While some seniors went on the Disney trip this weekend, other seniors (like myself) had to stay. The reasons for this vary – some students didn’t want to go, some weren’t allowed to, and for others, it was just too expensive. The most frustrating reason, however, is that some students had other school-related things to do over the weekend.
Instead of spending my weekend and two days of school in Disney World in Florida, I got the pleasure of staying in school due to an indoor percussion competition.
My frustration has nothing to do with Winter Guard International or the Perkiomen Valley Indoor Percussion Ensemble staff, it is with our school administration’s lack of regard for those of us who do certain out-of-school activities.
I understand that it is hard to plan a vacation for all seniors without having some overlap with extra curricular activities, so I would like to provide a few solutions for how this issue could be remedied.
Plan the trip after the school year has ended. The first and, arguably, the simplest way to solve the issue would be to just run the trip after the school year has ended. Since seniors don’t have High School anymore, they won’t be doing anything in the summer. Sure, the park will be busier, but a busy park is better than no park at all, and I am sure that many would agree. The trip could also run during a break, like spring break, to make it easier for these students to go.
Communicate with all extra-curricular staff. Like I previously stated, it is understandably difficult to prepare an entire trip to Disney in Florida without causing some issues with scheduling. A lack of communication, however, is definitely a large component as to why the trip didn’t work out as many had hoped.
Allow students to leave a day late. In my specific case, the only day that I had a conflict with was the first day. Unfortunately, the school did not allow me to leave on Sunday or even Saturday night and meet up with my peers. I could go on my own, but the senior trip is exciting because you get to be with your friends at a theme park. Going on your own ruins this excitement.
This is not the first time that students who participate in Indoor Percussion were treated unfairly. Last year, for example, prom was hosted on the night of a competition. I vividly remember renting a suit for prom and just hoping that the scheduling would work out and I would be able to attend, as otherwise I would have been wasting a lot of money. Luckily, everything worked out in the end, however that amount of stress is not fair to put onto students when some planning could have completely solved the issue.
Hopefully in future years, the scheduling issues will be solved and students will not be conflicted as to whether they would like to do after-school activities or go to fun events happening within the Valley. Until then, I’ll just have to stay home.