Disneyland may no longer be the “happiest place on earth” for future senior classes.
Principal Mark Corti said economic hardships and lost instructional time are the main reasons behind the cancelation of a senior Disneyland trip after this year.
Seniors lose class time when they attend the senior picnic in fall, in addition to the spring Disneyland trip, Corti said.
Multiple days with little educational instruction is not idealistic, Corti said.
“We just can’t have two days like that,” said Corti.
The Disneyland trip this year has been paid for by students and their parents, said Corti.
“As the economic climate gets better, it will be easier to get these kinds of trips through the approval process,” said senior ASB president Shane Pittson. “There is not a lot of openheartedness toward field trips in general at this time due to the economy.”
Although Corti said the trip was not cancelled to punish students, some believe administrators are responding to the recent senior cut day.
The Monday after Senior Ball is unofficially known as senior cut day, a day for seniors to cut class.
This year, Cal High lost thousands of dollars of Average Daily Attendance (ADA) funding because of the large amount of absences on senior cut day.
Many seniors said that Corti announced at the senior meeting on April 23, that future Disneyland trips would be cancelled because more than 300 seniors did not attend school on the Monday after Senior Ball.
The school does not lose ADA funding because of seniors attending the Disneyland trip because it is considered a school-related field trip.
But there is some concern over the roughly 250 seniors who will not be attending the Disneyland trip, and might be more inclined to skip school that day.
A proposed solution for the junior class, which had been planning a Disneyland trip, is to have a field trip to Great America on the Monday after Senior Ball, and eliminate the senior picnic, said junior class president Ashley Jensen.
“I do think the juniors, sophomores, and freshman should voice their opinions because they are the ones affected,” said Ashley.
Many underclassmen are upset that a Disneyland trip will not be a part of their senior experience.
“I was really looking forward to that trip,” said freshman Kelly Iaquinta. “I wanted to hang out with my friends at Disneyland.”
But some students feel hopeful that there might be a senior Disneyland trip again in the future.
“I believe that as long as Disneyland holds a grad night, there is still a possibility for another class to make the trip,” said Shane.
Shane, senior treasurer John Adkins and senior leadership president Jay Virdee said they got this year’s Disneyland trip approved by promising Corti that they would try to improve senior attendance during the school year.
“Leadership now rewards students with perfect attendance by inviting them to pizza parties,” said John.
Pizza parties are held for students who were not absent during the past semester as an incentive to improve schoolwide attendance.
Overall, attendance has improved in comparison to last year, said Shane, but daily attendance is still not as high as the administration would have liked.