School backs out of ‘stay at home’ field trip

Verdugo Hills High School has abruptly canceled a three-day “stay at home” field trip for seniors after a parent and officials questioned it.

The idea was to get seniors off campus during the three days of annual standardized testing of underclassmen. Other schools fill the seniors’ time with prepping for graduation ceremonies, special assemblies, senior picnics, career days, class photos, movies, make-up work — you name it.

The academic rigor varies.

Field trips during this period also are popular, but students elsewhere typically go somewhere.

“When you have a field trip, more than likely you’re traveling in a bus with teachers and you’re going to a museum or some other facility where there is some sort of learning experience,” said Robert Alaniz, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Unified School District. “That’s very different from, ‘We’re going to put you on the honors system and you get to stay home and study.’ ”

The school asked parents to sign a permission slip for the “stay-cation” and 200 seniors — about half the class — didn’t show up Tuesday. Verdugo Hills Principal Diane Klewitz said she inherited the tradition from her predecessors.

“Parents signed a slip saying they’d rather have their children stay home than sit in an auditorium,” Klewitz said.

Now, on district orders, the school is scrambling to arrange study halls in the auditorium for Wednesday and Thursday. The school is sending out automated calls to alert parents.

“There are issues in terms of safety [when you] ask kids to sit in an auditorium all day,” Klewitz said. “They tend to want to go out and roam the campus or jump the fence and disappear and roam the streets.”

Meanwhile the district is wrestling with another issue. Students on field trips are counted as present in school, which allows the district to collect about $25 per student per day in state attendance money.

Verdugo Hills was planning to claim attendance for the students who stayed home.

Alaniz said that claim would be questionable and would probably not survive an audit. The district will also have to look into attendance claims for past years, possibly resulting in the forfeiture of some state funding.

howard.blume@latimes.com