Chaperone for Mount Vernon field trip at Pyle Middle School

My son, 8th grade in Pyle Middle school had been to Mount Vernon for field trip on October 30, 2009. I had been there once for a long years ago, I wished to visit there again so I volunteered for a chaperone who takes a role of taking care of some students or a group of students as a parent. It is a kind of helper for teachers. 

70 chaperones went there with their children and most of them are mothers and about 15 were fathers. All students and teacher, chaperones tried to wear red shirts in order to distinguish from other groups.  Students should pay  $21 for this trip, and each chaperone's entry fee ($ 7)  was provided by school. 

All 8th grade students went to field trip so  11 paid tour buses were divided for all students and all chaperones and some teachers, and the rest of teachers took  a school bus. There were 56 seat in a bus that I took, and the bus had a one restroom and one big trashbox at the back.  The bus had 6 monitors for DVDs. 

All field trip was divided into 3 parts and each part took about one hour; farm tour, outbuilding, Education center.

My job as a chaperone  was to take care of 5 students including my son, but one girl was not there because of sickness, so I had one girl and 3 boys. The most most difficult thing was to keep up with between a girl and 3 boys. The girl, Jessica was eager to look at everthings and tried to find answers on her paperwork, but all boys had no desire to see....felt bored.   

In the middle of tour, some girls who were friend with Jessica lost their chaperones, even  they did not know who their chaperones were, wanted to hang around with Jessica so my job was more complicated.  

After finishing tour, we returned to out buses and had lunch in the buses. After finishing lunch, we went back to school. On the way in the bus, most students kept quiet feeling tired, all boy and girls behind my seat had fun with games and music or chatting each other with undesirable postures, which made chaperones give warning several times,  but it was hardly to change.

( there were no seat belts in the bus.)