By Ian Holmes

Nanaimo-Ladysmith School District to revisit international field trip policy

Jul 28, 2016 | 12:25 PM

NANAIMO — Adjustments are expected to Nanaimo-Ladysmith Public Schools’ field trip policy following a European trip cut short by a terror attack in southern France.

85 Nanaimo students and seven chaperones were brought home early from a school sanctioned trip after some members of the group were just 100 feet away from a truck that plowed through a crowd of people in Nice, France, killing at least 84.

The district’s decision to bring the group home was met with criticism, not only with the move to cut the trip short, but also surrounding a lack of communication in the days following the attack.

SD68 assistant superintendent Bob Esliger says improved and ongoing communication with the district will be important moving forward during international trips.

“We’re in the process of reviewing and updating our district field trip policy and procedure,” said Esliger.

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“You can be sure that we will be revisiting the international trip component of that field trip policy and ensuring that what we’ve learned and gleaned from this incident is well incorporated into the new update.”

What became clear immediately following the attack, says Esliger, was the importance of communication between the district and those traveling abroad.

“There are just a lot of factors that we need to revisit to ensure that, should something occur in the future, that we have a way of quickly getting to everyone.”

Esliger says a positive in terms of communication were updates from chaperones given to parents through a private Facebook page.

Nanaimo-Ladysmith Public Schools currently ranks its field trips into three categories of risk: high, medium and low. Esliger notes international travel has always been in the high risk category and special considerations need to be signed off before approval is given. All of those steps were covered in the case of this most recent trip, he says.

“I think what we can learn from this is the ongoing connection to the district when you’re on an international trip.”

When it comes to criticism levelled against the district surrounding communication with parents back in Nanaimo, Esliger says it’s a big picture.

“There were a lot of students, a group of 85, so that’s a lot of communication to a lot of students, to a lot of families here. To families who were also maybe on trips out of home while their kids were over there.”

Esliger says the chaperones on this trip did an awesome job of keeping parents updated on the Facebook page and he says that step is maybe something that must be done in the future.