Parents banned on school trips

PARENTS have been banned from accompanying kindergarten children on school trips to the swimming pool after a mother complained about a man being in the same communal changing room as girls.

The 38-year-old man, whose five-year-old daughter was on the outing where children changed in a communal changing room, had done nothing wrong but the incident at Cergy-Pontoise (Val-D'oise) led the school head at the Maternelle des Plants to ban all men from trips.

However, the father said it was “unfair to be ostracised, stigmatised and rejected” in such a way and complained on his Facebook page that mothers were still allowed.

Fathers’ rights groups picked up his complaint and now the Education Nationale has ruled that mothers, too, will be banned and no parents will be allowed on such outings. Only school personnel will be allowed to take part to help young children to dress themselves.