A Burnaby parent took the school district to task this week for blocking a school trip to London, England because of concerns about terrorism.
At a public meeting Monday, Alpha Secondary School parent Stuart Ramsey presented trustees with a PowerPoint presentation that combined terrorism and traffic-death statistics to show students were actually less safe in Canada than London.
“Compared to the thousands and thousands of people that die in traffic crashes, (the risk of terrorism) is so so miniscule, and so it seems to me a shame to deny those kids that incredible opportunity just because of headlines,” he told trustees.
The one-week, theatre-focused trip, planned for spring break next year, was to feature an impressive itinerary, Ramsey said, including three West End shows, theatre workshops and visits to the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, Covent Garden, the Globe Theatre and the town of Bath.
“I think there was a lot of enthusiasm for the trip,” Ramsey told the NOW.
In April, however, parents got an email telling them the trip could not go ahead.
In conversations with Alpha principal Kevin Brandt and district principal Brandon Curr, Ramsey said he was told the district had recently adopted a more cautious approach to international trips because of terrorism concerns.
Principals were told to tell staff who were planning international trips to find Canadian alternatives, he said.
“The example I’ve been given is that perhaps the kids could go to Toronto,” Ramsey said Monday. “I grew up in Toronto and it’s a wonderful city, but from a theatre perspective, I would in no way confuse it with London, England.”
Ramsey further noted two trustees and two senior staff recently traveled to China and reported having a worthwhile and productive time.
“I don’t think anyone asked, could you have a similar experience in Toronto?” Ramsey said. “I think the value is in visiting different nations and different cultures and interacting with those people.”
After his presentation, Ramsey asked the board to change its new approach and support the Alpha London trip.
Trustee Gary Wong said he was “a little confused” by Ramsey’s presentation since the official policy around school trips hasn’t changed for more than a decade.
“Certainly we do deal with requests on a case to case basis,” Wong said, “and certainly I would have concerns if a teacher thought it was a good idea to take a fieldtrip to Syria or Iraq. I would certainly have some concerns there, but there is no outright policy against international trips.”
Chair Ron Burton said the district has to weigh educational value versus risk.
“I think in London now it’s a high alert, and it’s no different than if kids were traveling to the mountains and there was a high avalanche alert. We’d have the same concerns.”
District staff, meanwhile, said the district office has not given schools any new directive about international trips.
“We have not provided any direction in terms of terrorism, of banning travel or anything like that,” superintendent Gina Niccoli-Moen told the NOW.
Niccoli-Moen said district staff would follow up with the school since it appeared some lines of communication had gotten crossed and needed to be sorted out.
The only recent change in the district’s approach to fieldtrips, she said, was in March when it directed schools to find Canadian alternatives to U.S. trips, so no Burnaby students would be stopped at the border because of American President Donald Trump’s proposed travel ban on foreign nationals from six majority Muslim countries.
While he supports the district’s approach on fieldtrips to the U.S., Ramsey said that has nothing to do with the London trip.
He said he was told the trip was rejected at the school level because of terrorism concerns before the proposal was even sent to the district office.
In a discussion with the Alpha principal about the trip, Ramsey said Brandt cited a deadly terror attack in Nice, France last July that was witnessed by a group of Nanaimo high school students on a school trip.
With recent deadly attacks in England, Ramsey admitted it wasn’t the best timing for his pitch in favour of a London trip, but he believes decisions on such matters should be made rationally.
“It just totally blew my mind that they would bring in that sort of direction,” he said. “It just seems like responding to headlines. There’s no fact behind it. It’s just fear.”
