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Friday, 22 August 2008 |
By KATIE YANTIS
Staff Writer
MINSTER — Members of the Minster Board of Education are expected to make a decision during a work session that will affect parents and students alike.
The meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, was called as a work session before the next regularly scheduled meeting. During the special meeting, board members will discuss the matter of the districts allotted amount of field trips.
The high price of diesel fuel sparked the conversation and may cause changes in the curriculum.
In the spring of 2006, the district started making cuts. Officials decided to reduce the number of field trips per grade level to one.
Last year the fuel costs based on the mileage estimates for all the field trips in the district was $1,725. That cost was with the allotment of one trip per grade, with the exception of two in the kindergarten level.
“The trips just depend on class size, sometimes depending on the size, we still have to take two buses to the same place,” Minster Superintendent Gayl Ray said.
The board will look at the cost of paying bus drivers for the trips and the cost of fuel.
“They have to look at everything from personnel costs, to transportation, everything, all the variables that go into the trips,” Ray said. “We have to look at time and money resources.”
The field trips are an important asset to the education system and the administration recognizes that.
“I don’t think we’ll cut them completely because there is education value in them,” Treasurer Laura Klosterman said.
Part of the evaluation and decision making process during the meeting will be the educational value of field trips.
“There are two schools of thought in the discussion, field trips bring authentic hands on learning to the students, but there a lot of Web sites for museums and things that have virtual field trips,’ Ray said.
There is an impact that field trips have on students that stays with them throughout their lives that Ray said she recognizes.
“Sometimes field trips allow kids to have experiences, when parent’s can’t take them, and the learning sticks with them,” Ray said.
Ray said she will be evaluating the possibility of virtual field trips before deciding whether to pitch the idea to the board at the meeting. Ray also said she plans to encourage board members to try the field trips out themselves, before evaluating the idea any further.
Currently the only virtual trips Ray has found available are at the middle school and high school levels.
“I have only read about these virtual trips and have not exhausted all my options,” Ray said. “Could we learn from a similar experience using a virtual field trip — that is something we have to figure out.”
Ray said that virtual field trips should start becoming popular in the coming years.
“I believe, on the national level schools are looking for ways to save money,” Ray said.
The Minster School District currently has two field trips already scheduled. One is an annual field trip for the kindergarten classes to Brumbaugh’s Farm and the other trip is to Camp Wilson for the sixth-grade classes.
Ray confirmed that in the event board members decided to cut field trips, the self-funded trips will not be affected, including the Washington, D.C. trip.
“Typically all out of state trips are the self-funded trips and paid through fundraisers,” Ray said. “We look more closely at the local trips.”
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 26 August 2008 )
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