20 School Trip Horror Stories Shared By Teachers

Although school trips sound like a dream for kids, they’re usually an absolute nightmare for the teachers. They constantly have to make sure that no one loses their stuff, doesn’t touch or break what they shouldn’t, and most importantly doesn’t get lost or left behind. However, even despite the teachers’ best efforts, some school trips turn out to be complete disasters.

#1

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We came back with an extra kid.

#2

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Fifth grade field trip to a zoo. During a tour of the primate exhibits a notoriously ill-behaved student hurls a stick down into the gorilla habitat and lands near an adult gorilla. Without hesitation, the now angry gorilla arms himself with the same stick and sends it back like a tomahawk to the boy with terrifying velocity and wildly impressive precision. The stick shatters around the boys face and he goes down. Commotion insues. More gorillas make an appearance and begin to scream at the group of horrified children. Zoo staff start piling in out of the woodwork to see whats going on. The orangutans on the other side of the trail have now got wind of the situation and have begun mobilizing to assist their gorilla comrades. It’s a war on two fronts now. Gorilla and orangutans launch volleys of feces and student’s scatter. Througout the entire exibit all manner of primates begin their intimidating chatter and howling. An army of zoo staff has swarmed the primate exibits and manages to stop war of the planet of the apes.

30 minutes later, the zoo has indefinitely banned the school from returning and the boy is on the way to the hospital for 5 stitches in his chin.

#3

Image source: AmyCee20

In the kindergarten field trip, we had the parent of our most challenging student come along as a chaperone. Her group was her own son, and a very sweet, obident girl. Let’s call him Jim and the girl Shaunda.

Typically we teachers set up “base camp” while the parents take the groups of students through the park. We do a scavenger hunt, and the parents bring us their cards for a stamp as they go through each section.

The first time the zoo employee brought us Jim, he said that the boy was in the monkey exhibit trying to climb over the fences. Luckily he had on a school shirt, and Jim was brought right to us. We called his mother’s phone, and she didn’t answer. About 15 minutes later, the mom shows up and says “Jim, how did you get in front of us, we we’re walking together just a minute ago.” We teachers explained that in fact, Jim had been with us for a bit, and the zoo ranger had brought him over. No real responseonce from the mom. We asked her to turn on her phone.

They went off again.

The second time they brought us Jim, he had gotten into the fountain. It had taken several employees to chase him down as he ran and giggled. Same drill, we called Mom. No answer. Jim was sopping wet with gross fountain water. He did not seem too concerned. The mom did not show up for 45 minutes. Again she said, “Jim, how did you get in front of us, we we’re walking together just a minute ago.” This time I was watching Shaunda, the look on that little girl’s face said it all. Total amazement that an adult was lying.

They went off again to walk to the picnic area.

Yes. The third time the zoo brought back little Jim, it was with a police officer. Apparently, the zoo was watching the cameras, and the minute the mom was out of sight, she let go of Jim and basically ditched him. The mom got a citation for failure to maintain responsibility for her child and a 1 year ban from the zoo. The police officer accompanied her and Jim back to the buses and waited with them until it was time to leave. They did not participate in the picnic.

Shaunda had the best moral to the story. “No wonder he is so bad, his mama won’t even keep him safe when there is a tiger around.”.

He is now a very troubled 4th grader. He doesn’t get to go on field trips without 1 on 1 support from a school staff member.

#4

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Not a teacher but a chaperone on a 6th grade trip. And on the bus a pair of the more … um… developed students proceeded to have a rather extensive make out session.

So I went back there and plunked my Dad butt between them. They were not happy. The conversation about teen pregnancy avoidance was even more painful for them.

#5

Image source: anonymous

Former assistant teacher here, we were on a 6th grade field trip to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Cool place.

So – at the time one of the attractions was a sort of centripetal force machine that you can sit in and get swung around (poor explanation but imagine the Gravitron only smaller and faster with seats and no walls. I googled it but can’t find the ride, guessing it was swapped out for something else). Well, one dumbass kid thought it’d be funny to show off and see what happens when you undo your seat belt while riding.

Naturally, he got flung out of the machine at roughly half the speed of sound and broke his fall with nothing but his face. Glasses busted, massive concussion, totally wrecked. There was a whole investigation and the teacher in charge of that kid’s group had to actually defend himself from accusations that he could’ve somehow stopped that level of stupidity. Sadly I didn’t witness it but did hear the impact from one room over. Pretty interesting day.

#6

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We went skating, and one of the students fell, smacked her chin off the ice, and somehow got a skate blade to the face… she needed a bunch of stitches, and was able to stick her tongue through the hole in her face…

#7

Image source: PopeliusJones

I went on a class trip as chaperone to a science center. I was in charge of a group of 8 boys. One of them goes missing, I ask the others where he went, and they don’t know either. He’s missing for about 10 minutes until a security guard from the center comes up to me with him. The guy asks “is he one of yours?”, and tells this kid to open his backpack when I say yes. Probably $200 worth of stolen stuff in there. He spent the rest of the trip right next to me

#8

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Kid punched a dolphin. Petting tank at SeaWorld. Kid just hauled off and punched a dolphin. School was banned.

Another time all the chaperones went to the beer tasting at Busch Gardens. That got a few people in trouble.

Another time we had a kid from Kenya with us. She was straight up out of Africa for only a few weeks. When it was time to leave Disney she got on the first bus she saw and ended up at Pleasure Island (Disney Springs now.)

Then there was the kid that destroyed TWO hotel rooms in Gainesville by flushing soap down the toilet.

