12 Travel
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Let students know upfront the estimated costs and dates of competitions
- When students join your CTSO, let them know right away what they are working toward. This will help motivate them to fundraise during the year and establish expectations early. You don’t want students to be surprised at how much they have to pay right before the money is due.
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Have a parent meeting after regionals
- After regionals have completed and you know which students qualified to attend state, host a parent meeting for any student that is interested in attending. You can run through the specific with them like costs, dates, location, transportation, etc.
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Follow district policies and guidelines
- Make sure to adhere to all policies and guidelines set forth by your district for student travel, including funding, transportation, and accommodations.
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Use travel agency to schedule flights
- This is a personal preference, but some advisors have used travel agencies to schedule the flights to make sure all students were booked together and for a reasonable rate.
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Schedule hotel when you register
- When you register your students for the state or national conference, you’ll likely have to schedule the hotel they’ll stay in at the same time. Take a look at the options and plan what would be best for your chapter.
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Don’t go to bed before students do
- When traveling, make sure you check that your students are in their rooms before you retire for the night. Set and enforce a curfew as needed. It might be exhausting to be the last one awake each evening, but you are responsible for your students and must do your due diligence.
- Along these same lines, you can do room checks each night and tape the hotel room doors if you have to. To do this, you stretch some painters tape starting on the frame of the door and then continue it onto the door itself. If the tape moves, it means that the door was opened after you checked on the students. Some advisors’ policy is that if the tape was moved, the student(s) in that room went home.
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Establish a way to communicate
- Your district might have an established way of communicating with students (for example, an app like Remind or ClassDojo). Regardless of what you use, make sure that all students and chaperones have access to the channel of communication prior to even stepping on the bus/plane.
- In addition, some advisors recommend having everyone share their cell phone number and locations during the trip. You can stop sharing your location once the trip is over.
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Have students look at things they want to do at nationals
- When planning your trip for nationals, ask you students to look up local things they would like to do – free activities are especially great! Make sure to give students a robust experience, since they will likely have downtime during the trip. Allow your students the opportunity to help plan the trip.
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Be clear on the rules and schedule
- Establish your rules and expectations ahead of time. Make sure that you are on the same page as students and that they know where they are supposed to be and when. Set them up for success by providing clear direction.