The purposes of these procedures are to help ensure the safety of all students, staff and volunteers, and to help reduce the district’s liabilities by effectively eliminating and/or reducing loss exposures and risks.
1. Board policy
These procedures supplement the school district’s related policy. Field trip organizers must refer to and comply with all applicable school district board policies:
2. Field trip definition: A “field trip” occurs when students leave school grounds for an educational purpose. It is a student trip for the purpose of curriculum related study (part of the classroom educational experience), WIAA interscholastic athletics, co-curricular activities, outdoor education, or part of a school-sponsored club.
Types of field trips include:
• Day field trips
• Recurring field trips (same activity on a regular basis, such as a choir or sports games)
• Field trips with special hazards:
A field trip is school-sponsored if school or ASB funds pay for the activity, it is part of the educational process, or it is supervised or staffed by school employees. A field trip is privately sponsored if no school funds are used, the school/district is not named in promotional materials, meetings are not held at school*, and the field trip does not occur during school hours.
* Some district facility use policies permit groups to meet in schools to discuss activities that are not school-sponsored.
3. Legal considerations
a. Liability
Negligence creates potential liability. Negligence is the failure to use that degree of reasonable care which is considered to be a reasonable precaution under the given circumstance. It is the unintentional doing or not doing of something, which causes injury to another.
Negligence involves four elements. All four elements must be present to be found negligent in a court of law:
* Duty – an official or reasonable expectation
* Breach of duty – the expectation was not met
* Proximate cause – not meeting that duty caused or exclusively contributed to the accident
* Damages – the accident caused someone to be injured or property to be damaged
b. Duties
A school district (and its employees, who are its agents) has certain
basic duties to help ensure the safety of all students, staff, and
volunteers that are summarized as follows:
• The duty to warn and inform
• The duty to provide proper instruction
• The duty to condition and equip participants properly
• The duty to provide proper supervision
• The duty to provide safe facilities
• The duty to provide safe equipment
• The duty to provide prompt and appropriate post-injury care
When those duties are not fulfilled, the district could be held liable
for a student’s injury or property damage.
4. Field trips are out of the ordinary
Field trips, excursions, and outdoor education are a part of student
education in many school districts. As these events are out of the
ordinary, school field trips are an area rife with possibilities for injuries and
liability. The off-site situations mean that students are exposed to hazards
not present in the usual school environment, and staff members can more
easily lose control of the students. Therefore, additional safeguards must
be used for the protection of students.
g. Estimated # of chaperones needed, listing any special qualifications
for chaperones
h. Estimated costs and funding source(s)
i. A preliminary trip itinerary
SCHOOL FIELD TRIP PROCEDURES
i. Air or flight activities, including airplane flying, hang gliding, helicopters, hot air ballooning, and parasailing
ii. Motorized races and contests (with district owned land motor vehicles), including auto racing, and go-cart racing, demolition contests, stunting, and tractor pulls
iii. Use of watercraft over 26 feet in length
iv. White water rafting, canoeing, kayaking, tubing or boat as well as jet-ski or other similar motorized personal watercraft designed to carry two or fewer persons. Please note that this does not apply to non-white water boating activities.
Typical liability coverage exclusions include illegal acts, intentional acts, pollution, non-monetary damages, breach of contract, contractual obligations, air/water/rail travel, and claims brought outside the U.S.
b. High risk activities
Some activities provide unusual risk to staff and students involved.
Within the school district, ask if the curriculum objectives are worth the potential risk of injury to those involved. Activities that the district may want to avoid are:
i. Water activities: jet skis, canoeing, kayaking, wind surfing, power boat racing, private swimming pools, swimming in lakes and rivers, scuba diving, snorkeling, surfing, watercraft
activities (except a properly insured commercial passenger boat), water skiing, water slides, water parks
ii. Amusement park activities: amusement or carnival rides,
bungee jumping, dunk tanks, fairground activities, food eating contests, moonwalks, mud or Jell-O wrestling, Wild
West shows, mechanical bull riding
iii. Animal activities: donkey basketball, horse riding, pack animal trips, saddle animals, snake handling and wild animals
iv. Athletics not WIAA approved: high-impact aerobics, archery, martial arts, boxing, rugby, powder puff football, snow skiing, snowboarding
v. Skating (unless it is a part of an approved P. E. program): inline roller skating, rollerblading or ice skating at rinks, skateboarding
Other high risk activities:
• bonfires • building houses, boats or cars
• model rocketry
• private parties
• fireworks
• student cooking
• offering home-cooked foods
• haunted
houses
• car washes
• use of trampolines
• violent arcade games
• shooting firecrackers or fireworks
• glass blowing
• using trampolines
• after school open gym
• snow tubing
• using firearms of any type,
• car bashes
• unicycles/scooters
Administrative approval process:
Purpose of administrative review:
Field trips provide a valuable educational benefit. However, off-site situations can expose students to hazards that are not present in the normal school environment. As a result, it is important for administrators to carefully review and monitor field trips to ensure that risks and potential school liability are minimized.
