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022103 School board critics challenge ACES trip
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by
FRANK NARDOZZI
"Unlimited, extravagant and voluntary travel of students and teachers, subsidized by the taxpayer, stretches the definition of a field trip to the absurd." JOSEPH GIARDINA |
A scheduled trip to Costa Rica by Fox Lane alternative high school students has drawn two, legal complaints to the state education commissioner from school board critics Joseph Giardina of Mount Kisco and Michael Carbone of Bedford Hills.
About 21 students enrolled in the Academic Community for Educational Success (ACES) program are set to leave for the Central American country on Feb 27 and return on March 6
The trip is planned to culminate a six-week interdisciplinary curriculum unit in English, social studies, the Spanish language, and biology. Each student will pay at least $1,117 for transportation, food and lodging, and the school district is paying $15,000 for four teacher chaperones.
The trip was first proposed to Bedford Central Schools Superintendent Bruce Dennis by David Albano, the alterative high school teacher, in a letter dated Dec. 3, 2002, and approved by the school board on Jan 15
In proposing the trip and putting forward a rationale, Mr. Albano said, "For alternative learners, the teaching method is everything ACES students have high ability They can learn what Advanced Placement students can, but only if it is presented in an appropriate way The most effective method for them is experiential learning.
"They have social issues which must be dealt with before they are ready to learn. Many of them have been developing low self-esteem and self-destructive habits since birth and they continue to have extremely stressful and damaging experiences outside of school.
"They need the experiential approach as part of their counseling program, as well as pan of their educational program- Traditional school counseling alone cannot work for these children any more than traditional education did," Mr. Albano stated.
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The Costa Rica trip is part of a series of adventure-based counseling trips developed years ago through the Yale Consultation Center. On each trip, students are removed from their damaging personal environments, taught specific cognitive and emotional skills and allowed to practice those skills in a new, supportive, challenging environment," he said."This experience is essential to their social and academic success. Our experiential counseling program literally keeps some of these children alive and sober, helps most of them to be healthy and happy and enables all of them to achieve higher social and academic standards," Mr Albano said.
During the trip to Costa Rica, the students will have guided tours and one or two classes daily. They will study biodiversity and ecology in the Arenal Volcano, Palo Verde National Park and the Cartegena Canopy, a tropical rain forest they will also tour a coffee plantation and do community service at an elementary school.
The one or two students who chose not to go will cover the same academic subjects with a substitute teacher. Instead of field observations, they will conduct their research on the Internet and library resources.
In his petition to the education Commissioner, Mr. Giardina objected to the trip, asserting that the state constitution required only that all children be afforded a 'sound basic education"
This includes "the basic literacy, calculating and verbal skills necessary" to enable them to function productively in society and to perform such civic duties as voting and serving on a jury, he said.
"Subsidizing foreign travel is not a fundamental right under the state constitution. Trips to Costa Rica are not required to fulfill our constitutional obligations. No educational deprivation is at stake here, he said.
Mr. Giardina likened the districts paying the travel and lodging costs of chaperones to, "subsidizing voluntary vacations with public monies" and warned that a dangerous precedent was being set.
"Unlimited, extravagant and voluntary travel of students and teachers, subsidized by the taxpayer, stretches the definition of a field trip to the absurd," he states.
"Approval and funding of annual international travel in this magnitude approved by (the school) district must be stopped. The very notion that an eight-day trip to Costa Rica is a 'field trip' is ridiculous," he stated.
Mr. Giardina alluded to the country's current war against terrorism in criticizing the district for even considering foreign travel for students at this time.
In regard to Mr. Albano's claim that travel to a foreign country was essential to his students academic and Social success, Mr. Giardina warned against statements that denigrated students personal environments or home lives.
"Such broad generalizations of pathology unfairly stigmatize students," he said- He refused to accept "the psycho-social hypothesis" that international travel was essential for ACES students, calling it "an unreasonable demand on the taxpayer."
"A balance has to be struck between providing a sound basic education and the degree to which a sound basic education is reasonably enriched," he said. "The (school) board demonstrates NO understanding of opposition to such school Sponsored travel."
In light of the "inherent illegalities" and "the multitude of risks" alleged, Mr. Giardina asked the education commissioner to order the cancellation of the trip to Costa Rica or to stay the approval of public funds.
In his objections, Mr. Carbone took a different tack.
He argued that the school board had made the Costa Rica trip "an integral portion of the curriculum" by allowing it to occur during regular school days and recognizing it for academic credit.
He noted that state education law entitles children between the ages of 5 and 21 to attend public schools in their school districts without the payment or tuition.
Mr. Carbone maintained that students wishing to benefit from the planned academic instruction associated with the Costa Rica trip would be compelled to pay $1,117 if they wished to be taught by full-time district staff during regular school days. This, he said, was "patently unfair and illegal."
Mr. Carbone also objected to the fund-raisers that have been sponsored by the ACES program to raise money for the trip, with the funds distributed to students on the basis of need. He called these distributions "tuition vouchers," saying that they are contrary to law
Mr. Carbone asked the education commissioner to order the school district to stay its approval of the trip and to reimburse the students for the full cost of expenses incurred.
No comment could be obtained from Superintendent Bruce Dennis this week, since the school district was on its winter break. However, School Board president Dot Fallon was contacted,
Mrs. Fallon reserved comment on the Giardina complaint, saying that she had not seen it, As for Mr Carbone's complaint, she said, "While understandable, l think he is wrong in thinking that the district is inherently charging tuition by virtue of having the kids pay for their own transportation.
"We have had students go on field trips of all sorts for as long as I can remember-and well before that, I'm sure - and very often they have paid for a portion of the cost, whether it be the admission fee to a museum or part of the transportation cost. That's very normal and typical," she said.
Students in the ACES program last year went to Arizona and New Mexico and similarly paid for their own transportation, "as they have done for years," Mrs. Fallon said.
"They earn these monies through fund-raising or family contributions and it has never been an issue," she said. "Nor has it ever been an issue when someone was asked to pay $2.50 or $5 for transportation for a field trip into Manhattan," adding only that "the magnitude of this might be different because it's the cost of air transportation to a foreign location "
She disagreed with "the narrow view" that voluntary fund-raising to cover costs amounted to charging tuition.
"I would love to provide such educational Opportunities to all kids at absolutely no expense to them at all," she said.
In 1998, Phil Christe, another school board critic, filed a complaint with the state education commissioner over the Bedford Central school board's agreeing to pay up to $10,000 of the costs for chaperones of 46 Fox Lane High School students who traveled to France and Spain over their spring recess in 1999.
The request for assistance was made by a foreign language teacher after student fund-raising for the trips fell short of covering the full S1,700 cost per student far transportation,food and accommodations, as well as the cost of the chaperones.
Mr. Christe objected that the trips had nothing to do with the school curriculum and that the board's action amounted to the improper use of public funds to subsidize private travel.
The commissioner of education upheld the complaint, ruling that. "It is improper to use public funds to subsidize a trip that is essentially a private recreational experience and not a part of a school district's educational program."
The commissioner stated that for such trips to be considered a part of the educational program in the future, they would have to be scheduled during regular academic school days and be recognized as appropriate for academic credit.