Carbon School Board’s regularly scheduled meeting quickly became a lengthy debate regarding the policy on sixth graders traveling out of state.
Superintendent Mika Salas brought Policy 531 Overnight Travel to the board’s attention on Wednesday evening concerning the policy’s paragraph stating that “Students in sixth through twelfth grade who win first or second place at statewide competitions and are invited to attend a national event, or are invited to a national event by their organization… may be allowed to attend, at the discretion of the Board, national competitions/conventions if they are properly supervised.”
The policy continues, stating that “Sixth grade students may compete at the national level, out of state, [but] must be accompanied by at least one parent to the competition.”
Superintendent Salas’ concern on Policy 531 was that if Carbon School District (CSD) is requiring a parent to accompany their sixth-grade student and their family happens to be on fee waivers, would CSD be prepared to also pay for the parent to travel even though the other middle school students did not need a parent to accompany them.
With this discussion, many questions began to rise to the surface. CSD’s Business Administrator Darin Lancaster raised the question, “What is the purpose of the parent going?” In an effort to determine what CSD would be paying for with a fee waivered family, he questioned if the sixth-grade student would be traveling with their parent, if the child would be rooming with the other students or with their parent in a separate hotel room, and if the parent would be responsible for booking the hotel room.
The board members expressed that they have discussed this topic before in past years and stood very strongly to protect the sixth-graders’ safety by requiring a parent in attendance.
“We’ve been through this before and the other option was sixth grade don’t do nationals,” stated Carbon School Board Vice President Lee McCourt in an effort to avoid the financial conflict of paying for a parent to attend.
The questions continued to inflate as the board began to analyze “what if” scenarios. One question including eliminating the text of the policy that states a sixth grader is required to have a parent since they are now considered a middle school student.
“We all want them to go.” said McCourt “But for safety reasons, I’m not sure they are old enough to do that on their own.”
Superintendent Salas expressed she does not see the difference in this situation for an 11-year-old student and a 12-year-old student. She then argued that the students would not be alone; they would be accompanied by various adults, including supervisors, coaches, chaperones and teachers, depending on each individual activity.
Carbon School Board President Jeffery Richens conveyed his concerns that by allowing a sixth grader to travel overnight without a parent is putting an 11-year-old student subject to bullying and misplacement.
“We are protecting an 11-year-old from everything we can,” said Richens.
It was then questioned if the board decided to remove the sixth-graders from competing in nationals, what would stop a parent from taking their student to the competition themselves. It was explained that if that scenario took place, the student would not be representing the school; they would be competing independently in the competition with zero support from the school district.
Superintendent Salas continued to debate that if sixth graders were unable to compete in the national competitions, what would be their ambition to participate in the activity to begin with if they unable to see it through.
“My concern is that we are going to exclude sixth graders from participating at all,” said Superintendent Salas.
The board eventually tabled the agenda item until the next board meeting to allow Superintendent Salas time to gather analytics on how many six graders have stayed overnight over the last eight years as well as how many of them were fee waivered families. They are also requiring Superintendent Salas to question the state if they would be required to pay for the parent as well. The next meeting will be held on July 13 at the district office at 5 p.m.