The Ivy League Connection only accepts bright and mature young students to attend summer programs at Ivy League schools. And while they may be capable of handling just about anything thrown their way in the classrooms, for the most part they are still 15, 16 and 17 year old teenagers—some of whom are still trying to master the art of doing their own laundry. In the eyes of the law, they are still minors and have restrictions placed on them that they cannot possibly overcome until they reach a legal age.

The Ivy League Connection wants to be sure, the School District wants to be sure and the parents want to be sure that these little darlings will be safe and secure as they travel to the other side of the country. So that everyone feels assured, the ILC selects highly qualified District employees to serve as chaperones to escort our ILCers on their venture.

These chaperones are certificated District employees (or retirees) who have served as Assistant Principals, counselors and instructors.

The ILC wants to provide our ILCers with an opportunity to experience college life and this means that they don’t want or need a babysitter looking over their shoulders. Our chaperones aren’t there to act as surrogate parents. They’re there merely as an adult backstop available to step in when an adult presence is needed. We have complete faith in our ILCers but it’s still important that they have a lifeline close at hand just in case.

Also, since we provide site visits to local universities, an adult is needed to provide transportation and to handle the visits with admissions officers.

Just as students are given a chance to evaluate their instructors, we solicit student evaluations of our chaperones. In this way the ILC can ensure that we only entrust our ILCers to the most qualified chaperones. If a chaperone receives glowing reviews we beg them to return the next year. If we receive negative reviews, we move on and if we receive an evaluation that is partially good and partially bad then we work with the chaperones to keep the positive traits and improve on the negatives.

We also ask our chaperones to provide a written evaluation of each of our ILCers. We use these evaluations as teaching tools to help our ILCers to be better students and better people.

For qualified District employees interested in serving as a chaperone on one of these trips, please read the Chaperone Guide posted below and contact Madeline Kronenberg at (510) 527-9446 or mkronen@aol.com.