Another kid (Disney again) roughed up a chipmunk (it was Chip or Dale.) Disney Security stopped our bus before we could leave and detained him. There is so much more.

#9

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Asked my students to be respectful of other pedestrians while on the trip, because some people want to enjoy the nature center by themselves, one kid saw a woman with her service dog and tried to pull on it because “mommy would let me have it” we had to leave because of that and he ruined the entire trip for everyone

#10

Image source: Pure_Swiv

Ok, so not a teacher, but: One time on a trip to the movies in 8th grade, one of the chaperones was my english teacher, who was deathly alergic to citrus. (I think we know where this is going) On the bus ride back to school, a kid takes an orange, peels it and throws it at her, HARD. Hard enough to the point where orange juice got all over her shirt. Not sure if it was revenge related or just being a [prick]. Anyway, she immediatly starts having an allergic reaction and we have to pull over on the side of the highway and wait for an ambulance. We go back to school and the day is over. The school sends out an email basically saying “please dont attempt to kill your teachers with allergic reactions” and that she will be fine. Although, we had a substitute for 4 days and the kid got expelled.

#11

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Our bus driver stopped on train tracks as a train was coming.

Our bus full of first graders was approaching train tracks as the lights flashed and the gate started to lower. Our driver decided not to stop at the tracks (like any bus should by law) and thought maybe she could beat the lowering arms? She realized she couldn’t and braked ON THE TRACK (the first of two). The gate arms slammed onto our bus, and a man stopped at a red light got out of his car to lift it off my side of the bus. I panicked from the front seat as the incoming train whistled, and the parent chaperones and I screamed at her to MOVE BACK. She kept saying “I can’t go in reverse.” She had no panic in her voice at all.

Thankfully the train came on the second track. I can’t remember if she actually backed up or not; I was absolutely traumatized and spent the beginning of the trip on the phone with transportation. They sent us another driver for the way home, and our original driver sat awkwardly in the front seat. We take the same trip every year, and every year I cringe when we cross the tracks.

#12

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Obligatory “not a teacher but” story.

I went to a water park in 3rd grade, and I remember after our class got changed into our bathing suits, we noticed a kid was missing, and so were all of the teachers. Then we looked out at the area where the slides were, and witnessed this kid sprinting, butt naked, dropping logs as he went with 3 teachers and a lifeguard trailing him.

They caught him, shut down half of the park for an hour and called his mom to come get him, and to this day I can’t figure out why he did it.

#13

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A girl on a BETA club trip thought it would be funny to put “bomb on board” in the window of the bus. The interstate was shut down, the bus was pulled over and SWAT team raided the bus. The bomb squad was called in to sweep the bus even though the girl admitted it was a hoax. She didn’t go to jail somehow, she was also a popular cheerleader and didn’t get any disciplinary action from the school.

#14

Image source: sometimes-i-rhyme

I took three classes of 6th graders (age 11-12) to visit the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. We’d come from about an hour and a half away – the kids & other teachers on buses, but since I was hugely pregnant I was allowed to drive my own car. It had been raining, but I arrived a bit ahead of the bus, so when the kids got off I was there to lead them to the museum.

As I began walking towards the kids getting off the buses I noticed a lot of papers on the sidewalk…and suddenly realized that they were an assortment of extremely graphic pictures. I stopped to try to gather them up before the kids got an unexpected and completely inappropriate sex ed lesson. We’d already had a BIG TALK about being MATURE when viewing classical art (e.g. nude statues, omg) but we were not prepared for the most lurid p**n LA had to offer.

Unfortunately the rain had plastered the papers to the sidewalk, and the sight of the very pregnant teacher scrambling on hands and knees on Wiltshire Blvd sent the chaperones and teachers rushing to my aid…with 100 kids right after them, no matter how urgently I tried to wave them back.

It was…memorable.

#15

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One of my students thought it would be cute to sit in a baby swing. She got stuck. The NYPD had to be called. They cut her out of the baby swing in front the whole grade, who naturally swarmed the area to watch. She was “Snapchat famous” for a weekend

#16

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Not a teacher, just a student. Went to an aquarium just before finishing primary school which had an ice wall. A lot of bloody tongues that day

#17

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As a student I was left behind at a hutterite colony. I went to use the outhouse and the bus left.

#18

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Obligatory not a teacher, but when my econ class went to NYC for a field trip, one of my classmates tried to buy weed off a guy in an alleyway. Turned out to be an undercover cop. We were the honors class. He was a cool kid. I was walking to school in freezing weather one day and he offered me a ride.

Don’t remember what happened to him after that. I know he didn’t graduate with us that year.

#19

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I had a child have a massive asthma attack after a visit to a farm and a cotton gin. I ended up giving her mouth to mouth on the side of the road and praying for an ambulance. She was fine after a couple breathing treatments and some steroids, thank goodness. This was before cell phones were common and we had to use the call box on the side of the highway. 10/10 would not repeat!

#20

Image source: EnglishTeachers

Group trip to take a tour of a college campus. We had a young man jump out of a bus window while it was going down the highway! His long term girlfriend had broken up with him a few days before, and he later explained that he didn’t see the point of going on the college visit anymore because he didn’t want to go to the same college as her, or even apply to the same ones. Denied up and down that it was a suicide attempt.

His friends circled the wagons and supported his story, and the story/rumors died quickly. He got some gnarly road rash, but avoided being hit by any cars.

I always got the impression that it was, in fact, a suicide attempt. If he didn’t want to go on the tour, why go at all? Why board the bus? He could have stayed at school.

This was several years ago. He is fine!