Takin' It on the Road The Importance of School Field Trips: SouthFlorida.com

There are educational field trips, class trips for rewards or just for fun, group trips, in-school field experiences and virtual field trips. There are one-day field trips, all-day field trips and overnight field trips. It's exhausting just thinking about the possibilities.

But a field trip is about leaving the confines of the classroom to observe something on a firsthand basis - a play or a barrier island or a space center, for example. South Florida parents, educators and field-trip experts agree that field trips certainly can't replace classroom teaching, but children do learn from the experience - even if all they learn is that learning can be fun.

"Educational field trips get students out of the classroom and allow them to experience hands-on activities that they learn about in books," says Gabriella Boll, owner of Fort Lauderdale-based Build-A-Field Trip. "Good field trips bring lessons to life."

Amy Conza of Parkland praises the field trips at her child's school, which tie together classroom lessons with field visits. "For example, my first-grader learned about butterflies, and the lesson was followed with a field trip to Butterfly World." Afterward, the teacher reinforced what the children saw with another class lesson.

That's the way a well-designed field trip should work, teachers say, with lessons supporting the trip both before and after. In some cases, field trips provide a real-world view of something children only understand in theory from the classroom lesson. "For example, my son's second-grade class spent time in the classroom learning about communities. After the lessons were concluded, they left the classroom to take a walking tour of the community in which they all live," says Virginia Herrero Pagliery of Miami-Dade County. "The Publix, the dry cleaners, other businesses ... you know, what their community is all about."

Parents are united in their support of well-organized learning trips during a single school day. Getting children out of the classroom to see the world can be enlightening for them. "My son's class took a trip to the Key Biscayne Nature Center," Pagliery says. "The very well-run, well-managed field trip was educational for everyone who participated - including chaperones like me!"

Overnight?

The popular overnight trips offered from fourth grade on leave many parents sighing. Many elementary students go on trips within Florida to reinforce aspects of Florida history. In eighth grade, students may visit Washington, Boston or Philadelphia for lessons on American history.

Regardless of destination or rationale, there's just something unsettling for parents about putting your child on a bus (or plane) to go away overnight without you. Many parents opt to keep their children at home.

"My son's fourth-grade class took an overnight trip to St. Augustine," says Parkland parent Mary Friesz. "I was uncomfortable with it and with the fact that no parents were allowed to accompany them. But he so wanted to go. It was difficult to say no. Several complications along the way made the trip more difficult than some, and although it all came out OK in the end, my feeling is that fourth grade is simply too soon for a child to go on an overnight field trip hours away from home."

FCAT blackout

Already controversial enough with parents and educators, the FCAT has become a roadblock to field trips in the Broward school system at certain times of year.

"Students need to be in school for FCAT," says Broward schools spokesman Joe Donzelli. "Field trips are an important part of education, but when a high-stakes test can keep a student from being promoted and determine whether a school is or is not succeeding, then doing well on FCAT comes first."

Build-A-Field Trip's Boll says there was confusion last year as to what field trips would and would not be permitted during the FCAT period - leaving many principals to decide that children could not go on field trips at all for months. Because the school board's policy had not been revised since 1995, it was reviewed, revised and was due to be finalized in summer 2005.

Now field trip vendors, teachers, principals and everyone in a decision-making capacity will be able to determine when field trips may or may not be taken. According to the proposed policy, educational class trips may be approved at any time during the school year except for a blackout period of one week before the February administration of the FCAT and ending after the March test dates.

Regardless of final wording, Broward school administrators clearly see the benefit of educational class trips at the proper time and even applaud fun trips, such as end-of-year visits to Walt Disney World or Islands of Adventure - as long as they happen after FCAT.

Palm Beach County's school board rules about field trips are a little less clear: "Field trips in or out of the county should not negatively impact the student's regular instructional program." At press time, Palm Beach County was unable to clarify the school system's exact position on field trips and FCAT. And in Miami-Dade, the rule is that "field trips are permitted if they have value in meeting educational objectives, are necessary to the curriculum or necessary to the fulfillment of athletic or activity program commitments."

Parents' comments on the timing of field trips go straight to the heart of their main concern: that the FCAT process is simply too stressful for everyone.

"Quite frankly, nothing but FCAT is taught until the FCAT, and very little else is really even done," Friesz says. "There's just too much stress associated with FCAT, a real 'do or die' mentality."

Palm Beach County mom Tanya Kemp says she'd never heard of any rule about timing of field trips around the test dates, but it "makes sense since the FCAT seems so stressful for everyone."

And while limiting field trips during the test period may make sense, that limitation should be as short as possible, most experts agree. "Field trips are integral to learning," Boll says. "They enhance the curriculum and take students from the confines of the classroom. Students ... will see a much bigger, three-dimensional picture. And that alone will provide an incentive for higher learning."

Other benefits? Field trips teach kids to be organized and responsible - and they can be a powerful motivator for good behavior, parents and teachers say.

"Students learn very quickly that if they don't sit still on the bus, for example, there will be consequences," Friesz says. "At the end of the day, they begin to learn responsibility and to pay attention to the teachers, something they quite honestly don't always do so well in the classroom."

For some children, whose parents may work long hours or lack money to take children on their own to plays, concerts and museums, school field trips open the world

"There are some children who, through field trips, get to do things they've never done before," Boll says. "Maybe it's snorkeling, canoeing or kayaking - these are events that are sometimes new even to adults."

So pack 'em up and let 'em go. It's all good.