The Cold Lake High School (CLHS) travel club has turned to the Northern Lights School Division (NLSD) board of trustees to try and obtain reimbursement for their cancelled trip.
As a result of global events, and at the advice of the Alberta School Boards' Insurance Exchange, on Dec. 10,2015 the NLSD board decided to suspend all international travel for students, staff and trustees for the remainder of the2015-'16 school year. The decision affected several school trips and conferences planned for the year, including the CLHS European tour.
“We respect the board's decision to cancel travel in light of the situation. We know that the safety of the students was the board's top priority. However, we would have liked the opportunity to provide input during the decision-making process,” CLHS travel club representative Gord Brown told trustees at their April 27 meeting.
Brown added, “We explain to our youth that they must work hard for the things that they want and that they should make informed decisions. Students are taught to voice their opinions and to be respectful towards others. Our schools teach them critical thinking skills, they learn to analyze risks and outcomes...They weren't given the opportunity to use these life skills during this decision making process.”
The club's original itinerary included stops in Turkey, Amsterdam and Greece. While Turkey was removed at the decision of the parents, chaperones and students early on, Brown maintains that there were no travel advisories issued for their remaining destinations at the time of the board's decision.
Since the announcement, the club has been fighting with the travel agency to try and get reimbursed forth $4,800 trip. To this point, RBC Insurance and travel agency Mariden International have agreed to provide refunds for the majority of the cost. The club would like to see the school board offer up the remainder of the trip's cost for students and chaperones.
“It's a lot of money for us to lose. I made all of the money for this trip myself,” said CLHS student Chloe Galambos.
“I'm going to college in the fall and I'm paying for it myself, that's a lot of money to lose.”
Her mom Frances Galambos added, “Chloe has been working for thistrip since she was 14-yearsold.It's been her goal since Grade 9. It was a wonderful opportunity but we told her she was going to have to pay for the trip herself, so when it was cancelled she was devastated. We dealt with the loss of the trip, and now we're dealing with the loss of the money.”
NLSD policies state the board reserves the right to cancel travel as they see fit, but a break down in communication left all involved with this particular trip unaware of that. Frances Galambos stated that if they had known that, it could have changed their decision whether to sign up to begin with.
While it won't help the CLHS travel club now, division staff and trustees will be taking a close look at what played out with this trip and why the required information wasn't relayed to prevent confusion in the future.
“We need to have the assurance that we have those processes in place and that parents are adequately informed,” said NLSD board chair Arlene Hrynyk. “I think supreme attention always needs to be paid at the front end so that parents in our schools arranging these programs clearly understand what the procedures are and always are responding to them and going back to them with their check list to ensure a successful trip at the end of the day.”
Currently, members of the CLHS travel club are still out approximately$630 to $675 – the amount they're asking the division to refund. The board will be exploring the issue further and discussing the club's request at their May 11 meeting.
