About 50 South Valley Middle School students and teachers
breathed a collective sigh of relief when a beloved field trip was
brought back from the brink of extinction. But it could be
temporary.
Gilroy
About 50 South Valley Middle School students and teachers breathed a collective sigh of relief when a beloved field trip was brought back from the brink of extinction. But it could be temporary.
The traditional weeklong field trip SVMS seventh graders embark on every February to Yosemite National Park was briefly canceled, then brought back after a string of students, parents and teachers made their case to Superintendent Deborah Flores and trustees at Thursday’s school board meeting. Over the years, the trip has introduced hundreds of SVMS students to one of the nation’s most famous parks. The school board approved the trip earlier this year and Ginger Gallup, seventh grade science teacher, signed a contract locking them into the trip. Students have been working after school and on weekend for months to pay the $450 per student tuition. The students have also received more than $6,000 in scholarships to cushion the fee that could discourage some students from attending.
Then Gallup found out that the trip, which is unique to SVMS, was being canceled.
Board policy mandates that in order to miss school for an academic field trip, every student must be included in the trip. Of the more than 200 seventh graders at South Valley, only 54 students are going, and district officials wanted to make sure that students weren’t being excluded for lack of funds.
But the trip was offered to every student and not everyone wants to go, Gallup said. And if a student wants to go and can’t afford the price, she will work with the student so that they can come up with the money together, she said.
She was surprised when the district delivered the news just days before she had to commit 100 percent to the trip, she said.
“They (the board) never opened this up for public comment,” she said.
Plus, they never voted formally to rescind their original approval. The decision was made at the administrative level.
When district officials were reviewing old policy, the Yosemite trip was lumped in with other school field trips and was found to be in violation of board policy, Flores said. The cancellation was the result of a misunderstanding that she took full responsibility for, she said. The district restored the trip because the students had already spent months fundraising, the school collected deposits from the students, the date is fixed and cannot change and the trip was already approved by the board, Flores said.
“This is a wonderful field trip,” she said. “There’s not a question about that. The bottom line is that field trips that are during the school day must be open to any student who wishes to attend and cost can’t be the prohibiting factor. We want to make sure it’s not an issue of funding.”
“No one is denying that this is a worthwhile trip,” added Board President Rhoda Bress. “The issue is not the quality of the trip. The issue here is ensuring that all student are given the same opportunity to go on this trip.”
Although the district decided to honor the decision to let the 54 children go to Yosemite, school officials will have to come up with a different plan for next year, Flores said. In the past, taking out the financial factor dramatically increased attendance for educational field trips and she wants as many students as possible to participate. Only 54 spots are available during the current session so the school may have to come up with alternatives, like making the trek during the weeklong February break, over a long weekend or at another date, to continue the trip.
“I put a lot of time and effort into teaching,” Gallup said. “I’d have to think long and hard about if I want to sacrifice that (February) vacation.”
In addition, families often take out of town vacations during the February break, Gallup said.
“We’ve all been very excited about this trip,” said Zaira Aahz, 12, a seventh grader at SVMS. “Taking it away would be heartbreaking. Most of our electives have been taken away and we really miss it.”
“If you take away the Yosemite trip,” she addressed trustees, “you’re taking the last thing left.”
She brought a petition to school Friday and got more than 600 signatures.
With electives at the middle school drastically reduced after budget cuts, the students have been looking forward to the trip for months, teachers and parents said.
“It’s one of the best experiences I’ve ever had,” said Michelle Nelson, Gilroy Teachers Association president who spoke on behalf of SVMS seventh graders as a former SVMS science teacher. “To pull the rug out at this point would be a real shame.”
