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Chaperone Speaks

In Local News: Epic Failure by Middle School Chaperones

Seventy students from Mid-Carolina Middle School in Prosperity went to Washington, DC last month.

A 14-year-old girl told her mother and WIS news 10 she and several other girls went to a hotel room where several boys were staying during the trip and had sex. We also talked to a 15-year-old boy who was in the room at the time.

The two students we spoke to say their chaperones were on a different floor when the girls snuck out of their rooms

When I was in high school, my Junior Statesman group went to Sacramento for a statewide convention. Our chaperones never noticed that we had rooms with connecting doors so that the whole string of rooms could be accessed without going into the hall. Of course boys went though a door to boys' rooms and girls went through one to girls' rooms.

"This incident will not stop this mom from chaperoning, but she may do some things different next time.

"I would go again. Maybe next time I need to take extra precautions," says Boozer."

I think it's the KIDS who needed to take (or bring) the extra precautions.

themanintheseersuckersuit wrote:Chaperone Speaks

In Local News: Epic Failure by Middle School Chaperones

Seventy students from Mid-Carolina Middle School in Prosperity went to Washington, DC last month.

A 14-year-old girl told her mother and WIS news 10 she and several other girls went to a hotel room where several boys were staying during the trip and had sex. We also talked to a 15-year-old boy who was in the room at the time.

The two students we spoke to say their chaperones were on a different floor when the girls snuck out of their rooms

Gee, I feel so lucky. My daughter merely saw a guy in his underwear.

OK. I guess that I am just not up on how chaperoning is done nowadays.

If you have 20 chaperones and 70 students, then there should have been 20 rooms, with a chaperone and 3-4 students per room. Well in advance of the trip, TPTB need to figure out how many boys and girls you have, and make sure that you have enough male and female chaperones to cover each gender.

Never in a million years would I even consider letting middle-school kids have a room to themselves.

Emma's teacher's wife just went on a trip to Tennessee with a group of high school kids. She taped the doors after bed checks so that she could make sure that people were in their rooms when they were supposed to be and they stayed there.

PlacentiaSoccerMom wrote:Emma's teacher's wife just went on a trip to Tennessee with a group of high school kids. She taped the doors after bed checks so that she could make sure that people were in their rooms when they were supposed to be and they stayed there.

That made the national news. There will probably be lawsuits.

We have done a weeklong Washington, DC trip with 8th graders for many years. If we have fewer than 40 kids we do it with 2 teachers. The max is 53 students, as we only rent one bus for local touring -- but then we add a 3rd teacher.

We make it very clear that certain behavior gets you sent home immediately. Students are assigned 3-4 per gender segregated room, and the doors are taped at curfew. We have to actually see every person assigned to a particular room before taping. (By "tape" -- the doors are not sealed shut. We have a variety of colored or patterned tapes, and place a 3-4" strip at the very top or bottom, touching both the door and the frame. Students don't know which tape we choose each night, or where it is placed.) They are not allowed to open the door until one of us knocks in the morning. Pre-curfew visiting is only allowed with same-gender groups, and only with the permission of the chaperones -- and doors must be propped open during visitation. Chaperone rooms are on the same floor as students, and we arrange the rooms so that boys are to one side of the teachers and girls to the other.

Our schedule is so packed during the day that most of our kids are worn out by dinner time. We schedule group time in the evening, where we review the day and make required journal entries. Then we have a low-key activity, such as an ice-cream social, video and popcorn night, or swimming in the hotel pool. (We also require ALL students to wear a t-shirt over their bathing suits. No sexism here! )

If field trips are run right, they are a great addition to the curriculum. It takes a lot of work, and having chaperones who stay on top of things.

Bob Juch wrote:

PlacentiaSoccerMom wrote:Emma's teacher's wife just went on a trip to Tennessee with a group of high school kids. She taped the doors after bed checks so that she could make sure that people were in their rooms when they were supposed to be and they stayed there.

That made the national news. There will probably be lawsuits.

Why would there be lawsuits?

