Field Trips

The Camden School District has agreed to settle a lawsuit with 14 parents who said they were swindled by a former elementary school principal who charged their children for field trips the district had paid for. The ex-principal, Michael Hailey, faces trial in November on charges related to the field trips and another alleged scheme. The district agreed to pay $25,000 to settle the parents' lawsuit, filed in 2006. The settlement includes attorney fees and court costs. The school board did not disclose how much would go to the parents, whose children attended Hailey's school, H.B. Wilson Elementary.

Forty programs - including field trips, middle school basketball, and late bus runs - have been slashed or removed from the Washington Township school budget to comply with $1.5 million in cuts ordered by the Township Council. "It is unfortunate; we did not want to reduce or eliminate any of these programs or services," school district spokeswoman Alice Coghill said yesterday. "But when you've faced as many defeated budgets as we have . . . you get to the point where it is hard to be creative.

Elementary and middle school teachers looking for new ways to excite students about science and places to explore on field trips may have found both, and more, at Teachers' Night. Forty exhibitors, including representatives from NASA, the Pennsylvania National Guard, the Smithsonian Institution and the Philadelphia Zoo, provided free teaching guides, posters and interactive CDs to about 200 public, private and parochial teachers from Delaware, Chester and Montgomery Counties. Held at Pennsylvania State University's Delaware County campus, the recent event offered a variety of resource information in one location, said Kelly Daniel, spokeswoman for Rep. Curt Weldon (R., Pa.)

An innovative program to incorporate music, theater and art into the students' academic courses will begin this fall at Conwell-Egan Catholic High School in Fairless Hills. The high school received a $110,000 academic enrichment grant from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the Connelly Foundation to establish the humanities program. In addition, Conwell-Egan raised more than $21,000 toward the pilot program. "The humanities affect and reflect how we see our lives," said Margaret Blanco, chairwoman of the English department.

The Township Committee eliminated school field trips, reduced the number of new staff members, and cut the number of new computers in the Voorhees school budget this week, but average residents still will pay about $166 more in school taxes than they did last year. The extra taxes are needed to maintain the quality of education as enrollment increases, school officials and the committee agreed. Officials expect at least 115 new students this fall and an additional 500 by 2001. At Monday night's meeting, the committee said it felt obligated to make some cuts after voters defeated the budget, for the first time in 20 years, on April 15. "We're not cutting teachers, we're not cutting staff, and we're not cutting programming," Mayor Gary Finger said.

The Rev. Myrtle Daniels stepped up to the altar and switched on a reading light. Lucile Stewart-Mitchell took her seat at the piano, pressing open a hymn book. Karyn Fisher turned down music playing on an iPad. "We've had a busy week," Daniels announced, facing a dozen congregants gathered Sunday morning at Mount Zion A.M.E. in Woolwich Township. A week earlier, someone had rearranged the letters on the sign outside the tiny church, defacing it with a racist - and misspelled - message: No Nigers Welcome.

The girls on the crowded stage at the Boys & Girls Club of Camden County looked tense and frustrated as they tried to replicate the complicated dance moves members of the Camden Sophisticated Sisters drill team were demonstrating. About a hundred girls aged 3 to 18 had come Saturday to audition for the team, which has been featured on CNN and NBC as a bright spot in a troubled city. Tawanda "Wa-Wa" Jones, who founded the team 26 years ago, hadn't let the prospective members in on a little secret: Almost all of them would get in. "This is not about the trophies...," Jones said as she supervised from below the stage.

AFTER HIS PERFORMANCE in a talent show, Mickey McDonald, 6, gets a congratulatory hug from volunteer Raina Goldberg at Camp Dumore in Lima. Mickey attended the six-week day camp sponsored by Easter Seals for young people ages 5 to 21 who are mentally retarded, physically disabled or learning disabled. Activities included swimming, arts and crafts, and field trips. The camp concluded last week.

While many young people embraced sports or arts and crafts this summer, one group spent its days in math and science classes or on field trips to such places as a helicopter museum and a highway research center. For four weeks, 20 youths ages 12 to 14 participated in the Summer Transportation Institute at Lincoln University, a program designed to interest minority students in careers in transportation. "The goal is to make sure to expose them to all modes of transportation - land, water, or air," said Robert Allen, a Lincoln professor who has run the courses there for six years.

Affordable field trips for students are available Thanks to Lini S. Kadaba for bringing to light the reality that many schools cannot afford field trips to local attractions and therefore take advantage of free trips to various stores ("Instead of zoo, it's off to Petco for field trips," May 25). Teachers do have options when it comes to accessible local outings for their students. Along with the many free offerings available in the Independence Park area, the National Liberty Museum offers free and low-cost tours for children and young adults.