Flocks of students touring U.S. capital signal life is returning to
normal
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[June 22, 2021]
By Gabriella Borter
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Athena Tedder, 13,
dangled her feet in the fountain of the World War II memorial on the
Washington Mall and watched her classmates splash and laugh, soaking in
the afternoon sun and the sight of the nation’s capital for the first
time.
Across the mall, which was eerily void of tourists for months during the
pandemic, groups of eighth graders like Tedder’s class from Clarkston
Junior High School in Clarkston, Michigan were stepping off buses in
matching T-shirts and mostly ditching their face masks as they followed
chaperones from memorial to memorial.
Clarkston Junior High School had pushed back their Washington trip for a
year, waiting until the COVID-19 case numbers were low and enough
tourist sites were open to make their 10-hour bus trip worthwhile. They
finally embarked in mid-June with nearly three dozen students, a handful
of chaperones and a slightly altered itinerary from their pre-pandemic
tradition.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2021/Jun/22/images/ads/current/charrons_bch041713.png)
“I didn’t think it was going to happen, but I’m glad it did happen,”
Tedder said of the delayed trip, adding that she was grateful for the
social opportunity after seeing friends inconsistently all year while
the school toggled between remote and hybrid learning.
For many eighth-grade students around the United States, an overnight
trip to the nation’s capital is a much-anticipated rite of passage that
complements their American history studies. The trips came to a halt
when the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March 2020.
But swarms of wide-eyed, backpack-clad 13-year-olds have begun popping
up around the capital in the last few weeks, confirming for many locals
that the city is returning to a state of pre-pandemic normalcy.
"The pent-up demand is huge,” said Bob Gogel, CEO of student travel
group WorldStrides, which operated Clarkston’s tour and typically runs
Washington tours for several thousand school groups per year.
The company started ramping up rebookings when the vaccines became
widely available.
"The level of optimism is just getting better every day,” Gogel said.
COVID-SAFE ITINERARY
The Clarkston group’s chaperones took each student’s temperature twice a
day and reminded them to mask up when indoors, even though some were
vaccinated. Everyone had to test negative for COVID-19 before coming,
said history teacher Michael Greve, who has led Clarkston’s annual trip
for 16 years.
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![](../images/062221PIX/news_e9.jpg)
Athena Tedder and Norah Benedict, students at Michigan?s Clarkston
Junior High School, visit the Lincoln Memorial during their 8th
grade trip to Washington, U.S., June 18, 2021. Picture taken June
18, 2021. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
![](../images/ads/current/centraldirect_lda_SPONSOR_2021.png)
"It’s really a lot of different hoops to jump through that we’re not
used to, but those were the price of admission this year," Greve
said.
As tourist sites are gradually reopening, school groups have largely
been limited to outdoor stops, including a walking tour of Arlington
National Cemetery, photos outside the White House and a Nationals
baseball game. Usual itinerary mainstays like Smithsonian Museums
and the Capitol building were not yet allowing groups to make
reservations.
"I really wanted to go to the top of the Washington Monument,” said
Collin Elliott, 14, as he sidestepped crushed cicadas on his walk
through Arlington National Cemetery with his classmates from Valley
Middle School in Apple Valley, Minnesota.
The Washington Monument was closed to visitors. Still, Elliott said
he was grateful he got to come on the trip at all since it was
canceled last spring and he had been looking forward to it for
years. It was his second time traveling by plane.
Lois Mobisa, 15, had been signed up to go on Valley Middle School’s
canceled trip last year when she was in eighth grade and decided to
come on the trip as a ninth grader this year. Her family moved to
Minnesota from Kenya in 2008 and this was her first time traveling
to the East Coast.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2021/Jun/22/images/ads/current/Culligan_lda_HOMETOWNHEROES_2021.png)
"I’ve seen things I never thought in a million years I’d ever be
able to see,” she said.
(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; editing by Paul Thomasch and Lisa
Shumaker)
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