<p>It’s is not common here at our public hs in SoCal, but as someone else said it may be more common at the private schools. I am hoping we will be able to go skiing as a family over spring break since we are not going at Christmas.</p>
<p>Gosh, I will join the one dissenting parent. And I feel I’m VERY strict. But my D is actually MORE strict on herself. </p>
<p>She has NEVER been in a lick of trouble. She is not allowed to drink (duh!) and has ZERO interest in it. She’s afraid of drugs and needles too! I will say she can be naive, and we’d have a LONG talk about things beforehand. How she would need to NEVER be alone (always have a friend/buddy), etc. </p>
<p>BUT…she’s very smart, and values her virtue, safety, LIFE! Odd things happen, we all know that. We can’t prevent them all. But I spent Spring Break in Florida as a senior and didn’t get more than sun poisoning. And I went to France (traveled alone) at age 15. </p>
<p>Times are different, yes. But…not so much. Very bad things happened then as well. My D knows how to negotiate the subways in London and Paris or hail a cab in NYC. She’s a GREAT and safe driver, and is ALWAYS more responsible when off by herself than with me (when she relies on me instead of “thinking”). </p>
<p>She LOVES to travel and I’d be happy to offer her a backpacking trip through Europe if she DOESN’T pick one of her more expensive college options. I’d rather go WITH her, but she IS a teen. Teens are just about grown. They do need the occasional time and situation to test their mettle. Each of us will measure out however large a dose that makes us comfortable, but…YES. I would allow her to travel alone. She’s going to be living alone/with just kids very soon anyway. If they’re old enough to smoke and vote and drink (in most parts of the world) and have children and serve their country…we’d better HOPE we brought them up well enough that they know how to travel/party/behave without supervision by now. There are bad people in the world, and there are temptations. But there comes SOME time when we turn them loose. I like to do it in fits and starts and this would be one dose. While she’s not perfect, I trust I did a good job with her, and I trust her to listen to the little voice in her head. It’s not a risk, it’s just the next step in their move toward independence. It should be a good thing.</p>
<p>But, alas…we are planning NOTHING so the time can be free in case she is accepted into any of her “reaches” so we can go visit!</p>
<p>GradCity organizes student trips for high school & college. They provide one onsite staff member per 25 students; participants wear wristbands; they offer onsite contact info; 24 hour onsite EMTs and Medics, etc. [GradCity</a> - Parent Center](<a href=“http://www.gradcity.com/index.php/parent_center/index]GradCity”>http://www.gradcity.com/index.php/parent_center/index)</p>
<p>When I searched their site, I found MANY local high schools were planning GradCity trips to the Bahamas this spring. Interesting.</p>
<p>The comments here have led me to confirm my previous beliefs about this spring break for high schoolers idea. All parents who allow their kids to go are not irresponsible scumbags. (Maybe some are! ;)) I see the pros and cons. Every parent can decide for his own child.</p>
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<p>This was actually also an important factor in my decision. I wanted to leave time open for any last minute visits or other college selection activities.</p>
<p>Well yeah … what about decision making college visits?</p>
<p>I have both a trade show I should go to <em>and</em> a sales management conference I should go to the week of spring break. I’m not going to either because i want to leave the time to take my son to visit colleges if there’s a choice to be made.</p>
<p>D and her 3 best friends went on a cruise Senior year for spring break. Two of the moms went with them. D had her first drink when they got off the ship in Mexico, she was literally a few days shy of 18. The girls each had one drink and that was it. I was fine with this and I tend to be a fairly strict parent.</p>
<p>According to D several of her HS classmates took similar trips Senior year. I have no idea whether the other kids were accompanied by adults or not.</p>
<p>I think there’s a difference between a few kids going with almost as many parents when you know them all very well, such as in FallGirl’s case, and the big groups of as many as a couple hundred kids.</p>
<p>DH and I would not allow our child to go on this sort of trip in high school, chaperoned or not. College is soon enough. I also concur that the parents who would tend to agree to chaperone are the same parents who allow their kids and friends to drink in their homes; at least, I know for a fact that was the case with my daughter’s school. I would never agree to chaperone that trip because I would not want the responsibility of other kids in a situation like that.</p>
