The European trip to Italy & Greece has been postponed due to the pandemic. Ms. Lelchuk has postponed it to the summer of 2022 due to the pandemic, and in the hope that conditions will be safer by then. On the European tour, Ms. Lelchuk is working with a company called EF Tours, to create travel experiences for students. EF tours (Education First Tours, Inc.) works with schools and groups all over the world to create travel experiences for teenagers and college students. “I chose to work with EF because they prioritize students’ safety.  When we travel, we’ll have a tour director from EF with us the entire time who will help us get from place to place, double-check all of our registrations, and make sure we’re safe and on-time. EF arranges everything on our itinerary for us, so all the travelers have to do is come along for the ride,” Ms. Lelchuk stated via email.

Ms. Lelchuk is an English teacher and Yearbook advisor at South El Monte High School. In 2018 she began to work with EF Tours to make student travel possible for students here at SEMHS. “I love traveling and want to help students experience the magic of it,” Ms. Lelchuk commented.

 The trip’s original plan was to go to Italy and Greece last summer in July 2020, but Ms. Lelchuk had postponed it for the safety of the students, the other people around us, and the pandemic. “I was hoping that we’d be able to travel on the rescheduled dates (June 2021) this summer, as well as go to England and Scotland in July 2021, but at this point, it seems more realistic to expect it to be safe to travel in summer 2022,” Ms. Lelchuk stated.

“Students can choose from a couple of different options under the EF Tours under Covid-19 policies. If students from the postponed or canceled trips still wish to travel with us, they have the option of transferring their enrollment to the April 2022 trip to Italy and Greece, or the July 2022 trip to France and Spain,” Ms. Lelchuk explained. 

Ms. Lelchuk also shared, “I was hoping that we’d be able to travel on the rescheduled date June 2021 this summer, as well as go to England and Scotland in July 2021, but at this point, it seems more realistic to expect it to be safe to travel in summer 2022. The England and Scotland trip has been cancelled, and the Italy and Greece trip has been postponed again to April 2022. The July 2022 France and Spain trip has not changed and remains scheduled as originally planned.”

Ms. Lelchuk anticipated that “hopefully, we’ll be able to travel! I can’t predict the future, but I am hopeful that everyone will be vaccinated, and safe to travel by summer 2022.”  While I was questioning Ms. Lelchuk, I emailed Karla Ponce, a student at South El Monte who was originally planning to attend the Greece & Italy trip. Her response to hearing the trip got postponed again was surprising and she stated, “I think it’s better because this year is still very uncertain, so planning this way ahead, lets us know it will most likely not happen.” She means that the trip was suppose to be this year but because of Covid they tried to make it until July which was getting their hopes up. Karla also stated, “So its better they decided until next year.”