Admission charges for school field trips and other group tours also will go up in November after the opening of the new dinosaur hall at Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Museum officials announced this week that starting Nov. 21 it will cost $5 more to enter the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History in Oakland, to defer operating costs arising from the newly expanded, $36 million Dinosaurs in Their Time exhibition that opens that day.

The natural history museum also will charge a minimum of $2 more per head for field trips and an extra $4 for adult tours. For one-hour tours, fees will jump from the current $5 to $7 per student and from $9 to $13 for adults.

Carnegie Museum of Art is not increasing group fees.

At many school districts -- including Plum -- parents largely pay field trip expenses, often through fund raising by parent-teacher organizations.

The price hike by the natural history museum "is just one more hardship for them to contend with" when providing students out-of-school, interdisciplinary learning, said district spokeswoman Dawn Check.

The increased cost also comes as districts are stretching their transportation budgets to offset increases in gasoline prices for school buses.

While school districts and parents "still have to watch" their budgets, there is also the greater good of helping a leading cultural institution, countered Northgate Superintendent Reggie Bonfield, who joined other local superintendents in a preview tour of the dinosaur hall this year.

"I can't see [the $2 increase] having a huge impact. This is an excellent exhibit, and we're interested in supporting it and seeing it does well," he said.

For children (ages 3 to 18), regular admission fees to the two museums will jump 83 percent in November, from $6 to $11. Adult fees will rise from $10 to $15. Museum membership prices are not affected.

Museum officials said the fee increase is necessary to cover increased security, heating, air conditioning and other expenses at the three-story hall, which is located in a former courtyard at the rear of the museum complex.

New educational facilities, including an improved school bus loading zone, also are being built largely for students visiting the natural history museum and the dinosaur hall.