spondered group makes much more sense. It is a parent asking for special treatment for their one child because of something occurring in that one family and it would cause problems at the destination.
In this situation the parents and coaches were trying to get the students to the event. It would have been great if NPS sponsored a group flying to the competition. But they didn’t. So there was no parent asking for some soecial treatment for their child.
Some parents couldn’t take the week off from work to either drive or fly with their child so they wanted to let them go with a parent of another student going, whom they had selected. I have flown with my kids and their friends on trips and it is certainly safer than driving a van load of teens 2400 miles.
My understanding is that the Ligerbot parents were not seeking permission to fly on a commercial airline. They wanted to charter a private plane. Does that change how anyone feels about guaranteeing the safety of the kids? Wouldn’t the onus be on NPS to scrutinize the air charter service just like it does the private bus service, and wouldn’t it need the time to do so?
@Gail Spector – Yes, earlier they had explored the possibility of a charter flight and that idea was abandoned as unworkable.
A few days later there was a meeting of the parents, coaches, and kids. They were told very clearly and unambiguously at that meeting that parents could fly on commercial flights with their own kids but the department ‘could not sanction’ anyone else’s children flying with them. I was at the meeting. It could not have been stated more clearly and was repeated clearly more than once.
Jane,
No, I have not been in charge of a group of school children. Nevertheless, I stand by my comment. Are you suggesting that the solution eventually adopted of parents driving across country is safer than flying by commercial airline?
Gail and Jerry,
If the NPS is not assuming responsibility for booking the travel, it has no authority to rule on how parents arrange transportation choices. “Could not sanction” may be taken to mean “could not recommend or endorse”, which is fine, but it doesn’t mean “will not allow”.
Like Gail justifiably ignoring the bogus rule that a kid can’t ride a bike to school, parents should ignore dictates that clearly are way beyond the authority of the NPS. I’m really surprised that it wasn’t immediately challenged. It makes me wonder if we’re all a little too rule-bound.
The Ligerbots have been up and running since 2008 and have gone to the nationals before, so it seems reasonable for the school system to figure out how to make things go more smoothly.
If the school administration cannot figure out a way to better support our kids when they have worked hard and achieved great success, then we should hire better leadership.
The city might also consider kicking in travel support money when our team qualifies for the national event, as another way to show that this city cares about education and will move to reinforce success.
If the city can come up with $15.75 million to buy Aquinas for educational reasons (which I whole heartedly support), then the city should kick in additional money for travel expenses when our teams make it to the national championships.
That would be real, tangible evidence that the city is committed to our kids’ education.
I, too, wonder what “could not sanction” really means. It sounds to me like there’s more to this story than we’re hearing, or that it’s being blown out of proportion. If the parents could pull off organizing a caravan of cars, they could have pulled off finding enough parent escorts to fly the kids. If money was the issue, that’s a different matter.
Geoff wrote:
If the NPS wants to set aside funds to support all of our teams when they make national competitions, great. But deciding on a piecemeal basis to support one team at the last minute is the definition of inequity.
I’m suggesting the rules and regs covering field trips are reasonable and responsible, that everyone abides by them, and the regulations covering air travel for students on a school sponsored trips have been in place for years and most likely involve legal liability. That’s about all I have to add to this conversation.
These kids work their a##es off to get to the finals/nationals, the least the city could do is to kick in for transportation so they don’t have to scramble everytime they have this huge opportunity. Honestly, I feel for the parents involved with this group that had to go through this, they shouldn’t have had to.
FIRST reserved buses and transportation for the teams that qualified from the New England regionals. They didn’t know who, but they did know several teams would be going. While all the arguments about safety policies for field trips makes sense in a vacuum, the point is … no one else in the country has a problem with the arrangements that FIRST had made.
We are not the only school system that takes field trips. We are not the only community that cares about the safety of our kids. Yet we are the only community that couldn’t accept a solution … of either using one of the buses that were set aside for us … or, to use a bus company that agreed to abide by our driving rules (2 professional drivers, stopping every 4 hours, no more than 10 hrs a day, no overnight driving) … we managed to find both, and were still told no.
What Greer said.
Extraordinarily frustrating that our School Committee functions this way. It’s not acceptable.
I’ve had a few phone calls, a few emails, and some more information since I wrote my diatribe above.
While I still firmly believe that things did go seriously wrong in how this played out, I have gotten a little more perspective. As I think everyone agrees, the compressed time scale due to the FIRST scheduling was a big part of the problem, that much is clear. With luck and some lobbying that will hopefully improve in years to come.
A big part of my frustration was that nobody, with the necessary authority, stepped in to say “wait a minute, strict adherence to all the rules will be counterproductive in this situation, and effectively decrease student safety and put a tremendous personal burden on the parents, students, and coaches”.
As this played out, the issue arose suddenly when the LigerBots won. It quickly became clear that there was a problem. Upon hearing the team’s predicament, a number of officials, school committee members and others, inquired about it. The answer that came back quickly was “good news, a solution has been worked out”. Upon hearing that, those folks assumed all was well – problem solved.
Until the LigerBot team was on the road Tuesday morning and I wrote my rant, none of those folks knew that there was any issue to sort out. I do accept that
those folks can’t be called to task for not solving a problem that they didn’t know exist.
