Overseas school trip with 38 kids ages 13-15. How many adults should chaperone?

[NewJeffCT]

My wife's nephew just came to America from China last week as part of a school trip. They'll be visiting various east coast tourist sites this week, and then proceeding on to west coast ones next week.

But, there are 38 boys and girls age 13-15 on the trip. I was surprised they only had three adults with them as chaperones - all teachers. I guess with America's reputation in the gutter, they're not too worried about the kids "escaping" to America these days. But, I would imagine that if 38 kids that age from our country went on an overseas trip, there would certainly be more adults on the trip as chaperones, as well as at least a few parents.

But, I'm just curious since my daughter is only 4 1/2 and I never went overseas for school when I was younger.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. About 50.

[matcom]

2. did they behave on the plane?

:hide:

[Bunny]

3. Yes. Their teachers breastfed them and they were fine.

[NewJeffCT]

4. well

we bought dramamine for my nephew for his flight to LA and then back home...

[DS1]

5. Depends

how many tickets were one-way?

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. If it were an American group, probably one adult for every five youth

Maybe one for every four.

[Crazy Dave]

7. Maybe if you and your wife could volunteer to help

And if there are other people they know stateside. It may not be necessary but it would be helpful and safer for the kids.

[NewJeffCT]

12. My wife's nephew and one of the teachers

were the only ones that had relatives in the US.

I did notice that once we got there, the teachers started hanging around my nephew a little more - I wonder if they were worried we'd help him "escape" to America?

[JANdad]

8. How does one say:

Bye Bye Plane in Chineese?

[NewJeffCT]

10. All the kids speak English - it's a special "foreign language" middle school

I'm sure plenty of them are a bit shy about using English around me because I'm American.

[Midlodemocrat]

9. When I took kids to London and France when I was teaching high school,

there were two teachers, me and my friend and 10 kids.

We had our hands full, believe me. One of them lost her passport. Another one got drunk. Another one wouldn't eat anything except McDonald's.

I don't think three teachers for 38 kids is nearly enough, but that's JMHO.

[Katina]

11. american kids are not like chinese kids

In general, american kids think they can do anything they want, any time they want with no sense of responsibility. If you have ever seen large groups of asian tourists, they are always well behaved and stay with their groups. I suspect that 3 teachers was enough for them.
When a group of kids (15) from my daughter's 8th grade class went to France, they had 3 teachers and 6 parents along and it still wasn't enough. Kids snuck out at night, left the tours and generally ran wild...Upon returning to the states, the parents were told about their children's behavior and the parents complained that the chaperones were incompetent, blaming the adults instead of their out of control children. They cancelled all further trips because of this group of kids.

[Midlodemocrat]

15. Interesting. I've seen groups of Asian kids who are obviously

tourists and I didn't think they were all that well behaved.

[Katina]

17. exceptions to everything

which is why I said in general. :-)

[NewJeffCT]

18. if you've ever been to a "real" Chinese restaurant

- the kind where the clientele is almost all Chinese (like, I'm the only white person there kind)- you'll often see kids running around like maniacs to the point where it would make a Chuck E. Cheese look like a convent or a military academy by comparison.

[NewJeffCT]

16. It did seem a bit more innocent

I'm sure if a mixed group of boys & girls from the US were in that age range and relatively unsupervised, at least a few of the boys and girls would have been off in some corner "making out" at a minimum. I didn't see anything close to that - not even a couple holding hands in a corner or by themselves.

These kids were staying in small college dormitories and had a decent amount of freedom - they were showing a movie for the kids on one side of the campus and the kids came & went as they pleased. Some went to the movie ("Happy Feet") and some did not - and, it was a long walk between where they were showing the movie and where the dorms were.

And, one thing I know would never happen with American kids. These kids had all-day class both Saturday and Sunday. On Friday, they visited West Point and (I think) went into NYC. I can't see American kids going to France or Spain or Germany and spending all day in class there.

[LynneSin]

13. Two for each kids

:D

[Richard Steele]

22. That number can often be safely reduced to 1.5 per child, with proper use of legirons. nm

[China_cat]

14. I don't know about schools

but for that age in Girl Scouts we required 2 adults for the first 12 and 1 more for every 8 or portion of 8 over that. We'd have required at least 6.

[AlCzervik]

19. i was girl Scout troop leader and that sounds right, we had 8 girls in our troops

and 2 leaders.

[China_cat]

20. I was going by the formula for cadettes.

Seniors (15-18) would need fewer adults along. In fact, in our council, if a senior girl has taken first aid, cpr and camp training, the troop can camp on council property without an adult.

Juniors is something like 1/9 or 10, brownies are 1/7 and Daisys are 1/1.

[xmas74]

21. When I was in high school I went on a trip

that had two chaperones for 56 kids-one female, one male.

As to what happened on the trip-we pooled our spending money together. We bought pot off a dealer on the street after we ran out of our supply that we packed (you always have mooches), the oldest guy at age 17 walked to a local liquor store in Ohio I think (we were in multiple states) and hit on the female clerk so we could get our Nat Light and Strawberry Hill and one girl got pregnant. (I really wish I was making this up.)

This was a multistate trip. Imagine what we would have done overseas.

[Godhumor]

23. I took 32 high school kids to Japan

Let's see chaperones...

Me
My wife
Broadcast Teacher
Biology Teacher
Music Teacher
Uncle of a Student
Mother of a Student
Mother of a Student
Mother of a Student
Grandmother of a Student

We were there 10 days with only one incident (3 students decided to throw pebbles at a national monument), so I'd say 1:3 or 1:4 would be a good ratio.

[Deja Q]

24. None.

Naturally, with no supervision they will breed and become their own adults. :crazy:

[madinmaryland]

25. I went to Montreal on a school trip in the 70's when I was that age,

and there were 4 chaperones for about 20 students. Needless to say we were able to get a couple of bottles of wine when we up there. Fortunately we didn't really get into any trouble.