Fresno parents learned during back-to-school night events earlier this month that the district has cut field trips for TK-fifth graders and camps for sixth graders in an effort to reduce spending, The Fresno Bee reported.
The field trips, which cost $2.2 million annually, were among $30 million in cuts adopted in a budget this summer by the district’s board of trustees, according to The Bee.
Fresno Unified School District officials said they had used one-time federal pandemic relief dollars to fund annual field trips for elementary school students to places like Camp Green Meadows near Yosemite National Park and Monterey Bay Aquarium.
“Prior to receiving those funds, those field trips often occurred, but they were dependent on fundraising, whoever can afford it or who can’t. So we weren’t able to guarantee the same experience for everybody,” said deputy superintendent Ben Drati, per The Bee.
Now, with the cuts, field trips are once again dependent on individual schools’ budgets and fundraising capacity, The Bee reported.
“It makes me sad because it’s a social justice issue that the families who can afford it, their kids are the ones who are going to still get these nontraditional educational experiences, and the families who cannot afford it, will not be able to take their kids on these experiences,” Whitney Bortz, parent of a fourth grader and a ninth grader, told the paper.
This story was originally published by EdSource.