CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Kanawha County public school students can forget about going to "The Nutcracker" ballet during the school day this year.

They can forget about going to Children's Theatre of Charleston performances during the school day, too.

Faced with sharply higher diesel fuel prices, Superintendent Ron Duerring is cutting down drastically on field trips, said Jane Roberts, assistant superintendent for elementary education.

"The ones that will be approved will be academic. They'll have strong ties to science, social studies, reading or math," Roberts said. Performances are no longer on the approved list, she said.

"This is disheartening," said Kim Pauley, the Charleston Ballet's artistic director. "I'm getting tired of thinking up things to do to salvage everything."

Pauley said "The Nutcracker's" school shows sold out six times - a total of 4,500 seats - the first few years at the Civic Center's Little Theater in the 1990s. Last year, two matinee shows drew 1,200 to 1,500 children to the Clay Center, and no longer rated as a money-maker.

"But the educational component was more important to us," Pauley said. "It gave children who might not otherwise have it the introduction to ballet."

School board President Becky Jordon said she wasn't aware of this new policy, but would look into it: "There's a lot kids can learn in this community. I don't think all the learning has to be in the classroom."

High schools that stage theater and musical events shouldn't expect students from other schools to come on field trips, Roberts said. The magnet music program at Chandler shouldn't expect field trip visitors on performance days either.

"It probably means they won't schedule performances during the day," Roberts said. "They'll probably give performances only in the evening for the general community."

Those daytime performances were moneymakers for the schools and their programs, Roberts acknowledged. Schools that went paid a per-child price to attend.

Roberts said she is preparing a list of approved trips for principals.

"If schools want to raise money and pay for a charter bus [to a non-approved site], they can do that. End-of-year trips for fifth-graders are typically done that way," she said.

"The superintendent has to keep the budget balanced," Roberts said. "He has to make some tough decisions. It wasn't anything anyone was excited about doing."

One program that hasn't felt the ax is STARBASE, a national program run out of National Guard armories, Roberts said. Fifth-graders go to the local armory for five days of math and hands-on science instruction.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Kanawha County public school students can forget about going to "The Nutcracker" ballet during the school day this year.

They can forget about going to Children's Theatre of Charleston performances during the school day, too.

Faced with sharply higher diesel fuel prices, Superintendent Ron Duerring is cutting down drastically on field trips, said Jane Roberts, assistant superintendent for elementary education.

"The ones that will be approved will be academic. They'll have strong ties to science, social studies, reading or math," Roberts said. Performances are no longer on the approved list, she said.

"This is disheartening," said Kim Pauley, the Charleston Ballet's artistic director. "I'm getting tired of thinking up things to do to salvage everything."

Pauley said "The Nutcracker's" school shows sold out six times - a total of 4,500 seats - the first few years at the Civic Center's Little Theater in the 1990s. Last year, two matinee shows drew 1,200 to 1,500 children to the Clay Center, and no longer rated as a money-maker.

"But the educational component was more important to us," Pauley said. "It gave children who might not otherwise have it the introduction to ballet."

School board President Becky Jordon said she wasn't aware of this new policy, but would look into it: "There's a lot kids can learn in this community. I don't think all the learning has to be in the classroom."

High schools that stage theater and musical events shouldn't expect students from other schools to come on field trips, Roberts said. The magnet music program at Chandler shouldn't expect field trip visitors on performance days either.

"It probably means they won't schedule performances during the day," Roberts said. "They'll probably give performances only in the evening for the general community."

Those daytime performances were moneymakers for the schools and their programs, Roberts acknowledged. Schools that went paid a per-child price to attend.

Roberts said she is preparing a list of approved trips for principals.

"If schools want to raise money and pay for a charter bus [to a non-approved site], they can do that. End-of-year trips for fifth-graders are typically done that way," she said.

"The superintendent has to keep the budget balanced," Roberts said. "He has to make some tough decisions. It wasn't anything anyone was excited about doing."

One program that hasn't felt the ax is STARBASE, a national program run out of National Guard armories, Roberts said. Fifth-graders go to the local armory for five days of math and hands-on science instruction.

Roberts wasn't sure how the cutbacks would affect the West Virginia Symphony's Young People's Concerts. That would depend on whether the contracts have been signed, and Cindy Daniel, another assistant superintendent, is looking into that, she said.

Symphony Executive Director Paul Helfrich said he thinks the young people's concerts are safe for this year. The school system's arts budget has money that helps subsidize the busing costs, and the orchestra gets grant money that enables it to chip in, too.

Clay Center President and CEO Judy Wellington said the Clay Center offers one other daytime educational performance, "Mad Science: CSI," which offers an interactive journey through the world of crime scene investigations with emphasis on math and science. Audience recruits become part of the action and help solve the crime.

Schools pay the county less than actual cost to rent a bus for a field trip, Roberts said.

Neither Roberts nor George Beckett, the schools' transportation director, could say how much money cutting out the field trips would save.

"Field trips is just a small part of the iceberg, but it is a part," Beckett said.

Schools will pay $1.40 per mile this year to get a bus, a good deal less than the projected cost of more than $2 per mile, Beckett said. Schools also pay for labor if there's overtime involved, he said.

The county spent $1.3 million last year on diesel fuel, averaging 411,000 gallons to run 3.03 million miles.

Beckett wants to trim the number of miles, trim the number of stops and use the buses efficiently enough to boost the mileage from 7.4 miles per gallon to at least 8.4 mpg.

"We're reducing idle time on buses," he said. "We're going to enforce a no-idle policy. The buses have Global Positioning Systems. If you have a technology that can tell you when they're standing still with the ignition on, you can control it."

Football and basketball trips would not be affected by the cutbacks, he said; nor would band trips. Those schedules are set and can't be changed, he said.

Trips to the Clay Center's science museum, for which the Kanawha County Commission just promised $100,000 to fund free admission for local school groups, are safe.

But the arts are mostly out? "Pretty much," said Roberts.

Reach Bob Schwarz at bobschw...@wvgazette.com or 348-1249.