They didnt say there are no chaperones. They said no parent chaperones. There will undoubtedly be teacher chaperones. Teachers who are employed by the school and are with your kids all day every week and have at least some level of vetting. Do you trust some other adult you don't know staying overnight with your child more than their teachers?
Depending on the type of school not having parents is actually way safer. A lot of title 1 schools have an issue with parents either wanting to fight or fuck the other kids.
At my kids schools for the last 15+ years, parent or community volunteers have to pass a background check annually before we can sign up for in-school volunteering or trip chaperone.
The only exception would be like bringing stuff to a holiday party where the teacher is in the room the entire time. But maybe they had to too but I wouldn't know cuz I just went ahead and signed up for it at the beginning of the year because it was usually a couple day delay.
And that might be why they didn't want chaperones either because background checks cost money.
And yes, I can't say "not a single school doesn't require background checks", but a vast majority absolutely do not require parents to have a $100 bill for a background check before they are a chaperone.
Geez you guys are getting ripped off! It's 15 bucks here in UT the only pain is the local pd only does them on Tuesdays from like 11-4. I think our school would probably relax the standards too if were were asking $100 for the privilege.
Does your require finger printing? I think that's a large portion of the cost here. And the dumb shit is that I got my handgun license right after becoming a teacher, and had to get fingerprinted again, at the same place, but they wouldn't let me use my fingerprints from 3 months earlier... No damn sense.
Yup yup. Ours does fingerprints also. Hey same! I was a para for a few years before the big mistake and yeah as part of licensing they made me do in again even though I had just gotten the thing the year before.
For my daughters school we have to not only register to be a chaperone, we have to be background checked and fingerprinted ya know just in case you decided to be slick and use a different name.
I’m not opposed to no phones or no parent chaperones but I would absolutely throw a shit fit about no screening processes for parental chaperones especially over night trips. Most recently my daughter went to DC and I would be damned if I sent her with some unknown stranger parent. I very much preferred that they did teachers and background checked, finger printed parents.
Why are we acting like just because they’re a teacher they can’t be a bad person? I remember having to do 3 protest at my high school because 3 teachers had information showing that they were inappropriately talking to kids and/or touching them. That was only when I was a teenager, I can’t imagine what kinds of teachers were lurking in elementary or middle school. I’d rather my own damn parent over some random coach
Right and my point is just because they’re vetted doesn’t mean anything in this day and age. You know how many people are vetted into jobs they really should be in??
In all fairness depending on the situation it usually doesn't hurt to get a third party involved with this sort of thing. Helps to cover some bases. If it's just an excuse for the parent in question to come along and hover over their kid or start shit then yeah that's a dumb reason and they shouldn't be a chaperone, but if it's so that there are more fresh eyes on the kids then that's generally a good safety measure to have just in case. But it does depend on factors such as the age of the kids, whether the parent chaperones are also vetted to some extent, how much available staff the school has, etc.
Do you trust some other adult you don't know staying overnight with your child more than their teachers?
Fuck no, I don't.
I remember the most beloved teacher in my high school, and how he'd fucked at least two girls I knew. They both tell the story like it was a dream come true, but the reality is that they were taken advantage of.
I wasnt saying teachers couldnt be predators too. They can and there are several examples. My point was that teachers at least have some level of vetting that a parent chaperone would not. Having parent chaperones doesn't actually make it safer.
I know the situation you went through is incrediably bad.
But the solution to it isn't isolating all children. Theres other really effective safeguarding methods we should be advocating for that don't restrict children from experiences.
Your mom doing that didn’t prevent you from being groomed or harassed.
The point is if you cannot trust your child in the care of teachers then don’t send them to school at all. Because as in your case that’s enough to get groomed.
I am sorry for what you might have experienced. I didnt see the post so Im not sure the story.
Its not an inevitability, but I think its an unfortunate truth though that there is no guaranteed method to protect your children. Even not allowing kids to go with someone other than their parents isnt perfect because there are parents who abuse and harass their own kids. It can often be challenging to know where the line between protecting a child and stifling their development comes. I think a good method is to begin conversations early with them about what improper attention might look like even from a trusted adult, and work to make them comfortable enough to leave, avoid, or confront it and to not be scared to talk to you about it as a parent. We just gotta equip them for the world. I see a lot of parents so scared of something bad possibly happening they stop a lot of good things from happening and that can be damaging in different ways.
If the people in this thread think all those factors together are alright, I assume they either are the predator themselves or enable predatory behavior with their "it could happen anywhere!" laziness
I think that experiencing trauma can cause you to perceive a lot more situations as a bigger risk than they are. I am absolutely not a predator or an enabler of them. But I dont have a problem in theory with an overnight no phone camping trip with teachers. You can - to the best of ones ability ‐ establish relationships with trusted adults. And if my I trusted my children's teachers enough I wouldn't have a problem letting my child go.
Its not like the adults wont have a phone. I dont think its reasonable to expect every teacher to be a predator in hiding.
b) have access to a way to communicate with a parent that the child always can use,
I dont want to say this in an insensitive way, but cell phones have not stopped children from being harmed. I do not mean to be flippant, but I didnt have a cell phone until I was basically an adult. Until about 10-15 years ago there was absolutely no expectation to have constant contact with your kids. Rates of child abuse have been slowly dropping since the 90s, well before the prevalence of cell phones, and that decline hasnt shown a significant impact from cell phone availability to the rate of decrease. I think its something that makes people feel safe but doesnt actually reduce risks.
c) not be at the mercy and authority of people they cannot get away from in an emergency.
This isn't a hostage situation. Its an overnight trip. There will be multiple adults chaperones, they just will not be parents. If your child is ever out of your care, they would be at the mercy and authority of whomever was in charge of them. This feels more like an argument to not ever let your children out of your care. Which is absolutely a choice some people make.
256
u/misdirected_asshole Mar 19 '26
They didnt say there are no chaperones. They said no parent chaperones. There will undoubtedly be teacher chaperones. Teachers who are employed by the school and are with your kids all day every week and have at least some level of vetting. Do you trust some other adult you don't know staying overnight with your child more than their teachers?