In a recent school board meeting we were working on revising our chaperone policy. One line in the chaperone instructions read:

"Please stay with your group at all times. If you need to take a break to for any reason, ask another chaperone your group while you are gone."

I raised the question as to whether or not the preposition "to" was needed to clarify the sentence between the words "another chaperone."

It seems that at the very least it should read "If you need to take a break for any reason, ask another to chaperone your group while you are gone."

To be even clearer still it could read "If you need to take a break for any reason, ask another chaperone to oversee your group while you are gone."

Am I off base here?

The primary author of our document said the way she has it is grammatically correct. I want to know what's right. Please set me straight.

Hello!

While the orignal statement is grammatically correct, it is not commonplace to find such structures in everyday use (formal or informal).

However, even in regular use, chaperone, even when used as a verb, does not usually take 'to' as a preposition.

While the original author is correct (albeit slightly pedantic), you are not wrong.

I hope this reply helps!

"Please stay with your group at all times. If you need to take a break (to)(OMIT) for any reason, ask another to chaperone your group while you are gone."

'to' is not a preposition but the use of 'to' in the infinitive: to ask someone to do something.

This sentence requires that it is understood that 'another' means 'another adult/chaperone'.

Alternatively:

"Please stay with your group at all times. If you need to take a break for any reason, ask another chaperone to mind/supervise your group while you are gone."