This is the perspective of a museum educator. When student groups arrived
late, and that happened to us frequently at The Museum of Television & Radio
in Beverly Hills, because of traffic issues, we had to plan ahead for several
things.

How to shorten the class - We always talked about the honed down classes we
could provide if our time with the students was cut short.  In our case it
meant leaving out certain segments of clips from radio or television shows
and deciding which ones would have priority in a shorter class.  It might
mean thatclasses didn't get a full introduction session, or tour of the
building, or to do the hands on portion of the class.  Sometimes, if the
classes were running really late we would package the hands-on activity
materials and instruction sheet so the teachers could complete the activity
back at their schools.

How to keep them busy if they were not even there long enough for a shortened
class-Sometimes it was a matter of thinking up a solution on the spot.  We
might pull out just a short program to watch if they would be there only 40
minutes instead of the 2 or 3 hour session we had planned.  I always felt bad
for the students and teachers as well as our staff and volunteers. In a world
of increased traffic these things happen.  We tried to reschedule classes who
really missed the entire experience.

How to let the students stay longer-  We would work closely with visitor
services staff to see if we could delay screenings a bit in order to finish
our classes or move them to areas not scheduled ahead of time, to complete
the class.  Our security staff also needed to work with us on the changes.
And if volunteers had to leave we would try to involve the teachers or
parents from the school with tasks that might have been covered by the
volunteers.

How to caution them ahead of time to leave their school sites early - When
schools came from a distance we tried to tell them when they booked the class
that traffic is sometimes an issue.  We asked classes participating in
special grant programs to arrive 15 minutes ahead of time and wait out front
until the class began.

You learn to be flexible and communicate with the rest of the departments of
your museum.

Diane Siegel

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