by Stuart Singer, The Teacher Leader

Though totally unrehearsed, the conversation was the perfect follow up to my post “In Education the Little Things Can Mean a Lot.”

“Stu, I had a bit of a blow-up today.” My friend Frank uttered a brief, nervous laugh for punctuation. “There was a business department field trip today and the first we heard about it was this morning.  The list of students was sent out after school had already started and only twenty minutes before their bus left.”  Frank is passionate about many things: his family, pro football, data analysis and interruptions to his classes. “I lost a whole day and now I have to change tomorrow as well. I ended up writing a pretty angry note to my department chair and an assistant principal.”  Unfortunately, the incident that provoked Frank’s angry note is not an isolated occurrence.  As a result of a series of events that were completely avoidable, classes throughout the school had been derailed.  

An Issue of Professional Courtesy and Responsibility

Frank’s dismay was justified.  It was the result of factors that could and should have been addressed long before that belated list appeared on his email.  The late notification was just one in a series of problems.  The trip was scheduled during the last week of the semester.  It was the day Frank had set aside for his mid-term exam review.  Grades were due at the end of the week so the students who missed the class would have few options to make up the work or prepare for a crucial test.  There is little question that many other teachers in the building were having the same experience.

Answering to a Higher Authority

This “surprise” field trip did not have to happen.  Given adequate notice, teachers can adjust—classroom activities can be modified and information can be disseminated to students in advance.  Frank had none of these options. 

It is an administrative imperative that this situation does not occur.  The repair cannot be performed at the teacher level.  From Frank’s perspective it destroyed multiple lesson plans, frayed many educator nerves and adversely effected student performance.  From the business teacher’s perspective the trip was an important opportunity for her students to have a real world experience outside of the classroom. In addition, on such short notice, that discussion would be reactive rather than proactive. While the administrative team cannot guarantee professionalism and courtesy it can create a positive educational environment within a school that precludes such occurrences and ensures that field trips work.  

Learning to Co-exist

This discussion is not designed to be a diatribe against field trips.  When done properly these trips can be remarkably effective learning tools.  But in the high-stress world of today’s education, all teachers believe their class is the most important in the building and become very protective of every allotted minute.  The solution is simple to state but difficult to attain.  A method must be created that will allow meaningful and productive field trips but protect the integrity of the other classes in the school.

The Fine Line Between Process and Bureaucracy

During my tenure as Coordinator of Instruction one of my points of emphasis was to make school field trips work for everyone in the building.  To that end, together with the administrative team and the department chairs, we developed a set of guidelines for teachers wishing to take their students out of school for educational travel.   This policy, Procedure for Excusing Students from Class, gave everyone in the building a precise plan that would ensure that Frank’s day would have been much better.  (If you are interested in a complete copy of this policy please contact the site)  Without restating the entire policy the highlights were these:

- All proposed field trips were categorized by the number of students involved.  Groups of less than fifty had one process, ones with more than fifty followed similar but slightly more rigorous steps.

- All proposed field trips must be submitted to the sponsoring teacher’s department chair in a timely manner.  For the smaller groups, approval was required by the DC and the Coordinator of Instruction.  The larger groups required majority approval at a department chair meeting.

- Based on the number of students involved a stringent timetable was established for notifying the entire faculty of the impending classroom disruption. 

The key element in these standards was that they were not designed to discourage field trips but rather to encourage better implementation of them.

Perfect Should Not Be the Enemy of the Good

When I told Frank that what his school needed was a similar set of guidelines he was not impressed.  “You know as well as I do that no matter how many rules you make some people will not follow them.”  His analysis was correct but missed the point.

These guidelines certainly did not stop all abuses within the building.  But what they did accomplish was to create a school wide awareness of how to appropriately conduct a field trip.  This awareness, in turn, spawned a culture where teachers who did not follow the guidelines were the exception rather than the rule.   And, as a bonus, following the various steps actually improved many field trips.

My favorite example of this outcome revolved around the school’s music teacher’s plan to have her students perform Christmas Carols in a local mall.  Her initial proposal was extravagant.  A large number of students would miss multiple days.  When told that this would be a problem, she worked out a new plan in which no student would miss more than one day.  Her justification for the trip to the department chairs was stunning.  She correlated standards within her Program of Studies that would be met by the event.  In addition, she clearly explained how and why the students were chosen to participate, the benefits to be gained by both her program and the school, and a timetable for making up any missed work.  The two days for the trip were chosen for their minimal impact on the school calendar.  The list of students involved was distributed weeks in advance and ultimately the teacher, her students and the rest of the school had no complaints.

Can You Keep a Secret?

I did not have the heart to tell Frank, but over the years that we followed this process no field trip was ever denied.  Some were modified but none were cancelled.  In fact virtually every vote was unanimous in favor of the trip.  Realistically, every department chair was loath to vote against another teacher’s trip when they knew someday they might be proposing one of their own.  The most significant outcome was that by establishing an institutional plan of clear, intelligent guidelines that were widely disseminated throughout the staff the only numerical decline was reserved for surprise classroom disruptions, missed assignments, and faculty complaints.