SWAT ripped off 50-75 high school students and their families in December when they violated their own rules. SWAT is a tour operater that puts together snow and surf trips for high school and college students. They tout that they have high levels of supervision by specially trained staff as well as employing off dtuy police officers to ensure a safe trip for all. Any violators of rules will be immediately sent home according to their claims. This, however, is not how they operate!
This company is BAD NEWS. They use kids to sign up other kids and have a reputation among the youth as being a great party. They put on a great dog an pony show for the parents, but know why kids come and encourage it.
After researching their company I allowed my 16 yr old son to sign up for their snow trip. Months later as the trip date grew near, I began mentioning it to aquaintences and some of the high school students that I teach. Soon I was hearing all sorts of terrible things about the comany and the trips they sponsor.
These complaints and first hand experiences included rampant alcohol and drug use by students as well as CHAPERONES and SUPERVISORS while on the trip. The people I spoke with had direct and indirect experiences going back 5 years and they were all the same. Kids drinking, curfew not enforced, room rules regarding sex not being enforced, etc. This turned out to be common knowledge even with students who had never been on a trip.
I called SWAT with my concerns and was told that "none of that goes on" and that they would not allow me to cancel the trip and receive a refund. The morning of the trip I searched my sons bags to make sure he did not have any contraband and had a very serious talk about our expectations of him. His father took him to the school to catch the coach and we wished him a safe trip to Utah (from San Diego).
Several hour later the bus stopped due to a studenet and Chaperone smoking pot in the back of the hus. The driver stopped and CHP did a search. Kids were allowed to turn in any banned items into a "amnesty pile" then the bus was turned around and the trip cancelled for ALL participants on that bus. Students who did no wrong as well as those breaking the rules returned to the school 12 hours later after having gotten no further than 90 miles from home.
The company offerend no response to the incident except to say if we could get our children to Utah they could still participate. That applied even to those who had broken the rules!!! One day int a four day trip, and with a chaperone as one of the parties who was smoking weed, there was no way I would cough up $400 for a plane ticket to Salt Lake City, especially when transportation was part of what we had paid for, not to mention the obvious lack of qualified supervision.
For the next three weekls I attempted to contact the SWAT company office and got nothing but an answering machine, with no return call. A month later we recweived a call stating they were working on a resolution and would receive a letter in the "next few weeks". The letter arrived stating they would assume no responsibility and that was that.
Again, this company is BAD NEWS. They use kids to sign up other kids and have a reputation among the youth as being a great party. They put on a great dog an pony show for the parents, but know why kids come and encourage it. This time outside agencies were involved so they had to act like they have a tough policy, but in actuality, did not just send those students home who had alcohol, ect, but made those who followed the rules pay the price as well.
Do NOT send your students on one of these trips EVER!!!
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