We have about 550 students in our elementary school of K-4. Our PTG provides bussing for field trips - one field trip per grade. Families are responsible for paying for the field trip admission etc. You send in a check with the permission slip. Typically, the cost per family is around $15-$20.

Historically, our public schools have not received enough funding for field trips, and our PTO has paid for about 90% of all field-trip related activities (and bussing).

We only allocate $400 per grade level at our Elementary school. We do however have the stipulation that this money CANNOT be used to pay for transportation. We are not covered by our insurance policy if there is an accident. I recommend that everyone check to see if your policy covers this liability. There is a possibility of being sued if there is a bus accident.

These answers are all over the spectrum. It would also be interesting to find out how many students are in the school, and also how much of your budget is spent on external field trips (where the students go some place that requires a bus). We have almost 600 students. I noticed that one school contributes $100 per child (that would be $60,000 for us and our budget is not that big).

Anyone care to share more details?

We provide funding for the students who can't afford field trips. Sometimes it's just a few per grade level and sometimes, especially with the more expensive trips, the list gets quite long. We are a high poverty school so we try our best to help our families. I believe all children should have the opportunity to go with their class on trips so even if we have to squeeze the budget a little tighter in another area we do it for them.