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Kimberly,
In one way you are encouraging people to limit their chaperones because they
are required to pay for them. Honestly, if you were the teacher, would
*you* want to pay more just to accommodate somebody else's idea of the
correct number of chaperones - even if you don't think they are necessary?
Now, from a museum perspective, if you want them to bring more chaperones,
why not let them in for free? Is it because you don't want to lose that
revenue? If so, then you must choose what is most important to you - the
additional revenue, or the additional supervision.
I believe our policy is as follows: We want one adult chaperone per 10
kids, so we let in one free adult per 10 kids. This helps to avoid the
situation when there are too many chaperones (we have had that), because
they have to pay when there are too many chaperones, and it encourages them
to actually bring chaperones because they get in for free. It's still far
from perfect, but it seems to work most of the time.
In your case why not let in two adults for free for every 12 kids (after
all, if they wanted to, they could have booked 5 groups of 12 instead of one
group of 60 (I'm assuming you have a per person price structure))?
Now when surprise situations happen, we don't impost sanctions, we just deal
with it. But we try to reduce the number fo surprise situations by our
above policies.
-William
William Katzman [log in to unmask]
Director of Exhibits (828) 322-8169 x307
Catawba Science Center (828) 322-1585 (fax)
"Try not to become a man of success, but rather to become a man of value"
-A. Einstein
-----Original Message-----
From: Kim Collison [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 12:14 PM
Subject: large groups with minimal chaperones
ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
institutions.
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Good morning All -
Our Center is looking for some advice about student-to-chaperone ratios. We
request fieldtrip groups to have a 5:1 ratio, unless the students are over
age 16. We require the chaperones to pay the discounted group rate and 2
adults get free admission when the group is larger than 12. Although our
ratio expectation is clearly explained to the primary contact for the
fieldtrip, we often have groups arrive with far fewer chaperones than we
request.
Which brings me to yesterday... A group of 60 students (grades 6-8) arrived
with their 2 classroom teachers and no other chaperones. We're curious to
know how other centers deal with these surprise situations. Does anyone
"impose sanctions"?!
Thanks in advance for your responses!
Kimberly Collison
Health and Life Sciences Coordinator
Discovery Center of Springfield
438 E St Louis Street
Springfield MO 65806
417-862-9910 x709
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
visit us at: www.discoverycenter.org
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