1. Board policy
These procedures supplement the school district’s related policy. Field trip organizers must refer to and comply with all applicable school district board policies:
2. Field trip definition: A “field trip” occurs when students leave school grounds for an educational purpose. It is a student trip for the purpose of curriculum related study (part of the classroom educational experience), WIAA interscholastic athletics, co-curricular activities, outdoor education, or part of a school-sponsored club.
Types of field trips include:
• Day field trips
• Recurring field trips (same activity on a regular basis, such as a choir or sports games)
• Field trips with special hazards:
- near water or involving swimming or boating
- in remote locations
- involving animals (farms, zoos, riding animals, etc.)
- involving outdoor education (description in section N)
- Extended field trips - overnight field trips or out of area (over 50 miles)
- Out of country field trips
A field trip is school-sponsored if school or ASB funds pay for the activity, it is part of the educational process, or it is supervised or staffed by school employees. A field trip is privately sponsored if no school funds are used, the school/district is not named in promotional materials, meetings are not held at school*, and the field trip does not occur during school hours.
* Some district facility use policies permit groups to meet in schools to discuss activities that are not school-sponsored.
3. Legal considerations
a. Liability
Negligence creates potential liability. Negligence is the failure to use that degree of reasonable care which is considered to be a reasonable precaution under the given circumstance. It is the unintentional doing or not doing of something, which causes injury to another.
Negligence involves four elements. All four elements must be present to be found negligent in a court of law:
* Duty – an official or reasonable expectation
* Breach of duty – the expectation was not met
* Proximate cause – not meeting that duty caused or exclusively contributed to the accident
* Damages – the accident caused someone to be injured or property to be damaged
b. Duties
A school district (and its employees, who are its agents) has certain
basic duties to help ensure the safety of all students, staff, and
volunteers that are summarized as follows:
• The duty to warn and inform
• The duty to provide proper instruction
• The duty to condition and equip participants properly
• The duty to provide proper supervision
• The duty to provide safe facilities
• The duty to provide safe equipment
• The duty to provide prompt and appropriate post-injury care
When those duties are not fulfilled, the district could be held liable
for a student’s injury or property damage.
4. Field trips are out of the ordinary
Field trips, excursions, and outdoor education are a part of student
education in many school districts. As these events are out of the
ordinary, school field trips are an area rife with possibilities for injuries and
liability. The off-site situations mean that students are exposed to hazards
not present in the usual school environment, and staff members can more
easily lose control of the students. Therefore, additional safeguards must
be used for the protection of students.
g. Estimated # of chaperones needed, listing any special qualifications
for chaperones
h. Estimated costs and funding source(s)
i. A preliminary trip itinerary
SCHOOL FIELD TRIP PROCEDURES
i. Air or flight activities, including airplane flying, hang gliding, helicopters, hot air ballooning, and parasailing
ii. Motorized races and contests (with district owned land motor vehicles), including auto racing, and go-cart racing, demolition contests, stunting, and tractor pulls
iii. Use of watercraft over 26 feet in length
iv. White water rafting, canoeing, kayaking, tubing or boat as well as jet-ski or other similar motorized personal watercraft designed to carry two or fewer persons. Please note that this does not apply to non-white water boating activities.
Typical liability coverage exclusions include illegal acts, intentional acts, pollution, non-monetary damages, breach of contract, contractual obligations, air/water/rail travel, and claims brought outside the U.S.
b. High risk activities
Some activities provide unusual risk to staff and students involved.
Within the school district, ask if the curriculum objectives are worth the potential risk of injury to those involved. Activities that the district may want to avoid are:
i. Water activities: jet skis, canoeing, kayaking, wind surfing, power boat racing, private swimming pools, swimming in lakes and rivers, scuba diving, snorkeling, surfing, watercraft
activities (except a properly insured commercial passenger boat), water skiing, water slides, water parks
ii. Amusement park activities: amusement or carnival rides,
bungee jumping, dunk tanks, fairground activities, food eating contests, moonwalks, mud or Jell-O wrestling, Wild
West shows, mechanical bull riding
iii. Animal activities: donkey basketball, horse riding, pack animal trips, saddle animals, snake handling and wild animals
iv. Athletics not WIAA approved: high-impact aerobics, archery, martial arts, boxing, rugby, powder puff football, snow skiing, snowboarding
v. Skating (unless it is a part of an approved P. E. program): inline roller skating, rollerblading or ice skating at rinks, skateboarding
Other high risk activities:
• bonfires • building houses, boats or cars
• model rocketry
• private parties
• fireworks
• student cooking
• offering home-cooked foods
• haunted
houses
• car washes
• use of trampolines
• violent arcade games
• shooting firecrackers or fireworks
• glass blowing
• using trampolines
• after school open gym
• snow tubing
• using firearms of any type,
• car bashes
• unicycles/scooters
Administrative approval process:
Purpose of administrative review:
Field trips provide a valuable educational benefit. However, off-site situations can expose students to hazards that are not present in the normal school environment. As a result, it is important for administrators to carefully review and monitor field trips to ensure that risks and potential school liability are minimized.