If you have gone to a school dance, you may have seen your teacher there and have maybe even taken a photo with them. Well, they aren’t there just to have fun, but also to chaperone the hundreds of kids who show up. Each staff member is required to spend a certain number of outside school hours chaperoning, but this obligation can come with its positives and negatives.

For most, this usually entails going to a school dance as the easiest and most fun way to get it done.

“Chaperoning a dance for me has always been very fun… It’s always so fun to see people dressed up and excited about being at the event. One of my favorite things to do is chaperoning prom because you see everybody at the end of the year; they’re excited [and] they’re happy. So it’s usually a really fun experience,” French teacher Kim Caster said.

Although teachers enjoy seeing students outside of school, sometimes it can be difficult to complete these extra working hours.

“My conundrum is, I’ve got two daughters [in] elementary and middle school, and usually I’ve really got to work it around their schedules because I like chaperoning, but also it’s hard with home and family to make both of those schedules work together,” social studies teacher Theresa Kingsbury said.

Throughout the year, different groups of students are going on school trips in and out of state. Students need chaperones on these excursions, and it’s usually teachers involved in that activity or class. Even though it is chaperoning, it doesn’t count for their required hours, but teachers still find it very enjoyable.

“[Model UN conferences] are exhausting, and I love every minute of it. I love watching kids from all over the world. I love seeing the solutions that people make,” AP World History and AP Human Geography teacher and Model UN leader Claude Sigmund said. “It’s one of the few things that gives me real hope for our future, watching that happen, so I think it’s awesome.”