On November 28 at 11:06 a.m., the families of juniors signed up for the Discovery Week “Crossing Borders: San Diego/Tijuana” trip received an email from Director of Upper School Mr. Gary Baldwin notifying them of the trip’s cancellation. The email opened, “Owing to some unforeseen logistical challenges, we unfortunately will not be able to offer the Crossing Borders: San Diego/Tijuana trip this year.” 

Mr. Baldwin later elaborated, “What it ultimately came down to is that given the trip, given the number of people, given the way that the trip was actually playing out, we couldn’t afford to run it, so we didn’t run it. We moved the kids to other trips.” 

Ash G. ’25, a member of the Spyglass Design Team and one of the eight students who was originally on the Tijuana/San Diego trip, is happy with the trip’s cancellation because they did not want to be on the trip in the first place. “I opened up the SignUpGenius at 7:06 in the morning—6 minutes after it opened—and everything else was filled.” Laughing, Ash added, “It was my dead last choice.” 

The students on the now canceled Tijuana/San Diego trip were asked to rank the rest of the 11th grade Discovery Week trips and were each placed on either their first or second choice. The initial sign-ups were hampered by technical difficulties, SignUpGenius issues, or slow Wifi. 

“I did not particularly want to go on [the San Diego/Tijuana Trip]. However, the cookies bar on my screen for the sign up genius was blocking the save and continue button, so by the time I was able to figure out why I couldn’t select anything, that was the only trip left,” Sydney S. ’25 said.

Some juniors find it slightly unfair that not everybody got a second chance at the Discovery Week sign up. 

Clover D. ’25 is set to go on the Civil Rights Discovery Week trip to Atlanta, Georgia, which was not her first choice. The second Clover realized that she was not able to go on her first choice trip, the East Coast Urban Cities trip, she emailed Upper School Dean of Student Activities Ms. Brittany Coker to put her onto the waitlist. “When the San Diego trip got canceled, those people got put onto various trips. They got to choose. And for me that was really frustrating because I was already, like, first on the waitlist. If we were reworking the trips, that should have been taken into account in a way. The whole situation isn’t the greatest. The whole thing kinda sucks,” Clover said.

“They should have [redone the trip choices] when they canceled the trip and had everyone fill out their first, second, and third choice,” Ash said.

Eliza L. ’25 did not get her first choice for her Discovery Week trip but did not complain that she didn’t get a second chance to choose because she thinks the students on the San Diego/Tijuana trip deserved their second chance. “The Tijuana trip was not worth it, and so it’s good that they got to rechoose so that they can get something that was worth the amount of money that they have to put into it,” Eliza said.

The main reason for the lack of interest in the San Diego/Tijuana Discovery Week Trip was that it appeared inequitable to travel two and a half hours to San Diego by bus for the same price that other students would be paying to go on a plane across the country. 

The trip was set to explore the US-Mexico border and learn about the human issues surrounding immigration through multiple perspectives such as journalists, border patrol, indigenous people, human rights activists, and more. 

The trip’s chaperones, Upper School Spanish Teacher Dr. Vicki Garrett and Middle and Upper School Yoga Teacher Ms. Courtney Seiberling were disappointed by the cancellation. Dr. Garrett, the lead chaperone, had previously gone on the trip twice, once with Westridge and once shadowing a different school, and was planning it for next year. Dr. Garrett explained that one reason why she is so passionate about the trip is because of the humanity of it. “[We would be] getting on the ground, firsthand, direct contact with both the people impacted, people who are coming to the border, with the intention to cross, and also the people working with that population. I can’t even tell you how big of an experience it was to have that real human connection with this, like, thing that we see in the news,” she said. 

Similar to the chaperones, some students were disappointed by the cancellation. Abby P. ’25 was the only student signed up for the trip who actually considered it one of their top options. “I’ve already been over to the East Coast and I didn’t really want to go on the Civil Rights one because I didn’t feel safe going to [Atlanta]. The Southwest Desert trip also caught my eye, but Tijuana was interesting because it was crossing the border, and I had never been over there,” they said. Even though the trip was canceled, Abby is now excited about attending the Southwest Desert trip with their friends. 

“I’ve had to sort of make peace with [the cancellation],” Dr. Garrett said. “I put a lot of thought and a lot of care into putting this together. But I do understand that, you know, there’s other concerns or other priorities during Discovery Week for students. I think this is a worthwhile thing. And I hope there will be a way to bring this back for Westridge students because we used to do it not part of Discovery Week. So yeah, I’m disappointed, but I do understand.”

For additional reading, Spyglass recommends:

Opinion: Want Me to Pay $2500 for Discovery Week? At Least Give Me a Say.

Discovery Week 2024 Announcements and Sign-Ups Raise Equity Concerns and Minimal Enthusiasm