Palm Middle School Students Raising Money for D.C. Trip in Spring

A Lemon Grove middle school teacher is organizing what is believed to be the district’s first eighth-grade East Coast trip.

If all goes according to plan, 30 eighth-grade students and three teachers from the district will visit Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania next spring.

“Every day will be just chock-full of activities,” Palm Middle School teacher Kristine Morgan told the Governing Board at its Tuesday meeting.

Morgan said the trip will cost $1,300 per student. Parents, teachers and students involved plan to hold fundraisers, she said. Six students have signed up already and more than 30 have expressed interest, she said.

So far, her small group has raised $50 from the sale of water bottles and carnations at the eighth-grade graduation at Palm Middle School last month.

There is still time to raise more money, Morgan said. A car wash is planned for August, she said.

The trip is scheduled for early April when district students are on spring break.

The plan is to visit the Smithsonian and possibly the White House in Washington, D.C., and Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, Morgan said. The focus of the trip will be learning U.S. history, she said.

East Coast trips are common in many West Coast school districts. Superintendent Ernie Anastos said Lemon Grove students had never participated in one.

Morgan said she got the idea for the trip after her son, Nathan, visited the East Coast last year with other eighth-graders from the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District.

Around that time, she said, she asked herself: “Why aren’t we doing this trip?”

Incoming eighth-grade students from Palm Middle School and Vista La Mesa Academy are eligible to go on the trip.

For more information about the trip and upcoming fundraisers, contact Morgan at kmorgan@lgsd.k12.ca.us