Cutbacks where?

This morning's AP article on the rising cost of gas for school buses had one line (somewhat unrelated to busing) that I found telling:

And in North Carolina, Nash-Rocky Mount Public Schools teachers have scaled back the number of field trips this spring to save fuel, transportation director Binford Sloan said.
(emphasis added)

"scaled back"?? Am I the only parent whose child has not had a field trip, ever? Or if the class went on a field trip, it was parent-funded?

I don't in any way dismiss the difficulties schools across the country are having with rising fuel costs, whether to fuel the buses or to heat the buildings. But field trips around here have been few and far between for quite a number of years, whatever the fuel costs. They've become an unimaginable luxury to the city-funded budget. It just show exactly how deep the cuts have gone that we can't even conceive of cutting field trips. We've gone much deeper into essentials than that.

And then there's the Minnesota district that plans to run a four day week next year. (An option not available to us without civil disobedience, incidentally, as Massachusetts regulations cover days in school as well as hours in learning)