Third grade field trip--weird? or is it just me? [View All]

[MorningGlow]

A note came home in my third grader's folder today, about a field trip scheduled for early December. They're going to a popular museum in the morning, about 30 miles away. No problem with that part. THEN they're coming back to...have lunch at a bar/restaurant in our village.

:wtf:

The visit to the bar (bar? seriously?)/restaurant struck me as really odd. Okay, I don't like it. It has no educational value whatsoever; it has no connection to the museum, and the kids won't be learning anything there--they're not going to be touring the kitchen or learning about how a restaurant works.

What's worse is the cost: $10 per student, and another $10 if a parent wants to go along as a chaperone. Most field trips cost just a few dollars; I think $5 was the highest I've seen, and that's only for the parent chaperone. All the field trips are paid for out of the school budget. So this makes me wonder if this high cost is because of the lunch at the bar/restaurant. I know that a lot of families in this cash-strapped area just can't afford this type of cost, but there was no way to opt out of the field trip (or just the lunch) in the note, although I'm sure if a parent can't afford it and talked to the school, they'd find something for the kid to do at school for the day.

What really bugs me is how much this stunt smacks of self-promotion. It's common knowledge that this particular establishment is struggling, and the owners have recently made a last-ditch effort to drum up interest in the place, hiring an advertising and marketing firm to go door to door in the village offering discount coupons. I can't help but think that this third-grade lunch is another marketing effort to get to the parents/families through the kids.

I don't know how they worked this, but I strongly suspect that it was engineered by one of my son's classmate's parents, who are big fans of the place, and the kid's mother is a bigwig (and quite a loudmouth) in the PTA. But I can't prove that connection; I just suspect it.

I dunno. It just seems so WEIRD. I mean, if the school wants to support a local eatery, have a pizza party in the classroom, you know? I've only talked to one other parent about it, and he thinks it's darn strange as well. What the heck is up with this? :crazy: