Student educational travel companies have paid a $500,000 fine to the state after giving teachers cash stipends and travel rewards for organizing school trips and recruiting student travelers.
EF Explore America, Inc. and EF Institute for Cultural Exchange, Inc., which offer educational student travel programs, have paid a $500,000 civil penalty for repeatedly violating the Massachusetts conflict of interest law.
The two companies violated the law by repeatedly giving cash stipends and personal travel rewards to public school employees — primarily teachers — for organizing school trips and recruiting students for the trips, according to the State Ethics Commission.
Some teachers received more than $4,000 in bonuses for recruiting students for trips.
The corporations — together referred to as EF, based in Cambridge — have admitted to the violations, waived their right to a public hearing, and paid the $500,000 civil penalty.
EF provided international and domestic student trips approved by more than 100 public schools in Massachusetts from 2021 to 2025.
Travel costs for the group leaders, who were mostly teachers, were covered by fees paid to EF by the student travelers.
EF offered the group leaders travel rewards and cash stipends for their personal use for recruiting and enrolling certain numbers of students as paid travelers on EF trips, referring friends and colleagues to EF, and repeatedly organizing EF trips.
Bonuses for recruiting a certain number of students for EF trips ranged from $250 to $4,250 per group leader each trip. EF’s bonuses to group leaders for repeated travel ranged from $500 to $1,000 per trip.
“When a private business gives anything of value to a public employee for their official actions, especially when those actions generate revenue for the business, the public has reason to ask whether what was given was given lawfully and whether the official actions were in the public interest,” Ethics Commission Executive Director David Wilson said in a statement.
“Here, EF’s provision of cash stipends and travel rewards to public school employees for their private use was not lawful and could cause the public to question whether the public school trips were organized and run first and foremost in the public interest for the educational benefit of the student travelers and not improperly motivated and influenced by the personal incentives and rewards provided to the organizers by EF,” he added.
EF has also agreed to stop providing personal travel benefits or cash stipends of substantial value and personal benefit to any Massachusetts public employee in relation to their official acts in connection with school-sponsored trips.
“EF’s discontinuance of these personal benefit rewards for public school employees involved in its school trips will, going forward, help eliminate a significant threat to the integrity of public school employee decision-making concerning school trips and help ensure public confidence that those decisions are made in the public interest,” Wilson said.
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The conflict of interest law bans anyone from giving or offering anything worth $50 or more to a public employee to influence an official act.
“EF repeatedly violated this prohibition by offering and giving stipends, rewards, and bonuses to public school employees for their private use for their official actions in organizing and gaining official approval of school trips and recruiting students as paying customers for those trips,” the commission said.
“While a teacher may, if they first make a written disclosure to their appointing authority and obtain the authority’s prior written approval pursuant to regulations promulgated by the State Ethics Commission, be lawfully provided with payment of their travel expenses as a chaperone for a school trip, the law prohibits a travel company’s provision of a personal stipend or travel reward valued at $50 or more to a teacher planning or participating in a school trip.”
The educational travel companies in a statement said they had believed their “Global Rewards program” was complying with applicable law and school or district rules.
“The Massachusetts State Ethics Commission began an inquiry into certain personal benefits made available to all leaders of educational tours, including public school educators, through these recognition programs,” the companies said. “In response to the concerns raised by the Commission, we adjusted our recognition program for public educators in Massachusetts last year and communicated the reason for these changes to our public-school group leaders.”
“We have reached a resolution with the Commission regarding EF’s Global Rewards program for public school educators,” they later added. “We hope this resolution provides greater clarity for how public educators and their schools can participate in EF’s program with confidence and in full compliance with state ethics rules. We chose to resolve this matter at this stage because we had already proactively adjusted the program and believed a continued legal process was not in the best interests of the educators we work with, their schools, or EF.”
The Herald asked the State Ethics Commission if these companies will be referred to the Attorney General’s office for criminal proceedings when it comes to kickbacks.
A commission spokesperson said, “I cannot confirm or deny whether the Commission has or will refer any matter to any other agency.”
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