The Rhode Island Department of Education’s recent issuance of a “guidance document” barring students from being charged fees for school-sponsored field trips could prove disruptive for Cranston Public Schools, according to Superintendent Jeannine Nota-Masse.

“We’re really trying to figure out how this impacts our current plans … If that’s the way it is going forward, we have to look at the entirety of how we do things,” she said.

The superintendent said the district will review RIDE’s document, determine its implications and take any needed action based on the findings.

“We’re going to look at the guidance from RIDE, look at our own policies and procedures and come up with policies and guidance for our own schools,” she said.

Nota-Masse also stressed that the district works to ensure costs are not an obstacle in terms of student participation in field trips.

“In all of our field trips, if we know of a family who’s unable to pay, those kids go anyway,” she said, reflecting language that appears in the district’s official field trip policy. “We find a way to support families who can’t afford to pay for a kid on a trip.”

The RIDE guidance, issued through an April 10 letter from Dr. Ken Wagner – who ended his tenure as the state’s education commissioner on Friday – came in response to a September 2018 inquiry from the East Greenwich School Committee.

Wagner’s letter states that there are “three permissible ways to fund trips.”

He indicates that districts may allocate budget funding for field trips “so long as the trip is part of the instructional program and all students have the same ability to attend.” Fundraising is allowed as a means of supplementing budgeted funds “so long as individual students do not have mandated fundraising targets that must be met as a requirement for participation.”

“Individuals may be charged fees for a trip, but only for trips that are not organized by the district using district resources, including district-funded staff time,” the letter states. “In addition, districts should have local policies and procedures in place to guide local actions consistent with any and all of these options.”

In a joint statement, the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island and Rhode Island Legal Services applauded Wagner’s “guidance document.”

“Efforts by public schools to charge students for a variety of activities – including summer school, AP exams, and extra-curricular activities – have been long-standing. However, RIDE has also had a long-standing history of rejecting those efforts on the grounds that school districts have no authority under state law to impose them and they interfere with a student’s right to a free and equal public education,” the statement reads. “RILS and the ACLU have routinely intervened in these disputes, noting the critical statewide importance for thousands of low-income students in keeping public education truly free.”

“We applaud the Commissioner’s unequivocal reinforcement of Rhode Island’s longstanding law and policy supporting educational equity by prohibiting the charging of fees to students,” RILS education attorney Veronika Kot said in the statement. “Only an education that is completely free can avoid both the stigma and the inequity of a two-tier system, with enhanced opportunities for those who can afford them and lesser ones for those who can’t.”

“Whatever financial problems a school district may be facing, it is simply wrong to try to resolve them on the backs of students and their families,” ACLU of Rhode Island Executive Director Steven Brown said in the statement. “We are hopeful that this latest ruling from the department will put an end to persistent efforts by school districts to turn a free public education into one that demands financial payments from students for participation.”