Who doesn’t remember the most fun and exciting part of school growing up: the field trips. It didn’t matter if you were going to see the inner workings of a sewage plant or a museum, you knew you were going to leave school property, and that was epic.

But, one school district in Tennessee has canceled all field trips due to low test scores in reading and math, according to a local news source.

This all happened in a small county near Memphis. Fayette County Public Schools made an announcement, apparently on social media, that all field trips have indeed been canceled.

Parents that found out about it were not happy, in the least.

Apparently, the school board here thinks that taking away off-campus learning excursions is the way to increase test scores amongst its students.

According to WREG TV, Ashley Turner has children in Fayette County Schools and says the change is not cool.

“They go a few different places,” Turner said. “Most of the time educational, and I feel like they’re learning more from the field trips because they’re having fun.”

The school district in this small Tennessee county feels as if the kids should focus on their math and reading rather than taking time to go off-campus to learn something intriguing.

Turner also pushed back saying that she believes the reason for low test scores has more to do with a lack of teachers.

“They don’t have teachers to teach the kids, so how are they going to have higher test scores when half of them… they went a whole year last year without a math teacher,” Turner claimed.

Onto the other side of it is the places where kids go on their field trips. Bart Gilmer and his family own an educational working farm in the area, which usually sees a lot of school classes come through for field trips.

Gilmer was asked what he thought about the canceling of all future field trips due to low test scores, and he did not have anything good to say about it either.

“Personally I think it’s a bad decision,” he shared.

Gilmer goes on to explain his comment, “On a good year we’ll have 6,000-7,000 kids come out here and experience life on the farm and get to see some stuff that they may have never seen before and may never get to see again.”

Gilmer also acknowledged that his business would suffer.

“We would certainly take a hit,” he said. “I don’t see where taking the field trips away from them is going to help test scores at the end of the day.”

Taking this opportunity away from these kids is Fayette Country School’s answer to low test scores. Only time will tell if the odd idea indeed works.

Evan Paul is the host of Taste of Country Nights, a syndicated radio show heard on more than 130 country radio stations nationwide, every night from 7PM to midnight. He plays the best new country music and interviews today’s top stars, like Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen, Kenny Chesney, Miranda Lambert, Dan + Shay, Keith Urban, Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, Chris Stapleton, Lady A, + more!