My son wants to attend the Honors STEM camp at Texas A&M this summer (2022). The Parent Agreement and Acknowledgement form states they may perform a rapid test for COVID if my child presents symptoms or is exposed to someone who does. If he tests positive, then he will be sent home with no refund. I don’t know about you but I don’t typically throw around $2,500 everyday and to be told he would be sent home with no refund when they testing and results is completely out of our control sounds like highway robbery to me.
We have been through this entire “plandemic” with no test and no sickness. I can’t control if another student gets the sniffles and the unreliable test results positive. I have a 50-50 chance of him getting sent home. Has anyone else already been through this experience. I reached out to the school and a doctor over the program told me this was their protocol for protecting the students. I don’t think this is constitutional.
Personal experience comments would be helpful or suggestions around this.
If you and your family have been fortunate to not get ill or exposed, and as the virus will most likely wane by the summer, you have a far less than 50-50 chance of his testing positive.
Do they have a virtual back up option for those who test positive?
What about trip insurance? Not every policy covers Covid. The school can make up any rules they want. Your child could get mono and get sent home. Does the camp not offer some type of insurance?
I have reviewed several contracts recently for event space. Its been common for people having the events to want to see language that doesn’t give the event location an out if they are short staffed because of Covid. But at the same time, they want to be able to cancel (with a full refund) if the turnout for the event is less than desired. To me its only reasonable to have the outs be mutual. If one side only gets out if performance is unlawful or impossible, the other side should have the same out.
In terms of the camp, if one or two campers test positive refunds may work. But if half the kids test positive, can they afford to refund for 1/2 the campers? They already incurred pretty much all of the costs. Maybe some food could be canceled but depending on timing they may be on the hook for that too. What is the event host supposed to do in those circumstances?
If you aren’t happy with the camp’s policy, maybe find another summer camp that has a more generous refund polity. Constitutional or not, attending a summer camp is a privilege, not a right.
Antigens are actually pretty accurate, but when they are wrong it is almost always a false negative- it is rare to get a false positive. In a study of 900,000+ antigen tests given in workplaces, 0.05% turned out to be false positives. So, his chances of being sent home for a false positive are infinitesimally small. If he is vaxxed & boosted, his chances of being sent home with an actual positive result are small.
But: the chances are not zero, so you have to weigh the relative value for you - and for him- of his having the privilege of going to this camp, versus the possibility of losing a meaningful amount of money.
One of our collegekids has just had a trip cancelled altogether b/c the college felt it was just too risky. She won’t get that chance again- it’s her last year. So many kids have missed great opportunities .
I understand where you are coming from but “common sense” says - you sign an agreement and if the agreement has a health clause and doesn’t allow for refund, and you sign it, you cannot expect a refund.
On the flip side, if you don’t sign it, they won’t allow you at their camp.
It’s really that simple.
It’s sort of like - if your house is destroyed by an earthquake or act of god, the insurance won’t pay - it’s disclaimed.
So not to get in a covid/rights, etc. discussion - everyone here is in within their rights:
The camp has, not just the right but the obligation, to ensure their campers are in a safe and healthy environment. Hence, their responsibility to remove a sick student. They have revenue targets to hit to run the camp and have made it non-refundable. To your point, they could have made it refundable or pro-rated but they chose not to - and that’s their right.
It’s your right to either accept their terms and participate or to not accept their terms.
It seems you want to make it political, etc. and it’s really not that.
I hope your son enjoys whatever activity he participates in this summer - and i hope for all of us, we’re not dealing with this issue again in a few months. All of us need this to go away…or at least need a long break!!
We have been through this entire “plandemic” with no test and no sickness.
You should consider yourself lucky that you missed the body bags being loaded into the freezer trucks that littered the streets of New York early in the pandemic. Unfortunately, you’re going to have to make a difficult choice. The camp organizers have chosen to send home students who are infected with a highly contagious virus that has killed over 800,000 people in the US and over 5 times as many worldwide. You don’t have to accept their terms. If you don’t want to send your child to a camp that requires vaccines and/or testing find one that doesn’t. It will be good practice for choosing colleges to add to their application list. Fit matters. This camp sounds like it might not be the best fit for your family, so move on and find one that is.
I would consider yourself lucky that the camp has been so transparent about how they’ll deal with Covid exposures/infections - it allows you to make a choice AHEAD OF TIME that is right for your family even if you don’t like the choices. Many institutions have not communicated such clear plans of action.
i appreciate reading this all. looking at some summer camps for our D23; i’ll keep notice of protocol now before we make decisions. hadnt thought about it before!
Since we’ve already had to deists several posts in a short amount of time, I’m closing the thread. If you don’t like the contract terms, don’t send your child.