Teachers' job action is having unintended consequences.
Some educational and cultural institutions in the city are suffering as a result of reduced school field trips.
"It started dropping off in December and we're seeing it again here in January and we don't expect it to improve until the job action is finally settled," said Rob Appleton, executive director of the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre.
As a result, the Space Centre reduced its staffing levels by 1.2 full-time equivalent positions last week.
Chris Harris, president of the Vancouver Elementary School Teachers' Association, said teachers haven't been handling administrative tasks since job action started in September, so they've asked administrators to collect money for field trips. Trips planned in the spring proceeded but administrators now are "routinely" telling teachers who express interest in field trips that they're not going to collect money, he said, adding, "Teachers have just given up."
"That's terrifying news for us," said Appleton. "In December we had just over half of what we were expecting for schools. And January looks like we're going to trend that way."
The drop follows three tough years as a result of the economic downturn and the Olympics, during which the Space Centre saw its lowest attendance in 43 years.
Lisa McIntosh, director of learning for the Space Centre, said other museum educators noted they were just starting to feel the effect of job action in late November.
Rosemary Pulice, group bookings coordinator for the Vancouver Art Gallery, said teachers are confused about collecting money, noting the VAG can collect money directly from children. She noted a reduction in field trips, as did the executive director of the Vancouver Maritime Museum, but neither could quantify the hit.
"What I'm wondering about is how that is affecting children's learning," McIntosh said.
Teachers use field trips to excite students about upcoming lessons, to reward them and reinforce all they have learned, and elementary school teachers who lack backgrounds in science use the field trips to teach the kids about subjects they are less comfortable teaching, according to McIntosh.
"We hope and we encourage that administrators collect the money necessary for students to go on field trips," Harris said. "We don't feel that it's such an onerous task."
But Chris Gilmour, president of the Vancouver Elementary Principals and Vice-Principals Association, said district management staff and school-based administrators have "very willingly, as we need to do, assumed a ton of extra duties" on top of their regular responsibilities. Where possible, schools are finding ways to proceed with field trips, particularly when there's no cost involved.
School board spokesman Kurt Heinrich said whether administrators are able to collect fees depends on factors that include the size of the school and how many administrators it has.
"Like teachers, we want the same thing," Gilmour said. "We want a successfully collectively negotiated settlement because we want to once again be able to collaborate together with them to serve students."
The Space Centre has ramped up marketing to private schools and plans to connect with homeschool groups.
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