Steven A. Forte
If you plan on being a chaperone for any public school field trips in the future, you might want to plan on being at the Board of Education meeting tonight, Tuesday, September 11.
Verona Superintendent Steven A. Forte will introduce a resolution on the schools’ new chaperone policy. At the August 28 BOE meeting, Forte said the new policy will cover the responsibilities of school and parent chaperones during a trip, the chaperone selection process and the educational value of a trip. There will also be a form for parent chaperones to sign as part of their participation. Other schools across the country have parent chaperone policies.
The new policy is the outgrowth of incidents at a May 2012 school overnight at Camp Bernie. Parent chaperones violated the trip food policy, failed to supervise children who needed to use the restrooms, left their assigned cabins to sleep in their cars, made campfires in and around sleeping cabins and held a private party that allegedly included alcohol. H.B. Whitehorne Middle School will be moving the 2012-2013 fifth grade environmental trip to a YMCA camp in Sussex County in February.
The BOE meeting begins at 8 p.m. in the library at Verona High School and it is open to the public.