@Gail Spector & @Nathan Phillips: I’m a little sensitive about this whole thing right now, but nothing’s being “blown out of proportion”. Arranging several parent escorts/chaperones to fly with groups of kids is exactly what we were in the middle of planning to do. Neither my husband nor I could go, due to work issues, and we were told very clearly that unless one of us flew with our son, the team would not be able to take any legal responsibility for him, and thus he would not be allowed to stay in their hotel rooms. That amounts to being unable to go, since there were no hotel rooms available in St Louis. (I spent half that evening on the phone trying to track one down.) So “could not sanction” was, effectively equivalent to “can not allow.” I appreciate, Gail, that you are defending the school district rules, but please do not assume that those of us who were there and trying to deal with them don’t know what we are talking about.
The good news is that the team is doing quite well in St Louis!
@Jessica, I apologize. I believed, and still believe, that Jerry’s rant contained misinterpretations that left people making accusations that were unfair. I did not mean to belittle the angst of the parents who were trying to get their children to St. Louis safely.
I’m very happy to hear how well the team is doing. Thanks for letting us know.
Folks,
If it’s really true that we’re the only school that didn’t use FIRST transportation, the problems are with our school administration. It’s that simple.
@Paul: We were also probably the only school district that lost four kids in a bus crash on a long-distance trip.
What if the transportation company used by FIRST subcontracts out to Krystle Transport, the bus company that was involved in the 2001 crash that killed four Oak Hill Middle School students?
Perhaps people are right that our policies need to be revisited, but I don’t agree that the school administration could have just dropped a policy that was formulated because of a tragedy in that short a time.
Gail,
The first question out of our mouths when talking to First, should be whether or not they subcontract, and if so, do they use Krystal?
Why is that a problem?
@Gail Spector – It’s possible that my post did contain some “misrepresentations”. So far though I’ve seen no evidence of that.
If I did make any mistakes in my reporting I’d be anxious to clear them up. I’ve attempted via phone and email to contact the city’s transportation dept but have not heard back from them yet.
@Jerry: I didn’t write “misrepresentations,” I wrote “misinterpretations.” Different things. You, yourself, wrote that various school folk didn’t know that there was a problem until they heard about your rant. Rather, they thought the problem had been solved. It sounds like there were several interpretations of what was taking place.
@Tom: It is my understanding that bus companies sometimes operate under different names. It’s not always so simple.
My point here is not to defend the school department or the School Committee. In fact, I wish I had let them do that themselves. I was trying to point out that things are not always so black and white. And I say that as someone who screams in frustration when the reason given for doing things is, “because that’s the way we’ve always done it.”
Gail, saying about the parents that “It sounds to me like there’s more to this story than we’re hearing, or that it’s being blown out of proportion. If the parents could pull off organizing a caravan of cars, they could have pulled off finding enough parent escorts to fly the kids. If money was the issue, that’s a different matter” is not only speculating it is unkind. Unless you know something you haven’t shared.
And believing Jerry is wrong, with no proof, doesn’t excuse insulting parents who were in fact told their children flying with other parents couldn’t stay with the group and had already posted as much. They could and did “pull off” flying the kids there and money wasn’t mentioned. It isn’t their “angst” you belittled, it’s their intelligence, efforts and integrity.
@Marti, I apologize to anyone who feels insulted. That was not my intention. Perhaps I could have written my comment differently, but I assure you my thoughts were not unkind. The only emotion behind my words was the memories of the days following April 27, 2001.
What Greer said.
I also think it is unfair to denigrate Jerry’s post as a “rant.” I am grateful he brought this situation to the community’s attention.
@Emily,
Jerry’s first line:
Emily – Jerry called it a “rant” in the first line of his post. He also called it a “diatribe”. It appears that he’s accepted responsibility for that.
Gail – As you know, this is not “the way we’ve always done things”. In the past, teachers/staff were pressured to take students on trips that weren’t safe, under unsafe circumstances. Then a terrible tragedy happened in the city and responsible, sensible, and equitable regulations were put into place and until this trip, no one has objected to them. I know of no teacher who objects to the present set of field trip regulations, and they are the ones with the most experience with taking students on trips.
What I still don’t get is why its not ok for a kid to fly with another’s parent, but it is ok for a kid to ride with another’s parent.
Don’t be surprised when Mayor Setti Warren takes credit for the Ligerbots’ national success using his of repeated catchphrase
he may just be running for the US Senatorial seat vacated by President Elizabeth Warren! I hope the link to Jerry’s post is still available.
@Nathan Phillips – Me neither. That was definitely the most inexplicable part of this story
Here’s some good news.
One of the contributing factors to this year’s situation is that the vetted bus companies require a hefty non-refundable deposit to reserve a bus. The team looked into reserving a bus, back when they were still available, in speculation that they might be going to the national event. They decided that they couldn’t risk that kind of money being thrown away if the team didn’t make the finals.
One of the bus companies heard about this whole fiasco and feels terrible about how it worked out. They said that if the team were to find itself in this situation in the future, they would be willing to waive the normal “non-refundable” aspect of their deposit policy.
That’s a very nice gesture on the part of the bus company and I particularly applaud their flexibility in being willing to waive their normal rule in recognition of special circumstances.
Jerry – that’s fantastic news about the bus company. Kudos to them for being willing to show flexibility in the future to help out our kids.
That’s great news! Having a bus company be willing to refund a deposit seems like a very reasonable solution.