I sure would love to look into something like this in the VERY near future! Our school has had to cancel several fieldtrips in the past because the large amounts of the students didn't pay for thier portion. For the most part the cost of the trip is to pay for the bus so when alot of students dont' pay everyone hurts!
"Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."
If you're offering to give us a scholarship, I accept. I am a special education teacher in Memphis TN. I have 8 undepriviledge students whom I would love to take on a fieldtrip to your city. My students are 4-7th graders. Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
You might consider tying eligibility for field trip scholarships to the federal free lunch application. If the family qualifies for the lunches, you will know that they are truly in need. Then, to further limit the expense and to take the teachers out of the middle of having to choose one child over another, the scholarships could be given by lottery with a limited number of times any one child could be the beneficiary in a given year (depending on the PTO's budget). To maintain confidentiality all the way around -- from the free lunch award info to the lottery recipients, the process could be handled directly by the principal.
I'm the treasurer for my elemen PTC. What we've done for the past several years is give each teacher a field trip grant. It's not too much, $145/teacher for K-3 and $200/teacher for 4-6. That basically pays for the school bus and since each grade typically takes field trips together, they can take about 3 or 4 field trips per year. Our 6th graders only have one field trip during the school year which is a week long trip to an outdoor educational center and the field trip grants for them take care of transportation.
We are in a very rural area in East TN. As part of our school wide support this year we have looked at giving field trip scholarships. Has any one done this before? Do you have a form? How did it go?
The obvious problem is once we give out scholarships that the word will get out and everyone will want one. We are setting it up that the teachers come to us and request it. No parent requests.
