School tour aborted, kids now due back at 2:30am. Overreaction?

[Encolere]

My 16 year old is on a school trip. They left on Sunday and were due back tomorrow evening. They were having a great time. After dinner this evening they were told some (unnamed) kids were caught with illegal substances and they were all to pack up immediately to be shipped home. They are a 5 hour drive away and will now get in at 2:30 am. I, and most other parents, have to be up a few hours later for work.

AIBU to think this is an extreme reaction? It was a small number (I presume) of the 40 or so kids on the trip. There was no mention of any of the other students being in danger nor were the police involved as far as we know. If the schools previous MO for dealing with incidents like this are to go by, this will never be mentioned again and the kids involved will remain anonymous.

It is probably revelvant that this school group have been trouble from their first year in secondary. Despite the majority of the group being well behaved they are always (all) in trouble because of the actions of those few who are lacking in the cop on department.

It was dark, raining and 3am!
Yes, and so it was for those teachers too, who had been in charge of your kids for days.
And it was still a working day the next day, whether or not they were on the trip. I'd bet my last dollar they were in school debriefing, even if not actually in class.

It’s booze, right? It’s pretty obvious who’s drunk. Unless they just found the drink unopened, in which case the teachers can confiscate and move on.

You’d be surprised at how many parents do that, even when it isn’t 3am, isn’t raining and the trip has gone well, OhDearGodLookAtThisMess, it’s a thankless task, trips, as this thread shows.

I suppose it all depends on the school policy. They should have told both kids and parents that this kind of incident would lead to the school trip being cancelled before you even signed up for it.
I used to teach at secondary level and all the schools I taught at had the same policy: if there was trouble with any of the kids, their parents were called and had to come and pick them up immediately even if we were abroad. The parents were warned before the trips and had to sign on the dotted line to say they agreed with the school policy. It happened while we were abroad and the dad was called and had to fly over to pick his son up. Cancelling the whole trip seems a bit strange but you should check if it is school policy (ask to see it in writing).

vicarious liability the paretns could sue if anyone go hurt

better to be safe than sorry i took stdents immediately to a&e if they were injured and go a doc's report just to be on the safe side then no one can argue you didn't act in kids best interest

I don't think it's unreasonable especially if the whole group have been evicted from the accommodation. I doubt it was an easy thing to arrange, I'm sure the coach drivers wouldn't be thrilled about it either. The kids are almost certain to know who was to blame by the time they get back and the innocent will undoubtedly be equally as livid with them and will probably give them hell for ruining their trip too.
The school also have to be seen to be taking a hard line on an issue like this to prevent the risk of similar misdemeanors in future and to cover their own backs. If anyone had been hospitalized or died as a result, they would also be in serious trouble. It's a shame for the innocent ones but I'm sure the parents would rather have all the kids back in one piece.

At that stage most didn't know who the culprits were...but I do think there is a "last straw" feeling among parents about the schools leniency towards these consistent trouble makers.

Hmmm - so you don't know who the culprits were/are to the extent you are worried people might think your child was responsible, and yet you are blaming it on the school not punishing consistent trouble makers...?

So either you all have a very good idea who it was, and there was no real danger of your child being blamed, or you are unfairly blaming children whose behaviour has been poor in the past, but not necessarily this time. Or, I suppose, it is possible that you child IS one of the persistent trouble makers, which is why you are worried people might suspect him... although I assume from the tone of your posts that this is not the case.

It's unfair for the parents and innocent kids. But it's really bloody unfair for the teachers/staff. Hell's better than a miserable coach ride in the late/wee hours with a group of disgruntled, collectively punished teens.

The school has done the right thing. They were most likely asked to leave. The problem is they really don't know who's been taking drugs. They have a few names now but trust me, not all of those presumed innocent will actually be innocent. Better to get them all back on home turf and get to the bottom of this incident. The shit hasn't hit the fan yet, OP.

When my Ds was in first year there were 3 coaches of pupils going on a Geography trip. One bus load wouldn’t behave so the driver turned back and dropped them at the school. The head drove the other staff to catch up with the other buses and all the pupils on that bus had to be collected and no money was refunded.

I think that is the best decision the staff took. Children that is doing drugs might be involve with gangs .Now every where there are knife crime among the teenagers .The ones involved might be upset that the rest of other student still get to stay there , why they have to send home and might try to hurt the good ones or something.Now parent need to be among does bad teenagers that do drugs or are into bad stuff .

I worked with young people for 24years, although not in schools. I'd imagine there would have been some sort of contract drawn up between the students and staff and probably when you signed the consent form too.
Tbh their behaviour must be quiet bad to bring them home and I'm sure the staff will have considered all options before this choice was made.
I'm sure the parents of the drug users will be told by being called into school.
It's unfortunate about the arrival time but I'm sure all the parents would rather have their child home safe, as opposed to being arrested for using or having drugs.

