New Milford board hears plan for proposed 11‑day student trip to China

Miss Kershner, a district staff member and trip organizer, presented plans for an 11‑day student trip to China scheduled for spring break, saying the itinerary would include time in Beijing, a stop in a second, smaller city and a visit to a local Chinese high school for a student shadow day and workshops. "We're going to hit Beijing," Kershner told the board, and she described cultural visits including museum sites and a terracotta‑soldier workshop.

Kershner said the trip would include experiential and service elements: students could visit a panda conservation site and, if circumstances allow, participate in supervised volunteer work. She referenced prior district charter trips and classroom archives documenting past exchanges, saying those visits allowed students to interact with host‑school peers.

The organizer described several logistical and safety stipulations. Based on feedback from "Art," the district’s insurance contact, Kershner said the vendor’s policy treats a change in travel advisory from level 2 to level 3 as a trigger for an automatic refund: "It goes from a level 2 to a level 3. It automatically goes off and it completely gets refunded," she said. Kershner said the district had worked with the company to embed district stipulations into the vendor policy and listed required steps before any advertising: mandatory meetings with parents, secured insurance and meeting minimum enrollment.

On visas and family travel, Kershner said one parent would need to hold a visa to ensure a parent could travel if required. She also said organizers hoped to use school buses to transport students to the departure airport; previous pre‑pandemic trips departed from Newark. When asked about cost, Kershner said the fee would be "somewhat similar to last year" but did not provide a specific dollar amount during the meeting.

Board members asked logistical questions about dates, transportation and contingency planning; Kershner confirmed final travel dates were not yet fixed and reiterated that the trip would be canceled if stipulations were not met. No formal approval of the trip occurred at the meeting; Kershner sought board direction to move toward recommendation and approval once the outstanding items — insurance, parent meetings, visas and minimum enrollment — were secured.