Travel Opportunities

Drake Middle School has a firm belief that world travel can support our vision for creating lifelong learners. We hope that every student at Drake considers exploring the world with some of our staff members to create an experience unlike any other at Drake. Travel will make your child more worldly, mature, and ready to embrace the many beautiful cultures and stories from around the world. Learning about the world and their destination creates a more confident learner that is ready to embrace the steps ahead whether that is making new friends, preparing for more rigorous classes, or being able to adapt to new situations. We cannot speak to how great travel is, but we just hope you'll take the chance to create a situation unlike anything else here at Drake.

Drake Middle has developed a great relationship with EF Tours that has been leading trips for young learners for over 55 years. We've continued to work with EF due to the ability to lead educational, effective, and most of all, safe trips for our students and staff. Consider viewing their webpage to learn more about EF Tours and the amazing experiences they offer. 

EF Tours

Each year, we proudly support 3 trips during the summer or spring break (determined by the trip leader). Trip Leaders are staff members that have shown interest in leading a trip with other chaperones from the school. We ask them to mindful about equity in cost, locations we traveled recently to provide variety, and how the trip may connect educationally to Drake. Our Trip Leaders start planning more than a year in advance and dedicate hours upon hours preparing for the trip. If you decide to travel with Drake, here are some steps you can expect:

1. Informational Meeting (At least 1 year before the trip)
2. Check ins with the group traveling through the year
3. Communication from the Trip Leader and EF to keep all parties informed

If you have any questions about traveling with Drake Middle School administration team. 

Hear from Drake students and staff why they chose to travel the world with Drake Middle School.

• Cora - Travel Interview
• Sadie - Travel Interview
• Jamey - Travel Interview
• Isabelle - Travel Interview
• Experience Your World - EF Tours

Traveling is key to opening one’s mind to other people and other cultures. We learn to appreciate our world even more as we live through history when we walk on paths that are hundreds and thousands of years old. As we travel, we see that a genuine smile opens doors and helps us meet “kindred spirits”. We can be kind and grateful for a shared experience. We make new friends! We gain confidence in ourselves to handle sometimes stressful experiences. Traveling breaks down barriers and misconceptions…. Traveling makes the world a smaller place where we find lots in common with other people!

- Carine Lockwood, Drake ELA Teacher 

Students who go on school trips grow in so many ways, here are a few that stand out in my mind. They learn how to solve their own problems, advocate for themselves, how to be considerate of others' needs, and not just their own individual needs.

Students being exposed to other countries/people also helps them to build a worldview, and to see their role in a global community. This can often lead to the breaking down of cultural bias or barriers as students realize we are all more alike than we are different. They begin to see our commonalities not just or differences.

- Michelle Johnson, Drake Social Studies Teacher

My experience with EF Tours has been wonderful! I've been a chaperone to China and Japan. And I've also led a trip to Peru. I've walked along the Great Wall, hiked to Macchu Pichu, seen monkeys in the Peruvian rainforest, and toured the Golden Palace in Kyoto. It was ALL amazing and I learned so much about other cultures. This year, I'm chaperoning a trip to Iceland! I can't say enough about how efficient and well run the EF Tours are...I've always felt safe on my travels. 

- Kori Chubb, Drake DTL

I have always loved to travel but hadn’t taken a group tour until I went to Japan with Drake in 2019. It was the best way to get an introduction to a country. Our Japanese chaperone helped acquaint us with the culture so we felt respectful and comfortable as visitors. Traveling with students as we all experienced a new country together bonded us to each other and opened our minds to different ways of thinking. Japan had always been a dream destination for me and I wanted to share that dream with others, so we could carry it back together. If I could, I would return with my travel companions every year! I can’t wait to travel again!

- Rachel Dunn, Drake Art Teacher

As an educator, seeing students outside the classroom is fun. Traveling with them, we can see the learning as they discover new places and people. Seeing other countries and different cultures is an education in and of itself. There is no better way to learn than by doing. Seeing these fantastic places firsthand helps us understand our own country and how to appreciate the wide world. Thanks to my travels with Drake I’ve been to Scotland, Ireland, Paris, France, Germany, Netherlands, and Japan, and I am now looking forward to visiting Iceland for the first time this summer.

- Gina Nelson, Drake Tech Ed Teacher