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Thursday, October 04, 2001
By Alisha Hipwell
Sixteen-year-old Patty Hill loves to fly and longs to see Europe. In fact, she already has her passport.
But the South Fayette High School junior won't be getting a stamp in it -- not this year.
Hill was one of about 20 students scheduled to take a 10-day Thanksgiving trip to Spain. The school district has canceled that trip, as well as a March trip to Montreal, because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
With the U.S. State Department continuing to warn of potential terrorist attacks against Americans traveling abroad, school districts across the country, fearful for students' safety, have halted overseas trips.
Like Hill, students nationwide are likely to lose out on opportunities to see the world. And because overseas trips are planned as much as a year in advance, many also will lose their deposits.
"It's really because of the uncertainty," South Fayette Superintendent Linda Hippert said of the district's decision. Though Hippert acknowledged that the international situation might be different next spring, she said planning required a decision now.
In Seneca Valley School District, administrators plan to ask the board at its meeting on Monday to ban foreign travel for the rest of the year.
But overseas excursions and air travel aren't the only student trips being banned. South Fayette, for example, also has canceled all student trips more than 250 miles from the district -- regardless of the mode of transportation. That means no trip to New York next spring for the district's 150-member chorus.
"Not everyone would agree with what we did," Hippert acknowledged.
She said the decision to cancel the Spain trip was made with input of parents and chaperones.
Ben Hill, Patty's father and a South Fayette school board member, said he believes there is cause for concern about student travel. "If these were people who were going after our military forces, maybe that would make a difference," said Hill.
Schools across the country in the past several days have decided to ban out-of-state travel.
Even for the most politically informed of students, cancellation of much-anticipated trips can be an eye-opener. "I didn't think when I first heard about the attacks that it would impact a trip we had planned for a year. I understand their decision but I'm disappointed," said Hill.
Many students save or hold fund-raisers for months in advance to pay for overseas trips, which typically run several thousand dollars. Students on the South Fayette trip lost about $200 each in deposits.
Not everyone is ready to cancel student trips.
Mt. Lebanon Superintendent Glenn Smartschan said he would recommend to the board at this month's meeting that planning for overseas trips be allowed to continue. The district has summer trips to Germany, Italy, Spain and Japan in the works.
"I believe right now it's a little premature to cancel what I consider valuable educational experiences ... I don't want to make a decision eight months in advance," he said. He is encouraging organizers to purchase trip insurance so students and parents won't lose money if the trips are canceled.
Upper St. Clair High School also is proceeding with plans for a spring trip for 20 students to France, said district spokesman Tom Labanc.
Several local districts, including Quaker Valley, North Allegheny and West Allegheny, said they had not made decisions yet and planned to discuss the issue at their board meetings this month. But Quaker Valley Assistant Superintendent Joe Clapper warned that overseas trips and the annual eighth-grade field trip to Washington were "jeopardized."
Some districts, like Bethel Park and Penn Hills, have long-standing policies of not sponsoring or approving overseas trips. In Penn Hills, foreign language teachers have organized overseas trips in the past, but must do it independently and cannot even hold planning meetings on school grounds.
Ultimately, the public's reluctance to travel may end school trips, even if school districts do not expressly forbid them.
In the days immediately following the attacks, nine students decided on their own to drop out of the South Fayette trip to Spain.
In the Plum School District, school officials have not yet banned travel. But a summer trip to France was canceled at the request of teacher Kelli Lott.
Lott, a French teacher and a former Russian linguist with the Army, said she believed it would be an unnecessary risk to take students overseas right now. The students, she said, "are like my family. I feel very protective of them. I wouldn't want to see anything happen to them."
Lott said she was concerned not so much about the plane trip as about the possibility of terrorists targeting Americans on foreign soil. She said recent news reports that terrorists had targeted the U.S. Embassy in Paris reinforced her decision to cancel the trip. Lott said only one or two parents pressed to continue it.
Students on Lott's trip lost $95 to $245. However, officials with the travel agency, American Council for International Studies in Boston, said each student will be given a $150 credit toward their next trip.
Clapper said, "My guess is teachers and parent groups may not ask [to plan trips.] That may be the upshot," said Clapper.
Smartschan agreed. "We may find young people do not want to go on trips now," he said.
Alisha Hipwell is a free-lance writer.