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Update: No Trump inauguration trip for Island students

GAGE SKIDMORE/FLICKR PHOTO
GAGE SKIDMORE/FLICKR PHOTO

School Superintendent Leonard Skuggevik told the Reporter on Monday morning that the Board of Education did not act arbitrarily in cancelling a senior class trip to attend the inauguration later this month, but it was at  his request. Politics was not a consideration in the decision.

The original story appears below.

The senior class trip to Washington, D.C. to attend the presidential inauguration won’t happen next week.

Instead, class members are likely to visit the nation’s capital in May.

“There is no reason to put ourselves in a position where anything might happen,” Superintendent Leonard Skuggevik said about rescheduling the trip.

His reference was to a volatile campaign between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and concerns about protests that might occur on January 20 when Mr. Trump is scheduled to take the oath of office as the nation’s 45th president.

When Board of Education members approved the trip last April, it was with the speculation that the students might see the inauguration of the nation’s first woman president, according to class adviser James Bocca and senior Nicolette Frasco who had presented the request to the Board of Education at its March 2016 meeting.

But neither Ms. Clinton nor Mr. Trump had yet secured their parties’ nominations and it would be several months before either beat back challenges to their candidacies.

After a summer in which there were several instances of violence during campaign rallies, particularly at rallies for Mr. Trump, the Board of Education was taking no chances, the superintendent said.

The students are expected to visit Washington, D.C. in May when it’s hoped that the volatility of the election season will have calmed, Mr. Skuggevik said.