Central Bucks cancels trip to D.C. over concerns that unvaccinated students could feel excluded

The Central Bucks School Board scrapped a planned ninth-grade trip to Washington to visit the Holocaust Museum and other sites after a board member objected to city vaccine requirements that she said could exclude some students.

“I think we’re discriminating against children who are not vaccinated,” Lisa Sciscio said during a board meeting Tuesday night, voicing concern about COVID-19 vaccine requirements in Washington restaurants and the prospect of children being turned away from using indoor restrooms.

While “I love Washington, D.C.,” she said, she suggested administrators find an alternative option for the March 31 trip.

“Frankly, they could go to Dorney Park and learn about roller coasters,” she said, referring to the Allentown amusement park.

The board’s 7-1 vote to not approve the trip — which would have involved 285 ninth graders at Tamanend Middle School — spurred confusion and outrage among some parents, who questioned the loss of an educational opportunity for students. Others wondered whether additional district trips also could be canceled.

Responding to Sciscio’s comments Tuesday night, a district administrator said that staff had considered the vaccination question, but that none of the museums or venues students were to visit required COVID-19 vaccine cards. Sciscio said that given the length of the daylong trip, “there’s kids who will have to use restrooms.”

Washington says its vaccination requirements do not apply to people “briefly” entering venues, including to use the restroom.

“I just want to know why they made that decision,” said Abbe Kerskey, who has a ninth grader at a different school in the district and called Wednesday morning to check whether its trip to Washington would be affected. Kerskey called the bathroom concern “odd,” noting that the museums the students would be visiting have restrooms.

In addition to the Holocaust Museum, the trip would have involved the Smithsonian Museum and “various memorials and monuments,” according to the field trip request considered by the board.

Board president Dana Hunter did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday afternoon. Neither did Sciscio, who said during the meeting she has a ninth grader at Tamanend.

District spokesperson Angela Linch provided a response on behalf of the board, citing “concerns that a daylong trip to the city, with many attractions, restaurants, and other venues requiring proof of vaccination to enter, would place an unfair burden on students, faculty and volunteer chaperones.”

She said, “The majority of the board was unwilling to place the district’s students and teachers in such an unpredictable scenario, with concerns that any student or teacher could be singled out due to vaccination status.”

Under the district’s board-approved health and safety plan, “the vaccination status of a person is private; therefore, employees will not ask, solicit, or engage in discussion around the vaccination status of another adult or student.”

The Central Bucks School Board has been at the center of controversy over the last year, with heated school board elections last fall that cemented a Republican majority on the board and deep divisions over pandemic policies often on display during meetings. The board has also faced accusations of failing to condemn hate speech.

The board member who voted in favor of the trip, Karen Smith, said in a social media post that she didn’t think all students should lose out on “valuable learning experiences because of the choice of others.”

“It’s a difficult decision because I value including everyone, but COVID has forced many other difficult decisions,” said Smith, a Democrat.

Democrat Tabitha Dell’Angelo, who voted against the trip, said she had been concerned by the prospect Sciscio raised of children not being able to find a bathroom they could access without a vaccination card. “I would hate to see a kid in the middle of D.C. be humiliated,” Dell’Angelo said Wednesday. However, she wasn’t aware Tuesday night about Washington’s exemption for using restrooms, and said Wednesday that she wished she would have asked administrators about possible ways to navigate the situation.

“It’s probably going to be a similar situation for lots of big cities,” she said. “This is the new normal, and we have to prepare for it.”