The dispute between the provincial government and its teachers has affected field trip to museums as well as other festivals that depend on attendance by students.
Students are not the only ones being affected by the Ontario public teachers’ work-to-rule action. Centretown’s museums and arts institutions are also feeling the effects of Ottawa’s public school teachers refusing to take their students on field trips.
Some of Ottawa’s public high school teachers have been withholding extra-curricular activities since September as a means of protesting the Government of Ontario’s controversial Bill 115.
The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, the union representing public elementary teachers, moved into an official work-to-rule action in early December, as did the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, the union representing Ontario’s high school teachers.
Several cultural institutions in Centretown have been affected by the teachers’ action, including the Canadian Museum of Nature and the National Arts Centre .
Gilles Proulx, who co-ordinates school programming at the Museum of Nature, says he realized in September that attendance for this year would be lower when the museum received fewer reservations from Ottawa-Carleton District School Board than usual.
Since January, he has received several cancellations from the few public schools that reserved for this year. He says the museum expects revenues to be lower this year because of the action.
The museum continues to reach out to the school boards that are not affected, such as the French and Catholic school boards, says Proulx, so programming is unchanged and the museum has not suffered a substantial loss in revenue.
“We’ve been quite lucky throughout the year to have the support of all the other school boards,” he says. “We’re functioning normally.”
The Bytown Museum has had a similar experience, says executive director Robin Etherington. While there was a slight reduction in visitors in the fall, the museum is doing quite well.
“In fact, the French and Catholic schools have made up the difference (in attendance),” Etherington says.
The NAC, however, has not been as fortunate.
Three out of five matinee performances of an opera for youth called Sanctuary Song have been cancelled, says NAC spokesperson Mary Gordon.
She says Innocence Lost, a play set to open March, is at risk of cancellation.
“We program these terrific shows for young people and it’s sad when they can’t attend,” she says.
Gordon says the NAC has strong relationships with all the school boards, so schools in other boards are still attending. However, since the performances affected are matinees, it’s difficult to appeal to other audiences to make up for the loss.
“There isn’t really anything we can do, we’re just hoping for a quick resolution to the conflict,” Gordon says.
Ottawa-Carleton Elementary Teachers’ Federation president, Peter Giuliani, says even though trips might occur during school hours, they fall under the work-to-rule action because they require substantial planning outside a teacher’s regular hours.
“Organizing a field trip is a huge job,” Giuliani says. “They are 100 per cent voluntary and they are a boatload of work.”
Giuliani says the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario hopes to resolve the blockade on extracurricular activities by March 1.
He says he’s unsure if teachers will want to start organizing trips again even if the action is dropped because they’ve been “vilified” by the government and community for the action.
“The teachers have learned that no good deed goes unpunished.”