Trips to Washington, Toronto, St. Louis and New York City fall victim to concern over terrorist attack.
By: Gwen Runkle
Due to the national orange alert level, indicating a high risk of terrorist attack, several field trips in the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District have been canceled.
Trips to Washington, D.C., for both high schools and Community Middle School have been canceled along with the High School South Choir trip to Toronto and its orchestra trip to St. Louis.
A performing arts trip to New York City for Community Middle School students and a trip to Ellis Island for Dutch Neck Elementary children were also canceled.
"The current national security situation has forced us to re-examine our field trips," said Jon Cosse, assistant superintendent of pupil personnel services. "But we are trying to get refunds for parents and are trying to reschedule some of the trips with buses where air travel was first planned.
"We know a lot of students were looking forward to these trips," he continued. "But there are real safety concerns."
According to Gerri Hutner, district spokeswoman, the school board retains the right to cancel any field trip for safety reasons and while the Level Orange alert is in effect all decisions related to trips are being made in accordance with the following guidelines:
Cancel or reschedule trips to major cities and area where large crowds congregate.
Cancel or reschedule trips to major historical and tourist sites.
Cancel or reschedule trips where air travel would be necessary and, if possible, revert to the use of buses.
Permit local trips in general.
For all approved trips, ensure that the chaperones, staff and bus drivers are aware of and able to plan for "sheltering-in-place" in the event of an emergency.
Decisions are still pending on a Community Middle School trip to Canada for French classes and two Millstone River School trips one to the Six Flags Safari in Jackson and one to the Red Mill Museum in Clinton.