As the school year rolls around, teachers within schools look into educational trips to take their students on. School field trips make kids look forward to school and give students an opportunity to experience education outside of the classroom. Many of these trip opportunities have been recently denied by the Woodbridge Township School District (WTSD). The main reason for this has to do with the heavily enforced rule regarding busing in the school system. What is this rule and why’s it heavily enforced? Is this taking away students educational opportunities?

Students and faculty need a school bus to transport them to and from school field trips. However, getting a bus for a field trip isn’t that simple. Within the WTSD, there’s a rule that states that standard buses cannot be provided for trips until 9:00 A.M. This means that if any field trip starts at 9 or earlier, busing would not be provided for them through the district. This rule has always existed, but never heavily implemented. The district used to be able to accommodate for certain trips with special Principal permission, but now they won’t budge.

There is no crystal clear reason why this has been heavily enforced this year. One could infer that the most logical reason would be that there are not enough drivers this year on duty to handle these shifts. Another factor could be the full-day kindergarten program that is starting in the district.

Mark Cinelli from the WTSD Department of Transportation said that they are always looking to hire new bus drivers for the district. But, Kenneth Pace, the Principal of Colonia High School, explained that they have plenty of buses but not enough drivers to take students on trips.

With this being the case, this highly enforced rule negatively affects classes and clubs that want to go on certain trips. Mrs. Danielle Allen, the adviser of the Poetry Club at Colonia High School, takes her members to a poetry competition every year in which one club member gets to compete in. Poetry Out Loud, a nationwide poetry recitation which awards winners and districts with money, starts at 9:00 A.M., which means a bus would be needed around 8 A.M. For the past four years, Pace called in the request for the bus and helped the Poetry Club secure transportation.  “This is the only trip that Poetry Club goes on,” stated Allen, regarding this situation. “Not going on this trip hurts our competitive spirit and our creative writing process,” Allen added.

Mrs. Darragh Spiewak, an English teacher at Colonia High School, wanted to take her English class to see the play Antigone, which her class was reading at the time. Her class was also denied a bus due to the buses not being able to arrive until 9:00 A.M. She explained, “Seeing this play would enrich the students understanding that you can’t get by just reading it.”

Without the use district buses, classes and clubs looking to go on a field trip prior to 9:00 A.M. have to rent a 52 seat charter bus which can cost about $500 to rent. In the case of Poetry Club and the canceled trip to Antigone, renting a bus was not an option. The bus wouldn’t be full therefore resulting in students paying more out of pocket. Fundraising can be an option but raising that amount of money can take time and carefully scheduled events. Ultimately, the cost of the transportation would default to the students and their parents. Consequently,  students from low-income families may struggle to attend such trips or might simply miss out on a once-in-a-life-time experience. Is this fair?

Since the district funds athletic teams, if they needed busing for an event which required them to leave prior to 9:00 A.M., they can easily rent a charter bus. However, the district does not fund class trips and clubs like Poetry Club. All funds for the organization or class is raised by doing inventive fundraisers such as bagging at Shoprite, selling products, or selling baked goods.

Overall, this rule has negatively affected clubs and classes within the school. The proper solution to this issue is to let buses leave when school starts. If more bus drivers were hired and available, the education of students in CHS wouldn’t have been tampered with and all students could benefit from hands-on learning.