We make it very clear that certain behavior gets you sent home immediately. Students are assigned 3-4 per gender segregated room, and the doors are taped at curfew. We have to actually see every person assigned to a particular room before taping. (By "tape" -- the doors are not sealed shut. We have a variety of colored or patterned tapes, and place a 3-4" strip at the very top or bottom, touching both the door and the frame. Students don't know which tape we choose each night, or where it is placed.) They are not allowed to open the door until one of us knocks in the morning. Pre-curfew visiting is only allowed with same-gender groups, and only with the permission of the chaperones -- and doors must be propped open during visitation. Chaperone rooms are on the same floor as students, and we arrange the rooms so that boys are to one side of the teachers and girls to the other.

We only had one color of tape, but this is the same procedure we used for the band trip. Check room and kids in each room are the ones on the list, tape door, knock in the morning, open door, check kids against names on the list. Everyone has room phone numbers and cell phone nymbers so any untapiing is done by a chaperone.

No problems in the 3 years I chaperoned.

hermillion wrote:

Bob Juch wrote:

PlacentiaSoccerMom wrote:Emma's teacher's wife just went on a trip to Tennessee with a group of high school kids. She taped the doors after bed checks so that she could make sure that people were in their rooms when they were supposed to be and they stayed there.

That made the national news. There will probably be lawsuits.

Why would there be lawsuits?

Because the tape actually prevented people from leaving.

Bob Juch wrote:

hermillion wrote:

Bob Juch wrote: That made the national news. There will probably be lawsuits.

Why would there be lawsuits?

Because the tape actually prevented people from leaving.

What is your source for this?

Rexer25 wrote:

Bob Juch wrote:

hermillion wrote: Why would there be lawsuits?

Because the tape actually prevented people from leaving.

What is your source for this?

Different trip, but it happened in Chicago:
http://www.wnwo.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=136342

That isn't what we do.

Duct taping a door closed is a significantly different thing to what we do.

It is like the safety seal on a bottle. If the seal is broken, you have some serious 'splainin to do. They are never broken with our group.

But you are VERY able to open the door. Just not to put the tape back and fool the chaperones.

christie1111 wrote:That isn't what we do.

Duct taping a door closed is a significantly different thing to what we do.

It is like the safety seal on a bottle. If the seal is broken, you have some serious 'splainin to do. They are never broken with our group.

But you are VERY able to open the door. Just not to put the tape back and fool the chaperones.

I'm sure that's what the idea is supposed to be. Someone took it too far, despite the school's protestations to the contrary.

I have found that a couple nuns roaming the hallway with rulers seems to discourage any wandering by disobedient students. The tough part on school trips is keeping the preists from leaving THEIR rooms....

When I was in the 10th grade in suburban Atlanta -- would have been in 1970 or so -- we went on an overnite bus trip to Oak Ridge TN. One of my friends had an older boyfriend who followed us up in his car. I don't know that anyone had sex, but possibly so since there was a bunch of us, both genders, in one motel room, and we never saw any of the chaperones. Iirc they were playing cards in another room. Anyway, the boyfriend brought cheap wine (Cold Duck and Boones Farm mostly) and a number of us stay up late and got quite inebriated. Which is probably not as bad back then as it would be now because 1) the drinking age was 18, so we were only a few years too young, and 2) people weren't as nutty about minors and alcohol as they are now.

Point is, these things are not new.

hf_jai wrote:When I was in the 10th grade in suburban Atlanta -- would have been in 1970 or so -- we went on an overnite bus trip to Oak Ridge TN. One of my friends had an older boyfriend who followed us up in his car. I don't know that anyone had sex, but possibly so since there was a bunch of us, both genders, in one motel room, and we never saw any of the chaperones. Iirc they were playing cards in another room. Anyway, the boyfriend brought cheap wine (Cold Duck and Boones Farm mostly) and a number of us stay up late and got quite inebriated. Which is probably not as bad back then as it would be now because 1) the drinking age was 18, so we were only a few years too young, and 2) people weren't as nutty about minors and alcohol as they are now.

Point is, these things are not new.

Those were the days, better drinking through chemistry!

I was in the 10th grade in suburban Atlanta -- would have been in 1970 or

I graduated from Shamrock HS in Decatur in '78. Where did you attend?


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