{"id":7451,"date":"2012-02-29T14:18:23","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T19:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=7451"},"modified":"2012-02-29T14:18:23","modified_gmt":"2012-02-29T19:18:23","slug":"school-board-worried-trips-taking-away-from-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=7451","title":{"rendered":"School board worried trips taking away from learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trip to Disneyworld for music students approved, but board wants discussion about minimizing time away from classroom<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com<\/em><\/span><\/span>
\n\"\"<\/a>EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 Members of the Unionville High School Marching Band and Corale will be able to say \u201cI\u2019m going to Disneyworld!\u201d later this year as members have about every four years \u2014 but school board members say they\u2019re worried about the number of days students are missing on trips and wonder whether there\u2019s a better way to plan them to have a lesser impact on classroom time.<\/p>\n

During Monday\u2019s Board of Education meeting at Unionville High School, the board voted 8-1 to allow the music students to travel to the Magic Kingdom to perform in November, but the impact of missing days in school on this and other trips \u2014 in this case, three days \u2014 was a major topic of discussion. While board members agreed that the trip had value, although board president Eileen Bushelow expressed concerns about its relationship to curriculum, many said they were worried about the impact on education.<\/p>\n

\u201cI agree that it (the trip) is a unique opportunity, but it comes with a cost,\u201d board member Holly Manzone said. As board members, it\u2019s our job to keep and eye on costs, not just in the budget, but educationally.\u201d She noted that three days of missed school amounted to 1.65% of the school year, and putting it into perspective, she noted a similar cut to the budget would be well over $1 million. She asked whether there might be a better way to schedule these trips so that less class time could be missed.<\/p>\n

Other members agreed, noting that while they supported the Disney trip, a larger discussion is needed about trips, whether they be sports or other activities, that require days out of school.<\/p>\n

Board member Victor Dupuis noted that he\u2019d chaperoned three previous Disney trips and said they were \u201ca once in a lifetime experience,\u201d and didn\u2019t want this specific trip tangled up in what probably needs to be a more comprehensive discussion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we should reserve our discussion (on this) for a broader discussion of the subject,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Member Frank Murphy said the issue bothered him as well, citing the increasingly competitive nature of the world economy \u2014 noting that Chinese students stay in school 12 months a year and that the U.S. appears to be falling behind in educating students in some specialities, he mentioned engineering specifically.<\/p>\n

Although most board expressed concerns, only Bushelow said that it bothered her enough to vote against the trip.<\/p>\n

\u201cI struggle a lot with this,\u201d she said. \u201cEveryone loves this trip. But it seems like every six or eight months we\u2019re asked to approve these extended trips.\u201d She mentioned that the Marching Band attended the BCS Championship game in New Orleans in January \u2014 so while the Disney trip is a once-every four years trip, other trips seem to keep popping up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trip to Disneyworld for music students approved, but board wants discussion about minimizing time away from classroom By Mike McGann, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 Members of the Unionville High School Marching Band and Corale will be able to say \u201cI\u2019m going to Disneyworld!\u201d later this year as members have about every four years \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[485,975,24],"class_list":["post-7451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-board-of-education","tag-trips","tag-unionville"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}