New School Field Trip Policy Approved

The Melrose School Committee adopted a new field trip policy at its meeting Tuesday night intended to eliminate a possible financial burden on the school district and reflect a forthcoming field trip procedural manual.

Last year, the committee revised the policy to require administrative district procedures that weren't already in place. The revision adopted Tuesday night, written by committee member Kirstin Thorp, removes any procedural language, which will now be covered in the forthcoming manual.

Also, the wording of the previous policy could have been construed to require the district to assist families who are unable to afford field trips with any trip, including expensive voluntary, overseas trips. The policy adopted Tuesday night explicitly limits that financial assistance to single-day field trips.

Committee member Carrie Kourkoumelis had proposed an alternative field trip policy that was more comprehensive and included many procedural items, the result of extensive research into field trip policies in other school districts and her concern that the lack of procedures enumerated in the Melrose policy could leave the district vulnerable to lawsuits.

For instance, Boston, Lexington, Arlington and Hamilton-Wenham's field trip policies all include procedural items such as the requirement of CORI checks for adults on the trip, Kourkoumelis said, adding that those other districts used legal counsel to develop their policies.

"Our current policy doesn't even require a CORI check," she said. "It may be in the procedures (manual), but I feel like some of these things, like checking state travel  advisories, need to be codified and not left to the procedures manual, which can be altered by whatever top administrator that happens to be in that top office at the time."

Committee member Don Constantine said that Kourkoumelis' research "has indeed identified some weaknesses" in the district's current field trip practice and suggested that to address liability issues, the city solicitor should review the policy, rather than relying secondhand on legal advice given to other districts.

Thorp responded to Kourkoumelis by saying "we CORI everyone" and the committee is in the process of re-developing a district-wide CORI policy.

"It's not separate," she said. "One of the things we try to do in policies is not be redundant."

On Kourkoumelis' concern that the procedures manual could be altered at any time by an administrator, Thorp noted that the policy requires all procedures to be approved by the School Committee and that "they won't be changed without us."

Committee member J.D. LaRock suggested an amendment that would require the committee to incorporate the themes contained in Kourkoumelis' proposed policy into the procedural manual.

"I think all of that need not be expressed in the School Committee policy, but it should be somewhere," LaRock said.

His amendment failed on a 1-5 vote, with Kourkoumelis voting present. Thorp's field trip policy was approved by a 6-0 vote, with Kourkoumelis again voting present.