School trip to Ashokan cut short by bedbugs

The Wilson and Riverside schools’ fifth-grade trip to the Ashokan Center last month was complicated by one of nature’s pre-eminent pests: bedbugs.

Fifth-graders in all of the elementary schools take the annual excursion in either fall or spring, spending three days at the nature preserve learning about the outdoors. The trip was scheduled for Sept. 15-17, but the school district brought the children home late on the night of Sept. 16, after bedbugs were discovered in a small area of one of the cabins they were sleeping in.

“We took a lot of preventive measures,” said Superintendent Dr. William Johnson. “We found out we needed to bag everything. We gave every parent a list of things they could do with the clothing their children had taken up with them.” Once the bugs were discovered, the children weren’t allowed back in the cabin except to pack up at the end of the day.

“They got in almost all their activities,” said Tom Ricupero, principal of the Wilson School. “They missed Tuesday night — we were going to have a campfire and make s’mores. So we did that on school grounds on Friday.”

Because the trip was cut short, parents will be reimbursed for part of the cost by Ashokan — most likely $75 to $80, Johnson said, adding that whether other activities were planned to take the place of those that were missed on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning would be up to the schools.

Ricupero said that Wilson was considering a one-day field trip to some other outdoor educational area. “I’m working with the teachers to see if they want to take time away from the class,” he said. “These days there are a lot of pressures, with all the Common Core. You don’t want to take away instructional time.

“I feel good about the experience they had [at Ashokan],” he added. “It was full.”