Helping
students
access
the arts
WINDHAM COUNTY — Local children will be able to access art more easily because of a new program that will fund the transportation costs for educational field trips.
The Scripps Family Fund for Education and the Arts and the Newell D. Hale Foundation announced the launch of Wheels to Learning. This pilot program will fund transportation costs for educational field trips during the 2018-19 school year.
Putnam’s Economic and Community Development Director Delpha Very said she had had many conversations with Betty Hale regarding the fact that school systems cut field trips as an easy cut so Performing Arts paid for the tickets but the children couldn’t get there. “This pilot seems like she has partnered for a solution to the problem.”
Responding to concerns about the prohibitive cost of transportation, the pilot program seeks to address a significant impediment to accessing the enriching experience of school field trips. The program’s funders believe that every child should have access to
quality educational opportunities including those outside the classroom, and seek to learn if the availability of transportation funding will increase access to these experiences.
In this pilot year, Wheels to Learning will be available to all K-12 public schools in Windham County. The program will offer funding for transportation costs to specified non-profit cultural institutions in the arts, sciences and humanities. These organizations are: Performing Arts of Northeast Connecticut (formerly Opera New England); The Three C’s (The Community Cultural Committee of Northeastern Connecticut, Inc.); CT Science Center, Hartford; Hartford Stage, Hartford; Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic; Old Sturbridge Village, Sturbridge; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford
Other New England states including Rhode Island and Massachusetts have state-wide programs that offer transportation funding for school field trips.
In Connecticut, minimal funding is available and school districts and the venues they visit often seek private donations to support these costs. Response to the Wheels to Learning program will help to discern if there is broader interest in an organized state-wide approach to this need. Feedback from participants will provide insight which will inform decisions about the funding, scope, and structure of the program going forward.

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