Can you organise a joint letter from parents of the good kids to ask that something is finally done about the behaviour of the disruptive minority?

OP, can you get together with a few other parents and ask for a meeting with the school to get to the bottom of this and express your views? In particular, it's obviously reasonable to ask them to set out, without giving away confidential information, what they are going to do about the main troublemakers and trying to prevent any repetition. As matters stand, there is no incentive for parents to pay for any school trips if they can be cut short for reasons that have nothing to do with their individual children.

Jeez. The gall of parents marching up to the bus to have a go at the teachers. The teachers have done exactly what they ought to in these circumstances. As people have repeatedly pointed out, you are not allowed to just say 'sod the ratios, some staff can accompany the troublemakers home.' Thank god I don't have to run school trips any more.

OP has said that they don't know which pupils it was. On our school trip it was the 'good kids' who got drunk and caused problems.

As a teacher who's lead a few residential trips, my thoughts are:

It may be unclear who the culprit is. Eg the teacher walks into a dorm, and Bob is pouring shots. Should just Bob be sent home, or the whole dorm even if Luke says that he would never touch alcohol? What if Bob says that John bought the booze, but John denies it? If the whole dorm is sent home, one teacher is unlikely to want to escort six/eight/ten known troublemakers alone, but sending two teachers would probably mean that there weren't enough left with the main group.

The teachers may also know that the culprit's parents won't drive 5 hours in the middle of the night to collect them. We also ask parents to sign this clause, but when push comes to shove, there's no way to force parents to follow it.

Or the alcohol may have been the final straw, and the teachers just felt they couldn't deal with the group anymore.

I always avoid collective punishment at school (and have argued on behalf of students who have been punished for the actions of a minority). However, school trip groups can definitely be harder to manage and I have eg banned all students on a trip from going off without staff due to several incidents of dangerous/antisocial behaviour where it wasn't clear who the culprit was.

This has not been thought through. With them returning early, how does the school know that the parents will be available to meet them? The parents may be away or have other commitments themselves.

I work with secondary age children from Austria. If any are caught breaking the rules, the offenders are sent home. the rest of the students aren't punished.

My thoughts are what events/visits have you paid for that you will now miss because of these children? Will you get your money back? This is not a punishment for the offending children, but for the good kids and parents in losing money and time on their trip.

It also sends a bad message to the children, who did not take part. If you can't beat them, join them.

The school are probably trying to hush this up to protect what they think is their good reputation. Such a pity innocent children have to be punished

The school are probably trying to hush this up to protect what they think is their good reputation. Such a pity innocent children have to be punished.

OR! Maybe they'll embark on a thorough and long-winded investigation. This will grow teeth and hair, believe me. The problem is, it's not just the kids doing drugs, it's who they bought the drugs from, how the drugs have been brought onto the premises, etc, etc. This will be long-winded. And there will be ringleaders and followers among pupils, many presumed 'innocent' who will be anything but, and all sorts of other shit before this is over. The best schools in the world are not exempt. I doubt they'll cover up anything! It just won't be announced by the town crier at the school gates. It will be dealt with in such a way so as not to disrupt students' daily lives at school. The school will be discreet. Nothing wrong with that.

Too late now but it is a pity the school didn't have a policy in place from the outset. In my ds's school (also in Ireland) any school trip requires parents and child to sign a form which outlines expected behaviour and states that in the event of serious breaches the child will be sent home at the expense of the parent. Focuses the mind nicely.

If nothing else it may be worth broaching with the school the benefits of such a policy. On the other hand, if everyone gets thrown out of the accommodation then they don't have a lot of choice but to bring everyone home no matter how inconvenient for the parents. But I'd still be really pissed off, but with the offenders, not the school.

I once had to drive two pupils home from a school trip - with another member of staff - because they had been caught with weed. It was a 200 mile drive.
We arrived at the home of one of the pupils and the dad had a massive, extremely aggressive go at me on the pavement outside his house - it was about 2 in the morning. He felt his son was being victimised because I personally didn’t like him, and that his son clearly wasn’t the one responsible. Despite y’know, the weed in his bag. He was doing proper cross pointing a finger in my face.

So that was nice.

I haven’t read the whole thread, so someone else might have asked this- if this group of ne’er do wells have been up to stuff since coming to the school, whose idea was it to take them on the trip? It should be a privilege that is earned.

When I was a teacher, we had cause to send a student home because of bad behaviour. We put him on the next plane home (from Netherlands). Parents were responsible for picking him up at the airport at the other end. There was no question of cutting short the trip for those who were behaving themselves.

i hope they are going to offer some sort of compensation for the ruined trip.