<p>Don’t let the idea of a trip being chaperoned give you a false sense of security. The parents of the boy from the nola area who fell or jumped off the top deck of a cruise ship last year were on the trip as chaperones. The boy was heavily intoxicated to the point where his parents brought him to his cabin and told him to stay in for the remainder of the night. He didn’t. Cruise ships can be huge so his parents didn’t know he was out again. Word had it that the boy’s gf had broken up with him. This was a senior trip cruise, which is popular among the private schools in that area.</p>
<p>These trips aren’t normally truly school sponsored at least in our area because the school would never accept the liability of the types of activity that everyone knew would occur. It was basically a group of parents who planned and coordinated a cruise for their kids and classmates from a certain school. </p>
<p>Also fwiw some college campuses actually offer an “Alternative Spring Break” service trip each year.</p>
<p>Our high school in general doesn’t do these kinds of trips. There is the Grad Nite trip to Disneyland, but no one stays overnight in a hotel. </p>
<p>The band has gone on trips during the Spring Break to compete or perform concerts. But these are very well supervised by adults. </p>
<p>When kids go to college and get some more maturity, they can decide for themselves whether to go on these kinds of trips. But high school seems a little young to be doing this kind of thing.</p>
<p>I DO remember Natalie Hollaway–scared the heck out of me! Will we ever find her body?</p>
<p>The big thing around here is to go to Myrtle Beach, SC for Spring Break. Bunches of kids rent places and go down for the week (or part of it). Both of my S’s went with groups of friends. A parent stayed for the first day or so and after that they were on their own.
Some kids go Junior yr. We didn’t let ours go until Senior yr. They were both eighteen and just a couple of months shy of graduation by then.</p>
<p>Re: OP’s question. Nope. Too many opportunities for stupid kinds of trouble, even if one is merely a bystander. </p>
<p>S2 (who will be 18 before spring break) plans to spend spring break visiting whatever colleges he’s been accepted to and decides are his finalists. He’ll be doing the trips solo to save $$ and to see what it’s like doing them solo, and I’m sure he’ll have plenty of chances to party should he desire. He’s just not a partying guy, though.</p>
<p>Both our kids are too cheap to ever spend their own $$ on a spring break trip, and they know we won’t fund it. We did the “The XXXXX Family EFC doesn’t include cars, spending $$ or vacations” spiel long ago. In fact, it’s been hard to teach them how to budget, because neither one is a big spender in the first place.</p>
<p>A group of DDs friends went to Mexico senior year spring break, I was the only mean old NO parent, but it sure felt like the right decision to me.</p>
<p>I only read the title, and the OP, and knew my response:
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO</p>
<p>Oh, did I mention NO!!!</p>
<p>And to clarify - I DID send my just-turned-18 year old son on a graduation Europe trip with his 20 and 22 year old brothers. Would I have sent him with 25 other 18 year olds that I don’t know to a resort? No. Do I think he and his brothers were constantly wise and judicious on their trip? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Did I trust them to take care of each other? Yes.</p>
<p>Oh wow…</p>
<p>My graduating class went on a trip after our graduation at a beach resort a few hours away from us. We were a small class (around 30 students) and knew eachother well. It cost around $60USD per person to stay at a five-star resort (for two days) and to rent a bus for the duration of the trip. We had all done at least 50 hours of service in the last two years (IB students). Unfortunately, only one of our classmates was unable to come due to her parents insistence.</p>
<p>We had no chaperons. Of course we drank, but drinking was not an issue or the main purpose of the trip.</p>
<p>my parents are letting me go to the beach for spring break. 
about 25 people and myself rented a beach house at Carolina Beach and for everyone saying its just a drinking party not all kids drink and when they do alot of them are responsible about it everyones making very broad generalizations.</p>
<p>S2 and GF are taking about taking a trip to NYC at graduation. I’m OK with that as long as they are staying with my BIL and SIL, and they can commute into the city.</p>