Tour companies revealed that high-school teachers, coaches and school board members often organize and escort high-school spring-break trips to Cancun, Mexico, where unlimited drinking parties are a part of the attraction, the Detroit Free Press reported May 7."We'll have maybe a football coach organize a trip, or maybe a school administrator. Usually a parent, a coach, some kind of adult, will go along as a chaperone," said Shawn Andreas, an official at Sun and Surf Tours in Melbourne, Fla.
Those organizing the trip generally receive a free, all-inclusive trip for every 15 students they recruit.
Canequia Wardlaw, an algebra teacher at Pontiac Central High School in Mich., recently organized such a trip. "The kids came to me and said, 'Miss Coco, please will you plan our spring-break trip for us?'" she said. "The school doesn't sponsor trips like that. And to me, it was like, they're going to go to Cancun anyway, they might as well have an adult go with them. It's worse if they don't."
Cancun has become a party destination for high-school students. Many tour companies offer packages that promote unlimited drinking parties. The legal drinking age in Mexico is 18, but is rarely enforced.
"This has turned into now something that's almost expected for spring break, and the age level keeps getting younger. We discourage it in every way possible," said Ralph Coaster, superintendent of Lake Fenton Community Schools, a small district near Flint, Mich. "This is not sanctioned by the school in any way."
But some parents feel that a trip organized or escorted by a school official or teacher gives the impression that the trip is safe and the school supports it.
"I thought, 'This is the school board president, so it's OK,' " said Frank Yow, a parent who considered sending his daughter on a Cancun trip escorted by a prominent school official. "During the meeting, a travel representative started talking about the bars and the parties they had scheduled for the kids, and I thought, 'Wait a minute. My daughter is not doing this.'"
Michael Palmer, executive director of the Student Youth Travel Association, added, "Teachers taking kids on a trip that encourages underage drinking is even more disturbing than kids choosing to go themselves. Parents should be encouraged to know what trips kids are going on, who they're going with, and what they're going to do when they get there."
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