Steven Stevens loved to travel as a student, visiting Universal Studios, Disney World, New York City and more. He’s carried that love for student travel into his career as an educator and band director, which he knew he wanted to do since seventh grade.
This passion hit the ground running with his very first job at a school that didn’t know travel was in the cards.
“I told my administration I want to take my students to Carowinds up here in North Carolina,” Stevens said. “And they were like, are you crazy? You’re a first-year teacher. It was a title one school. It had a bad reputation. And I said, ‘Yes, I am crazy, but we have to do this. We have to get out of this building. I can teach them things outside of the school that I can’t teach with the same effect here on the property.’
“So they finally said I could do it, and I took 40 kids to Carowinds and they were hooked. It was like, the band program started to explode with growth.”
Now he’s the director of bands at Union Academy Charter School, working with Super Holiday Tours to make big trips happen. We chatted with Stevens about the importance of travel and how he made a recent trip to New York City happen with the help of Super Holiday.
Why is student travel important to you?
Music gives so many opportunities to build teamwork and trust, working with others and being humble when you need to be, standing up when you need to, confidence, and all the other great skills that music can teach. Every chance I get to travel or do something with my students outside of the classroom, I take that opportunity, because it’s one more level of teaching them those things and allowing them to have experiences that they may not get otherwise.
What’s travel been like at Union Academy?
One of the first things my administration said to me coming in was, “I would love to organize a trip to New York City and I want it to be not just band-focused, but the entire high school.” So, opened up to anyone who’s interested in an arts-specific trip. We’re talking theater, dance, music, all of those things. Can we do a trip focused around the arts and open it up to the entire school?
So I reached out to Super Holiday Tours. And I said, “Hey, is this something we can do right now?” And Casey Cole just kind of took a deep breath and was like, “Yeah, but you have to realize we’re not going to Florida. We’re going to New York City. There’s a lot of COVID protocols and there’s a lot of a lot of things going on there.”
And I said, “Yeah, but we want to go to New York in winter, Christmastime, to see the lights, hear the music and be a part of that.” We put it out there and I think we ended up traveling with 35 or 40 students.
How did that trip go?
It was amazing. Now we’ve got our eyes on a couple of other trips, and we’re hoping to use Super Holiday for a trip to Hawaii in a few years. And we’re still doing Carowinds every year, because there are students that can’t afford a $1,000 trip somewhere, but they can afford $50 to take a bus down to Carowinds.
What was the key to making this NYC trip happen despite obstacles or hesitancy?
The key word is going to be flexibility. The educator has to be flexible. The school has to be flexible. Students and parents also have to be flexible, and everyone has to be aware beforehand. When we first started, there was no vaccine mandate. We had 50 people signed up for it, and when the plan changed for the vaccine mandate, we did have some kids pull out. They weren’t able to get all of their money back, but they were able to get a significant amount of it back and Super Holiday worked very hard to get as much of that money back for them as possible.
Plus, Casey was on top of any changes that happened in New York City. I wasn’t on the website trying to figure out what the changes were, because Casey sent it to me as soon as something changed. So he communicated very, very well.
How else did they help prepare?
He was really good about creating a timeline. New York City, alongside of the vaccine, they require they have a photo ID in some places. What do we do? So, everyone got a state-issued ID. He was able to provide guidance because I had never taken kids to New York before.
And the online portal they use is amazing. That allows students to go on and submit forms and sign forms and pay for things online. As a teacher, I could see who owes what and there’s phone numbers, contact information and everything. I wish more travel companies used one.
What about while you were on the trip?
We got to New York City and our tour guide is Bryan Cole. Like, Casey would have been awesome too, but the owner of the company’s here! That small-business mentality and support is so valuable. It’s just vital.
What’s the value to you of having a tour operator with you on the trip?
It’s so valuable, especially when emergencies come up. We had a young lady who left something on the bus and he was able to call the bus driver, the bus company, and go get ahold of them. They got the wallet back to us. And they were able to help out with any hiccups we had with tickets. We had, as you can imagine in New York City, a lot of schedule changes because of COVID, and Bryan was able to make changes on the fly. He was able to get reservations changed.
He was also very knowledgeable about the city, giving suggestions of free time and what we could do or where we could go. So I was much more comfortable knowing that I had a tour guide there to take care of things, so that I could focus on my kids.
Any other advice to prospective travelers?
Super Holiday also has an insurance policy. I strongly recommend you go ahead and buy insurance policy. And it was a little bit extra, but we had a family who bought the Cancel For Any Reason policy. And the daughter ended up getting sick two days before she went. They were able to cancel the trip and receive all the money back because they went ahead and bought the extra insurance. So I would strongly recommend that educators push that insurance policy and let them know, in this environment, things change all the time. What’s the contingency plan?
Photo courtesy of GroupPhotos.com.