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Academic committee recommends clearer rules for vendor-run international student trips
Summary
After recounting recent vendor-run trips, staff recommended keeping the district'adjacent model but tightening Policy 1-21 language on communications, approved vendors, chaperone clearances, participant caps and post-trip reviews; the policy committee will consider revisions with a planned second reading this winter.
The Springfield Township SD Academic Affairs Committee spent the second half of its Nov. 11 meeting reviewing international travel practices and recommended that administrators refine existing guidance under Policy 1-21 rather than fully separate from vendor-run trips.
Adam Washam, a teacher who has organized international trips since 2009, told the committee that educational vendors such as EF Tours and Passports Educational Travel provide booked itineraries, on-site tour directors and payment/booking agreements so families register directly with the vendor. "All of the money and all of that goes directly through EF Tours," he said. "When they sign up, they're signing up with EF, and I'm just helping to kind of facilitate that agreement."
Washam described vendor logistics and an included chaperone model: a 1-to-6 chaperone ratio (one chaperone spot included for every six paying students) and a tour director assigned to each bus-sized group (roughly 40'47 people per group). "There is 1-to-6 chaperones that are included and then 1 director per group," he said.
Committee members raised specific concerns that have surfaced after recent trips: unclear communications that led families and students to believe trips were school-sponsored, gaps over which rules apply while students are abroad (for example, whether district discipline or vendor policies govern bullying or alcohol-related incidents), and how to limit the administrative burden on district staff when incidents occur during out-of-school travel.
Doctor Johnson said parents sign vendor booking agreements and that group leaders also share expectations at pre-departure meetings, but acknowledged "some continued...lack of clarity about where the district began and ended and where the trip and the company began and ended." Administrators recommended revising Policy 1-21 to require clearer disclaimers in initial communications, identify district-approved vendors, require background clearances for chaperones, set reasonable student-to-chaperone caps and formalize post-trip reviews and emergency procedures to be reviewed by administration.
Board leadership said existing, already-approved trips (including a planned Japan trip) will be grandfathered, and invited students to attend the policy committee meeting when revisions are discussed. The policy committee plans a second reading this winter before a final board decision.
