By Heather Campbell
Guest Writer
This year, the SLA annual ski trip to Blue Mountain scheduled for February 25th was cancelled due to the lack of funds, snow, and overall student interest.
A ski trip has been planned every year for the past six years, but only four have actually happened.
The cancellation of the trip has been a disappointment for many of the students who were hoping to attend.
“I was really sad it was canceled. I was really looking forward to it,” commented Senior Marina Stuart.
Stuart had not been skiing since the last trip and was looking forward to it and hanging out with friends. This was the third trip that Stuart had tried to attend, but has only gone on one.
Freshmen Nikki Adeli, Leah Kelly, and Julian Makarechi were also among the students who were disappointed to learn about the cancellation of the trip.
Kelly was hoping that the skip trip would provide her the opportunity to bond with friends and have a fun time, but now they have to do so by other means.
“I usually don’t go skiing but when I do, it’s with my school trip,” commented Adeli.
Science teacher Gamal Sherif, who organizes the trip, said that “we didn’t have enough students.” They had 28 students sign up, but they needed 45 to afford it.
The cost of the trip was also a factor in the its cancellation. For the past few years the trip has been to Bear Creek because it was cheaper, but this year they opted for taking a yellow school bus to Blue Mountain to balance out the cost. The Home and School Association had offered to cover a portion of the cost.
“We thought we could spend the $500 from the Home and School and see how it would hurt the school overall,” commented Sherif.
“Every year it has been hard for us. I don’t know if the school is big enough. We tried all sorts of things; we had bake sale, we had poly-metrics and conditioning.”
With the high costs of skiing, it is essential for funding and student interest in order for the trip to be successful.
“When freshmen come at the beginning of the year, they should mention it. They need to mention it more,” suggested Adeli.
“I think they isn’t enough interest at our school and they need to team up and partner with another school” said Stuart.
To make the trip more successful, the organizers have been considering the idea of partnering up with another school, looking at Julia R. Masterman to be their model.
“Masterman gets to go on a Friday. The early mornings and Saturdays didn’t appeal to students,” stated Sherif.
Another factor in the trip’s cancellation was the lack of snow.
“If we got up there and the weather was slushy it would not be money well spent,” commented Sherif.
For this year’s ski trip, the school had to take into account the weather and student interest to assess whether the cost of the trip would be outweighed. This year, the trip was too expensive for what it was worth.
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