With a full-scale teachers' strike starting today, local attractions are facing a loss of revenue from a lack of field trips.
Exploration Place and Two Rivers Art Galley both saw a reduction of field trips scheduled during the rotating walkouts, followed by cancellations when the full-scale strike was announced last week.
The Exploration Place is usually crowded with 25 to 50 field trips during May and June, said Amanda Tisseur, its deputy director. Now, it's only the private Catholic schools that are coming.
"Our galleries are a lot quieter than we expected them to be," she said. "It leaves me with approximately $10,000 hole in my projected budget for this year because we based our revenue projections in our various areas on previous year's revenue. Obviously this is not a normal year for us."
The Two Rivers Art Galley has had around 40 field trips cancelled, said Carolyn Holmes, the director of public programs. It also had art materials sent to rural schools for its outreach program, which has stopped, plus art materials at the gallery for 400 students. While there's a financial impact, the gallery has adapted to the situation.
"We've put our planning for BMO kids arts days and creativity camps on fast forward," she said. "We've created day camps in response to the teachers strike. So starting [today] we have day camps that we can offer to the public as a child care alternative to parents."
The camps cost $36 plus tax, with there only being enough room for 20 students.
"I'm not focusing on the revenue," Holmes said. "These are things that we can't change. Instead we need to support the teachers and we need to support the education system because for all of us, our first priority is our children and their educational future."
Depending on the nature of the cancelled field trips, that could mean parents will get all of, some of, or none of the money they paid to send their kids. If the schools had to pay for items or contract services in advance, there's a chance they won't be able to pay that money back
"Parents usually are [made] aware of that when they sign their permission slip," said Brian Pepper, School District 57's superintendent. "It's embedded into the permission slip.
"If parents are looking for information, the best place for them to go at the present time, given we're in a strike environment, would be to contact the principal of the school."
