Glenwood Middle School alters trip to see Annapolis after Baltimore demonstrations

Staff report

BOARDMAN

After working with a tour company, students from Boardman Glenwood Middle School will be changing a planned tour near Baltimore.

Jennifer Dravecky, a fifth-grade social-studies teacher and student-council coordinator at the school, made the decision earlier this week to alter a trip set for May 8 and 9.

“We were monitoring the situation over the weekend, and I was in close contact with the tour company Sunday, and on Monday, we had more of a conversation,” she detailed. That company, 20th Century Tours, worked out a backup destination of Annapolis, Md., and a tour of the U.S. Naval Academy.

“It’s something that I do for the kids to give them an opportunity to get out and see some things,” she said.

On Tuesday, a letter was sent to parents of the students about the change in the trip. The change was made due to demonstrations in the city of Baltimore in the wake of the death and funeral of Eddie Gray.

The trip now will avoid Baltimore and its Inner Harbor, and the students are staying at a hotel between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.

Students are going to a Washington Nationals game the night of May 8 and will visit the U.S. Naval Academy on May 9.

Both Dravecky and Boardman schools Superintendent Frank Lazzeri stressed that student safety is their No. 1 concern.

“This is affecting the lives of 11- and 12-year-olds who don’t understand the magnitude of what is happening. But it is happening, so we needed to do something that kept the kids safe and still allowed them” to have fun, Dravecky said.