100% of Parents Surveyed Support Yosemite Field Trip!
With so little time to reach out to the parents and students of Gilroy’s South Valley Middle School about saving the Yosemite Science Camp trip I did what I felt I could. In addition to posting about it here last night and sending out an email to every teacher and student via School Loop, I headed up to San Jose in the middle of the night and spent more of my own funds on printing up some very simple petitions to collect signatures today. The petition reads-
TO: Gilroy Unified School District Board of Education
We, the undersigned, are students of South Valley Middle School. We strongly urge you to reconsider your recent rules change and allow the 7th grade Science Camp trip to Yosemite National Park (organized by Ms. Gallup and Coach Reynolds) to go forward as originally planned.
All of the students who signed up will be able to attend if you just give your permission. They have worked hard to overcome all of the other obstacles. Future trips may be up to further discussion, but please recognize the hard work, effort and hopes that have already gone into preparing for this year’s trip. Cancelling the trip now would add insult to injury for those who have worked so hard.
It then has a line for the student’s name and their grade. I changed to first line to read “parents” instead of “students” as well.
Zaira and her friends are gathering student signatures during any and all free time at school today. I stood in the school driveway this morning during “drop off” time and spoke to a total of 17 parents as well. Every single one of the parents I spoke with not only voiced their support, but also signed the petition.
Now, 17 signatures (actually 18 including mine) may not seem like very many. After all there are roughly200 seventh graders at South Valley Middle School. But bear in mind that I was just one person, stopping parents dropping off their kids at school,most likely heading to work themselves. I had roughly 30 minutes (between 8am and 8:30) to spread the word and collect these signatures. Given more time and possibly actually sending some information home with the students about this decision would surely generate more feedback from parents. Remember, in 30 minutes I was only able to speak with 17 parents and every single one of them signed the petition.
Both the parent petition and the student petition will be dropped off at the school district offices this afternoon. I’m hoping they’re still open around 4:30 because the kids stay at school until 4:00 on Friday afternoons in order to gather recyclables from the campus to help pay for the trip that is being threatened. We CAN still save this trip (and future trips as well), but we need to act quickly. Please check the Save Science Camp page to find out what else you can do!
Tags: Board of Education, Gilroy Unified School District, Ms. Gallup, Science Camp, South Valley Middle School, Yosemite
