Vicky Rutherford had always been told that if her son had a chance to go on the annual eighth grade history trip to Washington, D.C., they should jump at the opportunity.

So when her son was in seventh grade at Astoria Middle School in 2019 and it was time to sign up for the June 2020 trip, she didn’t hesitate. She also signed up to join him as a chaperone.

But then 2020 arrived and, with it, the coronavirus pandemic. The trip, coordinated by Educational Travel Services Inc., based in Milwaukie, was suddenly in limbo, postponed until August 2020 and then to later in 2021.

At the time, there was still too much uncertainty about what would be allowed under various pandemic-related restrictions, families told The Astorian. Besides, some of the students, now freshmen in high school who had spent much of the past school year isolated from their classmates, were no longer interested.

With travel dates still up in the air, many decided to cancel their plans with Educational Travel Services.

Now, families say they are struggling to get refunds from the travel company. Educational Travel Services contends it is simply following its cancellation policy. In light of the confusion, the Astoria School District plans to reconsider its own already limited involvement with such trips in the future.

In a statement to The Astorian, Katie Dunn, the president of Educational Travel Services, wrote, “We understand that families may be frustrated at how long the refund process is taking. However, through our own efforts we have obtained substantial refunds for our families. It was especially difficult to get some refunds back from certain vendors due to the disruption the pandemic has caused in the hospitality industry.”

Refunds

Families who had purchased “cancel for any reason” insurance — something Dunn said the company always recommends — are entitled to a partial refund of the trip cost if they had already paid in full. Parents who had not purchased the insurance but had paid for the entire trip will receive smaller refunded amounts, according to Dunn.

For years, the company has organized the annual eighth grade trip to the East Coast and the school district has sponsored the travel.

The school district’s role in the trips is minimal. Sponsorship allows involvement of district staff on district time and students are able to use school facilities for fundraising efforts. Beyond that, the district left the details to the parents, middle school history teacher Matthew Hensley and, primarily, Educational Travel Services.

The school district did not completely restrict student travel during the pandemic, but travel requests were considered on a case-by-case basis, Superintendent Craig Hoppes said.

After the tangle between families and the travel company, Hoppes told The Astorian he plans to talk with the school board next school year about “getting out of the student travel business.”

Hoppes understands how disruptive the pandemic was to businesses and schools. But, “whatever we do has to be for the benefit of the students,” he said. “The second thing is: I think things need to be spelled out a lot more clearly to parents than they were.”

It cost families several thousand dollars to buy a travel package for a student through Educational Travel Services — more if a parent also planned to travel with the group.

As families began to cancel with the company earlier this year, they believed they were still within the allowed cancellation window and able to receive large refunds given the changing departure date. But even families who purchased travel insurance say they are seeing little if anything back.

When Megan Kindred let Educational Travel Services know she was canceling, she said she was told she would get back less than half of what’d she’d paid. Certain costs could not be refunded, she said the company told her.

Kindred was confused. She figured the airline could refund plane tickets in her daughter’s name or issue credit for a future flight. She doubted the company had paid out money for much else yet. She asked for a list of the nonrefundable items so she could understand the travel company’s justification. She said a representative told her this was against company policy.

Other parents said they made similar requests and received the same response from the company.

Kindred hired an attorney to try to get more information from the company. As far as Kindred knows, she’s the only Astoria parent to hire legal counsel, a cost that could consume any refund.

“It was beyond the point of money for me,” Kindred said. “It was just unfair.”

Katie Lindstrom got some money back through her credit card company for trip-related expenses she had put on her card. She said she has had no luck with the travel company itself.

She would rather not be out more than $3,000 with nothing to show for it. Still, her family can weather the loss.

But, she added, “I know there are some families that really scrounged their pennies to make this happen and that’s really unfortunate.”

Rutherford canceled her and her son’s East Coast travel plans in March. She had canceled other travel and vacation plans because of the pandemic and was able to get refunds from hotels and airlines easily, she said. She is still waiting on Educational Travel Services.

Pandemic difficulties

The families The Astorian spoke with all said they understood the difficulties created by the pandemic, which hit many industries hard, especially the hospitality and travel sectors.

In a response to a customer complaint posted by the Better Business Bureau earlier this year, Dunn said Educational Travel Services had never seen anything like the havoc caused by the pandemic. She estimated the company lost two years of business as a result.

But any compassion the families in Astoria feel only stretches so far.

“I would hope that the Astoria School District would never do business with this company again,” Lindstrom said. “In my opinion, they took money from eighth graders.”

Kindred has no plans to use the company for a trip in the future.

“I wouldn’t even consider it,” she said. “For that much money, we could have taken the whole family.”