Oct. 23, 2025
Field Trips That Fund Futures
What if the best classroom is just down the road? We sit with Rebecca Barefoot from the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources to reveal how a million-dollar Field Trip Fund is sending students to museums, aquariums, state parks, historic sites, and the zoo—with an application that’s simple, fast, and designed for real school schedules.
Website: spotlight4success.com
00:06 - Welcome And Guest Introduction
00:39 - What The Field Trip Fund Does
01:18 - How To Apply And Get Reimbursed
02:31 - Support For Title I Schools
03:12 - ABC Materials And Free Samples
04:03 - Rebecca’s Path Into Museum Education
04:56 - Student Aha Moments And Programs
06:13 - Urgent Invitation To Use The Funding
WEBVTT
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Welcome to Spotlight for Success by American Book Company.
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I am Devin Pintozi, your host.
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We are here in sunny Charlotte, North Carolina at the NCMLE, the North Carolina Mid-Level Educators Conference here.
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It's been a wonderful experience, and we are here with a very special guest, uh Rebecca Barefoot, and uh she is here with the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
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Thank you for joining us, Rebecca.
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Yes, thanks for this opportunity to talk.
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So I am the Field Trip Fund Manager, and my role with the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources is to connect our public school students to state sites.
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There's about a hundred that they can choose from, whether that's our aquariums, the North Carolina Zoo, our state history and science museum, state parks, state historic sites.
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There's opportunities everywhere across the state for students to connect to their local community.
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Oh, that is wonderful, uh, Rebecca.
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And uh can you tell us a little bit?
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I understand that there's a special grant or something for schools?
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It is.
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So uh last year uh Governor Cooper set aside a million dollars for this fund, and we are uh trying to show how beneficial it is.
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We're hoping that this continues to the legislative budget.
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Uh but so far we have served 7,000 students across 53 counties going to field trips.
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That's amazing.
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Yes, and this is a reimbursement fund, so teachers simply have to contact the state site they want to go to.
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They apply on our website, and it's a pretty quick uh process for being approved and getting reimbursed.
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Okay, and so what is that website where they can get that information?
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It is dncr.nc.gov forward slash field trip funding.
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Oh, that is awesome.
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And do you have a list?
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Uh you have a something you imagine you brought a map with you, I understand?
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Yes, I did.
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Uh so I've been showing off this great map resource.
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Uh as you can see, there are all of our state sites are numerated, and when you go on to our website, you'll see the field trip map where you can go by discipline to find where you want to go.
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That is wonderful.
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What a great resource for the whole state and for all of the teachers uh that want to plan field trips uh but are worried about where am I gonna get the money for this.
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Exactly.
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Yes.
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So, you know, even though it's a reimbursement process, it takes 30 days to get the money back after the field trip.
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Wow, that's pretty fast.
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And uh we prioritize Title I schools.
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Okay.
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So not only do we cover transportation, uh Title I uh schools can have their lunch covered.
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Uh let's say, you know, it's a middle school coming and one teacher teaches multiple grades, but only one grade's going, we'll cover the substitute teacher costs.
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We'll cover the program and activity cost.
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Wow.
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Yeah.
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That is wonderful.
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Thank you for watching Spotlight for Success.
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I am David Pentosi, the chief operating officer of American Book Company.
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We are located here in our headquarters in Woodstone, Georgia.
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All of our materials are printed in the USA.
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We have materials or you can get three samples of our materials either in print or in electronic format at ABCK12.com.
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We look forward to hearing from you.
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What uh what uh led you to decide to become uh part of this stream of education within the museums?
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Okay, so I have been working in the museum field for almost 15 years.
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Um I have worked at the sites connecting students to their place-based history.
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I love seeing how their eyes just widen when they actually get to interact with their historic resources or their cultural resources.
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And you know, they get to understand that history is not just in a textbook.
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Yes, it's in your backyard.
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Um, so I took on this opportunity because I wanted to work more at the administrative level to be able to positively affect more lives at a wider scale.
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That's wonderful.
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Yeah.
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And uh, do you have any special moments where you're like, this was incredible with the students?
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Yes.
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Uh so years ago I interned at uh one of our state sites, the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum, and this was an amazing site of African American history where students would come learn about Dr.
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Brown and the school that she started uh during the times of the Jim Grow period.
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But what was really kind of cool was you're taking students through her house, and all of a sudden they recognize the like old-timey telephone, and I'm like, how do they even know this?
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They're like, Oh, I watched Amy Griffith with my grandmother, and I get it.
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So I thought that was kind of fun.
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Um, but yeah, just some bigger aha moments is just seeing like kids go to state parks and do like a hike and exploring our native plant life.
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Um, seeing we actually have a cool outreach program to students.
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We have a bilingual uh book called Plots, Tales, and Trails, where kids in elementary school will read about how our state dog and the monarch butterfly get to explore the different state sites.
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Wow.
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That kind of thing.
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So we have a lot of really creative uh opportunities.
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So that's why I wanted to come on board with the state.
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That's wonderful.
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And uh Rebecca, can you uh if you have anything else you'd like to share with the NCMLE community?
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Um that we want to get your students into their state sites.
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I cannot emphasize that as much.
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So right now the funding ends at the end of 2026.
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Uh so basically, if you have a state site near you within a day, it's a good thing for like a half-day trip, or even if you want to go across the state, we're here to fund it.
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Oh, that is wonderful.
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So take advantage of what's available.
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A lot of middle schools will go to DC, which is great, you get to see the nation's capital, but we also have our own capital here.
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And even that you can get creative at our historic sites with studying uh our capital and state history in different time periods.
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Oh, that's wonderful.
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Uh well, thank you uh so much, Rebecca Barefoot with the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
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Thank you for joining us today.
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Yes, thank you for having me, and we look forward to your application.
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