kid's expensive school trip

[Koolau]

Our 3 kids did the DC trip in the late 90s (from roughly the Chicago area at the time) and did it for $800 (which included a little spending money). The school (with the help of volunteers like DW) found "slave labor" projects for the kids to do to earn the money. Ours all earned more than the 800. I do think they went on a motor coach instead of a plane (20 hours of misery for the chaperones - who paid most of their own way.)

All depends on perspective, but I think kids value what they pay for themselves - though mom and dad should kick in if need be (assuming the kids really w*rk at it.) Our kids learned a lot about w*rk and money from this trip - not to mention a bit of US History (which is sadly lacking in today's K-12 curricula).

YMMV

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I know what my parents would have said: "Sure you can go. If you pay for it."

They just didn't have the money for anything like that and I knew it so I never bothered to ask.

I grew up like that, too.

My favorite movie scene regarding school trips is the one in The Hangover where Bradley Cooper is collecting $90 cash from each of his private school students for a day trip to go to Griffith Observatory (free admission) and using the money for his Vegas trip.

For our kids I'd pay for trips and expensive school and scout events if I thought they were well supervised and their close friends were all going so they wouldn't feel left out. Otherwise, I am okay with paying for travel but I'd rather fund a youth hostel type trip with their friends or put the money towards a family vacation for better value.

 

[EastWest Gal]

Such trips are amazing experiences. Most of these school trips also involve fundraising for the kids who can't afford them. Maybe she could earn part of the expense?

We sent DS to Europe twice, and chaperoned 2 out of 3 band trips to Orlando. I don't regret for a moment doing it. I spent a month in the USSR and Poland in the seventies, a group of high school students and a few of us were in college. It was a highlight of my life. Fell in love with DH along the way too!

You may have forgotten expenses such as tour guides, bus transportation between sites, etc. For such tours the bus drivers are with you all day and you have to pay their hotel expenses too. The Orlando trip cost $1300 per person and we didn't fly-18 hrs on a bus. We had Disney meal vouchers and at Universal we ate dinner at restaurants.

 

[growing_older]

We've done quite a few of these trips. Seems teachers here have discovered that they can go for free and they make it sound very attractive to the kids. Costs of the fully supervised trips seem high, but for the supposed full supervision perhaps that's a good part of the cost. Some teachers have started coordinating so one goes one year and the other the next, so at least they avoid competing trips.

Our experience has been mixed. Some trips went very well, some not so much. One well subscribed trip to Europe was guided by full-time local tour guides, who mostly did a good job, but forgot that a famous museum was closed on the day they planned to bring half the class, so only half the students saw it the day before and the other half had an unplanned, unsupervised day loose in the neighborhood of the closed museum. Fun for the kids, but hardly worth the premium for "guided" touring.

Also, we have had some issues with High School trips that were only minimally supervised. These involved faculty supervisors who were absent for large blocks of time in their rooms together. Kids finding ways to access alcohol and drinking and some rather open partying for couples. Some students were arrested and sent home early. The school reprimanded those teachers and won't let them on another trip for a few years, but in the informal "rotation" that may not be much of a penalty.

In short, it can be an interesting and very educational experience, It can be an unsupervised nightmare. And mostly will be something in between. For responsible and mature kids, they can do well even as their peers are making terrible choices, but for kids who can get sucked into bad behavior, it can be a real problem. Going with another responsible friend or two was a very good support system and seemed to work well for us, even if the "adult" supervision was lacking.