MALDEN — Growing local concern about the safety risks involved in sanctioning school-based trips to Europe and other international destinations mirror statewide and national concerns.
Terrorist attacks in major European countries such as France, Great Britain and Spain and in the U.S. have heightened security and made longtime local educator Leonard Iovino uneasy about school trips abroad.
“When we give permission for our students to leave the United States, I don’t sleep easily. When I see what’s happening overseas in Europe and elsewhere it scares the daylights out of me,” said the retired 40-year school system veteran and father.
The Tornado Travelers, a Malden High School club that organizes trips for students and their teacher chaperones, asked the School Committee this week for permission to travel to Spain and for another trip to the Caribbean in 2018.
While Iovino and some Malden administrators, including School Superintendent John Oteri, acknowledged the high educational and character-building value associated with the exposure to different cultures and customs students received on these types trips, they made it crystal clear they were extremely wary.
Iovino said the new standard for school travel abroad should include acknowledgement by trip organizers that parents of potential student travelers have been alerted to foreign safety threats. Shauna Campbell, a Malden High School teacher and Tornado Travelers advisor, assured Iovino his suggestion was already standard protocol.
“Parents receive detailed letters (on safety risks of travel) and we make sure they receive them and we make ourselves available for discussion if they wish,” Campbell said.
Oteri said he participated in student foreign travel discussions during his previous jobs as a Somerville principal and assistant principal.
“I don’t sleep when I have kids overseas, I never have. I make sure I am informed every step of the way. Every trip, every time,” he told Malden School Committee members.
He said vigilance is the key word governing safe student travel overseas.
Campbell assured Oteri and the School Committee that school-sanctioned and chaperoned student travel includes continual posts and updates on the trip made on an easily-accessible Facebook blog. She offered to share any updates desired by the superintendent and school board.
“We want parents to always be informed and we will keep all of you in the loop as well,” Campbell said.
Committee members approved 2018 trips to Spain and the Caribbean by a 9-0 vote.
