TRR photo by David Hulse Some ECS seniors are pictured as they reacted to the board of education vote against their senior trip last week. (Click for larger image)

By DAVID HULSE

GLEN SPEY - Audible sobbing increased in volume with each roll call vote last Thursday night as a delegation of attending Eldred Central School (ECS) seniors reacted to the Board of Education decision to end the tradition of school-sponsored overnight class trips at ECS.

"Overnight trips are finished at Eldred and you can quote me on that," said District Superintendent Candace Mazur after the emotion-filled meeting.

Approving the resolution unanimously, board members said incidents and liability issues raised on prior trips had become too much to ignore, while the original educational element of the trip had disappeared.

Some 15 of 70 seniors attended and they repeatedly pleaded for the board not to take the long-awaited trip away. "We don't want trouble. We want to go away and have a good time together before we graduate," said one senior who asked not to be identified, fearing administration reprisal against a parent who teaches at ECS.

Senior Kristen Borstelmann said she had been waiting for the trip long before fundraising began in the ninth grade. "There's always the emphasis on the bad. What about all the ones who didn't do anything wrong?" she asked.

Senior Bill Lubeck noted that the children of board members Marsha Hunter and president Norman Sutherland had both gone on the trips. "They've had their time, their fun, their memories. We'd like some, too," he said.

Sutherland admitted that his son had gone on a class trip and he had too when he was in school. "I have another son in this class and I'm sure I'm going to get grief about this," he said, while trying to provide alternatives. Sutherland said the resolution only covered trips sanctioned by the school on school time. On vacation time, the students could organize what they wanted. "Go to Florida. Go to Guam. Who cares? We have no authority to say you can't go," he said.

Mazur said individual fundraising accounts would be returned to the seniors and the class account would be used to defer class expenses for yearbooks and graduation. Any leftover money would go to some project benefiting all students, she said.

Borstelman and her father Glenn said Mazur last spring had assured them that this class trip would not be affected should the trip policy change. "She even said she would help us plan the trip," Kristen said.

"And now she doesn't recall it," her father added.

Mazur repeatedly refused to debate the resolution with the seniors during the session. Responding to the Borstelmann's charges after the meeting, she said, "We have a difference of opinion about what was said. I don't recall [giving assurances about this class trip]. I do recall saying I would help with the project."

Problems on the trips have become a widely known subject for gossip in the community. While boards and administrators seldom spoke in detail about them at the time, last week's resolution made specific charges.

"...Past seniors have violated drug and alcohol regulations many times. Indeed, it seems that 'getting away with it' has become a ritual. Recently, alcohol abuse involved binge drinking affecting 20 out of 24 seniors. The level of abuse appears to be escalating. By continuing the trip we are sanctioning this abuse. With horror stories including accidents, assaults and terrorism this trip has become a nightmare. For the safety of our students, exposing them to the risks of a trip that has so little educational meaning is ludicrous," the resolution stated.

The trips have become expensive to the point where many students cannot afford to go or place a heavy burden on parents to travel. The resolution noted that the average Florida trip costs $700 per student, almost $31,000 in total for a class of 30 including chaperones, who must pay for their own travel. And "in today's liability-minded environment," few teachers want the extra responsibility.

The resolution also questioned the loss of an educational component to the trip and said the consequential loss of "three or four days taken away from a demanding Regents curriculum can be very detrimental to a student's success."

After the session, retired teacher Marion Swope agreed that the end of the trip was something akin to the loss of innocence in a litigious society. "It's not the Board's fault or the students' fault," she said. "It's the lawyers' fault."