Update: When reached for comment, Alisha Runkle insisted that she is not taking the group for activism. “This is a parent organized trip,” she clarified.
She went on to mention that this has been an annual curricular trip with no previous issues. She said board member Riggleman was wrong to suggest that journalism club is not a credited class.
Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania — At the March 11 Elizabethtown School District Board of Directors meeting, a planned field trip to Columbia University was canceled due to ongoing violence at the university. The trip was originally scheduled March 19 for nine student in the journalism club to attend the spring convention of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.
Amid international protests and violence at Columbia, the school board voted to cancel the trip with concern for the safety of their students. “We’re putting ourselves in a financial downfall if any of our students get murdered, killed, pregnant, end up in jail, end up in a situation where they’re in a bar, drunk. Any one of these situations. And I don’t understand for what. This isn’t for curriculum. This isn’t for sports. This is for club. And we put ourselves in a terrible situation,” said one board member.
However local activist Alisha Runkle is making a stand against the board. She now intends to personally take the students to the university in New York City, despite the threat of violence. Runkle is experienced posing as a protester at local events, although she has not previously engaged with radical international activists. She spoke with WGAL8 about the trip, saying, “I am just overwhelmed right now.”
The past 72 hours have been an emotional rollercoaster for Runkle, a parent of a 10th-grader who is one of nine students set to take the trip. “I’m feeling excited and hopeful. I’m still feeling very angry. I have a lot of concerns about the school board,” she said.
A gofundme has now raised more than $10,300 to provide bus transportation and hotel accommodations in New York City, however Runkle has no plans for safety and security of the students from Lancaster County.
Harrisburg100 