A regularly scheduled international field trip for Rochester city students will not take place this year.
A crowd of people urged school board members to greenlight the trip during a public forum on Tuesday. But school board members say it comes down to safety risks at the border.
Nearly 120 students at Padilla High School, Wilson Magnet High School, and World of Inquiry were poised to take an annual outdoor trip to Pathfinder Camp on a remote island immersed in about 3,000 square miles of forest, lakes, rivers and countryside.
It’s nestled in Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada, about 330 miles north of Rochester.
To get there, they would have to cross the U.S.-Canada border, and district leaders said they cannot in good conscience allow the trip to take place given the political climate.
In March, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained a mother and three children who are students enrolled in Sackets Harbor Central School in the Thousand Islands. They were released earlier this month.
“If we take the risk of allowing you all to go and you get stopped at the border, or I.C.E. takes you, there's nothing that this district nor these commissioners, nor legal is going to be able to do,” school board member Beatriz LeBron said. “That is the reality, unfortunately.”
The decision came on Tuesday, the same day border czar Tom Homan visited Rochester and met with local law enforcement at the Locust Club police union hall.
A rally outside of RCSD’s Central Office calling for the school board to approve the field trip was one of several on Tuesday related to current immigration policies. That energy carried into the school board meeting.
School board commissioners suspended the usual regulations for the public comment period at Tuesday’s board meeting, given the volume of people who’d signed up to speak — about a dozen on the Pathfinder field trip.
“Pathfinder is a place where you discover your full self, not just within your community, but through a deep connection to the natural world around you. It's the kind of magic that stays with you forever,” said Erica Mason, assistant director of Camp Pathfinder. “I understand there are fears about crossing the border right now, I do. But if there's ever been a time to be brave on behalf of our young people, it's now.”
For over an hour, parents, staff, students and alumni familiar with the program implored the school board to allow it to continue this year, many saying that the decision to attend should be up to families to decide.
“Imagine the impact on students who have never seen the brilliance of an unpolluted night sky, who have never shared laughter, growth, and vulnerable moments around a campfire, all without the distractions of technology,” Wilson High school alum Jolana Hollister said. “Pathfinder ... builds citizens who understands the importance of conserving our natural world at a time when environmental stewardship is not our government's priority.”
Ultimately, the school board voted 3-2 against the trip. Board President Camille Simmons and members Beatriz LeBron and James Patterson voted against it. Board Vice President Amy Malloy and member Isaiah Santiago voted in favor.
Patterson, who recently returned from a trip to South Korea, said his decision was influenced by his own experience re-entering the U.S. earlier this week.
“I was stopped by I.C.E., and I was taken in the back by I.C.E. And that feeling that I had, it just shook me. You know, that I was being treated like a criminal, really, until I could be cleared," Patterson said. “I wouldn't want that to happen to one of our students, so I can't live with that. ... You think you could control the situation, but I couldn't even control my own situation and I'm 63.”
Interim Superintendent Demario Strickland said the plan moving forward is for School Chief Edward Mascadri to orchestrate an alternative field trip for the students affected by the cancellation.
“I definitely will ensure that something — they actually go on a trip in some way, shape or form, happens, and it's close to this experience as possible,” Strickland said.
The three field trips for each school’s outdoor club were scheduled to take place from mid-May into early June.
