Schoolnurse’s Weblog

     I am a worry wort, but that is my job.  As a School Nurse for 850 children I have to plan for asthma attacks that may never occur, bees that may never sting and peanuts hidden deep in the list of food ingredients.  My motto is, “not on my watch”.

     I went on a field trip with 135 first-graders to the Bronx Zoo last week.  I actually volunteered for trip duty this time; I do not mind all the walking, seeing the elephants for the umpteenth time, or the smell of zoo-doo.  Many of the teachers I went with are seasoned professionals, and have done the Bronx Zoo trip numerous times.  The trip was not on Wednesday, where the admission fee is optional, and the crowds are huge. The whole event seemed well planned.

     The decision to have a School Nurse  go on a trip is complicated.  It depends on the medical needs of the children, where the class  is going, how long they will be gone, and which parents are going. If my students go on a bus trip to the High School Planetarium on the other side of town, a Nurse may not go since the School Nurses there can handle anything that comes up.  This time it was clear-cut, there is a first grader with a seizure disorder who requires immediate instillation of valium into her rectum if she has a seizure.  Her parents could not go on the trip, and  I could not delegate this task to a teacher or a chaperone.  There was also a child on the trip with cerebral palsy.  He can only walk short distances, so I reserved a wheelchair for him.  I was told it would be left at the bus entrance with his name on it.

      The Zoo is less than 20 minutes away from school, but it took us over a hour and a half to get there. Much of the time we spent in traffic one block away from the zoo waiting to get into the parking lot.  When we finally got to the zoo entrance, we were turned away because it was full.  We showed the parking permit we had purchased, but this did not matter.  We had to park on the streets of the Bronx, wherever we could find spots for 4 buses.  Our group became split up into 4 groups, as we had to just get off wherever we could park.  Even though we had cell phone contact with each other, the crowds made it impossible to join each other.  There were hundreds of other schoolchildren crowding the streets and zoo entrance. I aged 10 years getting the children through the entry gate.  The zoo overbooked.  I have never seen it so crowded, and there did not seem to be many zoo employees around to help. 

   My first graders did not have a good time.  Because of the delay getting into the zoo and the huge number children we did not get to see many exhibits.  They were irritable from waiting so long, and did not seem to enjoy the trip as much as they could have.  Just waiting on line for the bathrooms became an ordeal.  I resorted to commandeering the men’s room for the girls in my group that were waiting on a ladies room line over 20 minutes.  We had to eat lunch in a rush while sitting on a wall.  I was separated from my child with cerebral palsy, and later discovered that he had to struggle to walk the long distance from the bus to the zoo entrance.  I arranged for him to have a wheelchair at the zoo, but it was waiting for him at the parking lot that we were not allowed to enter.   I am grateful that none of the children were lost ot injured, something that could have easily happened given the situation.     

     I began to think of the whole point of field trips. Many of the trips I see are of questionable educational value, and not worth the time away from instruction, the expense, or the risk to student safety.  Some trips are part of a school’s tradition, and nobody stops to think about what the students are supposed to gain from the trip.  For some families in my school, eleven dollars is a big deal.  I think the 1st graders could have had a better time, with less expense, if some animal educator came to school with a few portable creatures.  With the internet, a smartboard, and good planning you can have a lovely virtual field trip.   I emailed the principal and all staff with my suggestions, and this has triggered much discussion.  The principal agrees that the annual 1st grade Bronx Zoo trip needs to be evaluated.  Some teachers are upset with me, saying that the children would not otherwise be able to visit a world class zoo, and that I worry too much.  Others are relieved that they may not have to maintain the zoo ritual.  No matter how the matter ends up, at least we are all thinking about trips.  There is a  teacher’s guide for planning a good virtual field trip, thinkport guide that I am thinking about passing along when the dust settles.  As a result of all this, I  found these zoo cams, and I love checking in on the pandas from the comfort and safety of my school.  pandacam  ferrett cam  monteray multicreature webcams