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The District 861 School Board gave its approval Thursday to a plan that would take between 12 and 18 students to Egypt next summer if they can raise the money to go.
The trip was proposed by social studies teacher Dwayne Voegeli, who said the ten-day tour would emphasize the things he teaches in a global studies class at the high school.
Voegeli listed his wife, who does not work for the district, as a chaperone for the trip, and said while he would pay the full fee of $3,460, chaperones should receive their trips for half price. At the meeting Thursday, Voegeli said administrators asked him to consider taking a female district employee instead of his wife, which Voegeli said he was open to. He also plans to invite an administrator to join him, though he did not name which administrator he has in mind.
Voegeli’s full payment and the half payment of two additional chaperones could be used to help offset costs for some students, he said, though he did not say how many students have to go for chaperones to qualify for three free trips from the tour company.
The student cost to participate would be $3,005 each, the most costly trip any group has taken in District 861. “It’s an expensive trip, I will admit that,” Voegeli said, adding that students may be able to do some fundraising before the December payment deadline to help fund it, though he said his fundraising plans are limited. Voegeli said the trip is only open to junior and senior high students, and he expects many of them to have jobs where they can earn money to pay for it.
For those who can, Voegeli said, Egypt is a historical gold mine and a place he’d like to see. “I’ve been to Rome, I’ve been to Stonehenge, but I’ve never been to Egypt,” he told the board.
Though Voegeli said he has collaborated with a teacher in Egypt on classes in the past, there is no educational exchange planned as part of this trip.
The itinerary includes tours of the pyramids and the Sphinx, an Egyptian cruise, horse-drawn carriage tours, and sightseeing at landmarks in Luxor and Cairo.
If there is time on the last day, Voegeli said, he might be able to arrange for students to meet with Egyptian students for an hour or so.
The group will be combined with other tour groups through Explorica, a company Voegeli said has been touring groups through Egypt since 2005. Because they will be joining a larger tour, elements of the trip cannot be changed, Voegeli said. Also, he said he’d been assured by the travel company that tourists in Egypt are safe. “It is the Middle East, but Egypt is very tourist friendly,” he said. “It’s not the perfect trip but I think it’s an exciting trip.”
Voegeli has orchestrated other student trips in the past, each of which produced varying amounts of controversy.
Voegeli has a letter placed in his personnel file after a 1999 trip to Washington, D.C. because a parent complained that he was drinking beer while with students.
On an 18-day trip with 28 students to Europe in 2001, students were caught drinking, Voegeli acknowledged in a newspaper story after the group returned.
Last year, Voegeli laid plans to bring students to Vietnam to visit a school building they helped raise funds for. But his plans ran afoul of the new field trip policy enacted by the school board that required longer planning and more information than Voegeli provided. Several students did attend the trip, though Voegeli reportedly did not.
In his quest to take students to other parts of the world, Voegeli said travel is a valuable way to expand their horizons and validate things he is teaching them in the classroom.
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