Revere has created a new set of  procedures for overnight trips. The new procedures will not affect the eighth grade Washington, D.C., trip nor the band and choir trip.

The Revere local school district implemented a new overnight trip policy because of the incident with the football coaches last summer. This new policy will put small changes into effect and will not change the procedures of the eighth grade D.C. trip or the music trip. The email sent to parents and teachers in the Revere district included seven new procedures that will be implemented; Parents/guardians now must have a printed permission form with emergency medical information for all students. The head coach/advisor will collect Payment for such trips. Coaching staff or the adviser will be in charge of bag checks for all the students. Medications will be in the possession of the Head Coach/Adviser with the exception of EpiPens. The Board of Education will officially approve all overnight camps or class trips, both in-state and out-of-state. Coaches/Advisers will receive a copy of the Code of Ethics and Job Description that outlines district expectations with each annual contract. Superintendent Matthew Montgomery explained the procedures. 

“These aren’t policies. These are procedures. It seems semantics but it’s not. Procedures are administrative procedures of how we do business, policies are something the board of education enacts as a board of education policy,” Montgomery said. 

When Montgomery first started to create the new procedures, he went through an old overnight trip schedule and everything that would normally happen on a school trip. This then resulted in the creation of the email that was later sent.

“The board of education will approve all overnight trips or class trips both in state or out of state,” Montgomery said.

Most of these new procedures were already in action on out of state overnight trips, but this new policy is mainly affecting instate overnight trips. This is why the eighth grade Washington, D.C., trip will not have any big changes as well as the music trip, because they have already been board approved.

“[These guidelines] are already in practice, for example in the [Washington] D.C. trip, bags checks already happen. In the band trip it happens, maybe not exclusively but it now it is a guideline,” Montgomery said.

Melanie Stuthard, an eighth grade teacher who is also plans the Washington D.C. trip, has been planning and executing the Washington D.C. trip for twenty-two years now, and has already planned for these new procedures even before they came out.

“Our situation is different because we are taking an entire grade level of students out of the state, so we have already thought about these things,” Stuthard said.

Since the Washington, D.C., trip is an out of state trip, the board of education has already approved it. Medical forms are handed out every year, as well as bag checks on the day. The same goes for the band and choir trip. Band director Darren Lebeau coordinates the trip, and also says that there are not many changes to the trip. 

“For the music program, the new policy is not new.  We have established our own guidelines and incorporated school policies as they have added over the years,” LeBeau said.