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BPS cancels school trips to countries with Zika outbreaks
By adamg on Wed, 02/03/2016 - 6:31pm
School Superintendent Tommy Chang made the announcement today, said BPS is working out arrangements to refund families who have already paid for trips. Among the trips canceled: Two to Nicaragua.
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Comments
Wait
BPS has school trips overseas? Shit I'm in my late 20s, when I was in middle school our school trips consisted of walking down the street to the bayside expo or the old Boston Bank.
But then again, I may have been left out. Our principle (former gym teacher) hated me because I was white. In fact she once told me "if I see your white ass outside, I'll run you over."
Jesus BPS was a travisty, the MCCorrmick is probably no different today. Hopefully the unionized teacher still let charter schools recruit kids, because it was beyond determental to my current success.
Sorry your experience sucked
But not everybody's did, or does.
On the agenda tonight: The School Committee looks to approve trips to China (BLS), Ireland (BLS), Nicaragua (Burke), Nicaragua (Dearborn) and Costa Rica (Young Achievers). The kids have to raise money for these things.
That's great they're
Improving, however I will never subject my child to a municipality vs Union negation. Lets be honest, kids and their parents are treated as second class citizens when it comes to education.
My mother help start the fight for better schools, believe me, she dragged me and my brother to the meetings in Roxbury every week.
And now BLA & BLS are _____! This will be the decline of BPSs only flagship schools. But hey, as someone looking to buy a house with no kids. Have at it!
And your experience is not everybody's
Our daughter's been in BPS since kindergarten and she's gotten a fine education.
Good luck with that
As a Caucasian student from BPS, unless she scores well above the average she won't receive the benefit of affirmative action.
Hopefully she does! As a BPS grade who works for a Fortune 500 company I wish her the best. It was incredibly hard for me.
I still lie about my grammar school education.
Again, BPS does not suck for everybody
Again, sorry your experience did. She has no reason to lie about where she went to school.
Cool story bro
Glad you decided to pay for private school somewhere so we can get your tax dollars without having to educate your kids.
So your overall plan is that all school should be privatized? I'm sure that would work out great.
His overall plan
His overall plan is that we should stop oppressing whitey.
Scratch Nicaragua
Those trips were canceled, Chang said later in the meeting.
Scratch, indeed
I guess there's no demand to go to a colder (read: mosquito-free) climate for a field trip? Like Lapland in the winter or something?
Not too many Zika-carrying mosquitos in Ireland
And I know BLS has had trips in the past to Germany.
but Costa Rica trips not cancelled?
That's the same region.
no zika in Costa Rica
I was just there, and very relieved to hear that they are (for the moment) free and clear of any cases of the virus.
Pro-tip, anon
If you register for an account, you don't have to wait until Adam approves your post for it to make it to the comments page. You could have saved precious minutes in getting the word out that Boston Public Schools systematically persecute white students. I mean, that sounds like a pretty big story. You should probably give Channel 7 a call, too; sounds like it's right up their alley.
Another Step Into My Ascension To Angry Old Man
Field trips overseas? What, going to Benson's Animal Park once every three years and maybe once or twice to Olde Sturbridge Village isn't good enough anymore?
They are not free
It is common for language classes to have a trip in Junior or Senior year. It is a wonderful experience for the kids.
It is not free, nor is it required. Some kids start saving toward the trips as soon as they are old enough to work.
Wrong!
Not sure where you live, but in Boston some kids go on these trips without contributing a dime. This is considered free in Boston.
Even wronger!
I don't know where you live, but I live in Boston and just asked my personal expert - who goes to a BPS school - and she says students are required to kick something in.
Not trying to be a smart-ass,
but what exactly is 'something'?
I also attended BPS, and a Catholic school for two years (not one of the fancy-schmancy ones), and believe me, the difference was night and day; the public school was basically a holding pen, the Catholic school was a real school, they took their mission to educate seriously. I don't know how my mom got the scratch to send me there, because we were, charitably speaking, working class poor.
You are correct
I paid for my cab ride to the airport and a couple of Coca-Cola 's in Mexico. So technically the trip was not free.
Hey now
In the 8th grade in 1990, we raised money all year to go to Montreal. It was a big deal.
Having these big trips, especially where the kids raise the money themselves, teaches the kids so many valuable lessons.
Working together
Team Work
Managing Money
Managing a "business" (think bake sales, car washes)
Saving for something (and have an outcome be great)
Thinking out of the box (for fundraising ideas)
Being creative (for the above)
And I'm sure there's more skills that are picked up along the way. A lot more than what can be taught inside a classroom. It's amazing how kids will band together when they want to do something together.
But what do I know.. last time I set foot in a classroom, 14.4bps was a popular way to connect to the internet..
14.4?
Oh, man, now I really feel old. We had to use taut strings connected to empty tin cans (and we liked it, but still ...).
Adam
Come on.. you aren't that much older than I am :-)
OK, how about this?
300-bps acoustic couplers with Trash-80 Model 100s (with the 8-line screens). :-)
I remember
...when we had to dial into a north shore IP to get internet access in maybe 1994.
I remember when you couldn't
I remember when you couldn't teach anything to strings. Way to sell the quality of the BPS Adam.
I gave you a thumb
for catching that *taught* string, but Adam didn't attend BPS.
Blecch, fixed
That's right: I'm a, um, proud product of New York City schools (well, with some formative-year treks through the schools of the Guyland and Westchester).
Usenet, SLIP, Procomm!
Oh, man ...
I remember using finger to post election results. And a gopher for restaurant reviews!
shore.net!
n/t
What, no TIAC?
Well, OK, I was a World user ...
world.std.com
Wow okay.. now you're going back. (and yes, they still exist, and yes you still can get dialup for 19.89/mo from them, which is pricey now for internet service..)
Yes... TIAC - The Internet Access Company (tm)
(wtf name was that.. talk about obvious)
My first internet account was the ISP in NH I worked for.. dialup shell access on a Mac Plus! (Netscape .96b would crash since it didn't have a clue how to deal with the grey scale CRT).
Then I had MindSpring (which I got when they were an local Atlanta ISP).. Then I had Concentric (now XO) DSL for many years before finally succumbing to MediaOne/AT&T/Crapcast
My first Internet experience
Editor yelled me into his office in 1989. He'd heard students in Beijing were using some sort of computer network called "Internet" to get word out and wanted me to get on it and take a look (at the time, I was writing a computer column that focused on things like dial-up BBSes and, um, Prodigy). Took me three days to find a local high-tech company or college that would give me an account - and I had to promise not to tell anybody so they couldn't be accused of breaking their AUP (was a sympathetic net admin at a certain university that would just blush crimson if word got out they were letting a reporter on their network).
I think the World started up not long after that - and they had issues at first, too, because how dare they let the hoi polloi onto the Internet, so they were blocked from a lot of servers (fortunately, there was always telnet to some university in California with open connections).
haha
Like I said.. not far behind you.
Commodore 64 w/ a 300bps cartridge modem dialing into Quantum Link.
I was all fancy with my cartridge modem... I was the envy of my friends. Of course, you had to make sure your dial up provider supported your modem. Oh the days before the Hayes standard...
Acoustic coupler at 300 baud.
We used one of these to connect to the county's "central computer" to run our BASIC programs. 300 bits per second trudging uphill in the snow.
As a NH public school student
As a NH public school student we went to Strawbery Banke, if we were lucky. Overseas trips...??? Talk about entitled! Nowadays kids find things on twitter they don't like and it makes the New York Time! Kids were daily getting thrown in the dumpster in my school and no one did a damn thing. Sheesh. Good luck to today's students once they hit the real working world. Softies.
Oh, noes, that really sucked!
I mean, I went to school in New York when the whole city was going to hell. Field trips? We were lucky we had teachers. Kids at your school got thrown into dumpsters? Kids at my school had their fathers shot to death during riots after blackouts.
How bitter and small your life must be that you don't want anything better for your kids - if getting thrown in a dumpster was good enough for you, it's good enough for them, huh?
What does your experience in
What does your experience in as a kid in NYC decades ago have to do with students in Boston schools today? Obviously NYC schools are much tougher than Boston schools! No need to prove to us how horrible it was for you and your peers. Sorry it sucked for all of you. That's no way to grow up.
My experience in NYC long, long ago ...
Has as much relevance to Boston schools today as the comment about getting tossed in a dumpster in New Hampshire that I was replying to.
In general, though, I was saying that I'm not going to let anything bad that happened in my youth keep my daughter from doing something.
Oh my god, the irony
About the same as the experience of all the old-timers banging their canes in this thread about how they never got to go on field trips overseas when they were in school. Getting off your lawn RIGHT NOW, gramps!
Not a new thing
I graduated from a public high school in central MA in the mid 90's. In 1994 I went on a school trip to Costa Rica. It was entirely optional and run as an exchange through my school's Spanish program. Our French program had a similar trip to France. A group of us went and stayed with host families for 3.5 weeks and then they came here and stayed with us for 3.5 weeks. It was an invaluable experience that I will never forget.
I think we fund raised by selling lollipops or candy bars or something but our families paid for the bulk of our participation. If I remember correctly I funded a portion through babysitting proceeds and cash I had received as Christmas/birthday presents. Of course I am appreciative of the fact that I lived in a town where some of the families could afford such opportunities.
Somerville, Boston Zika sanctuary cities
Troublesome mosquitoes welcome in Somerville and Boston.
You are really...
... outdoing yourself tonight.
I guess this is what happens when you drain the Great Swamp
On the plus side, you get mosquito control, buildable land, and an end to yellow fever.
On the minus side, well, certain things crawl out and can't go back in.
Wait, they cancelled for Zika?
Once again, WAY over-reaction. That's like kids from Florida cancelling a summer trip to Boston because of West Nile virus. Ridiculous!
Slight difference
The World Health Organization has yet to declare a global health emergency over West Nile Virus (which, in any case, is now well established in Florida; you'd have a better argument with Lyme Disease).
WAY over-reaction how?
Zika is present in the countries, is not controlled (i.e., there aren't any programs yet to have established "Zika-free areas"), and it has been demonstrated to spread between humans - not casual contact, but still. Were you aware of that?
Isn't Zika only a problem for
Isn't Zika only a problem for pregnant women? For non-pregnant people, it's not any worse than the flu, at least according to the news. Heck if I were a fertile female planning to have kids soon, I'd want to catch Zika right now and get it over with.
Just how many BPS kids are pregnant?
We never had this problem as kids.
There was no zika virus at Plymouth Plantation.
,,,just be careful of that dastardly cholera and typhoid fever.