Field (Trip) of Dreams

A few months ago, I got a series of emails about a field trip grant funded by Fidelity Investments. I mentioned it in passing to our AVID elective teacher when we were at the conference in Florida, but let’s face it, life happened, as it always does, and I forgot about it. Until I got an email about a week before the grant application was due, sweetly reminding me about the opportunity, and cluing me in to the fact that no one had applied yet. The AVID teacher had already been working on the grant, per the recommendation of another TFA teacher at our school, so we were able to get our application in the day of the deadline.

After over a month of waiting, we finally got the email last week that we had been awarded a fully-funded field trip to visit two universities with 40 of our top seventh grade students! Our trip will take us to North Carolina Central University, a Historically Black University in Durham (and the alma mater of several of the staff members at our school), as well as UNC Chapel Hill. It may not sound like a big deal, but these kids do NOT go on field trips, and many of them will have very few opportunities to go to a major college campus without an opportunity like this. We are beyond excited, and although the planning process adds one (or two or five) more things to our plates, it will be worth it. We haven’t told the kids yet because we have to get the trip approved by Central Office, but we are hoping there won’t be any objections since it is fully-funded and is an amazing opportunity for our kids. Fingers crossed, I’ll update as soon as we know (well, probably not as soon as we know, considering my track record).