As the PhET folks point out, there are many different purposes for doing labs
in physics classes and simulations do not address many of these. However, they
have proven to be effective in increasing the conceptual understanding of students.
An intriguing result from studies of their circuit simulation is that students who used
the simulation and not a lab were slightly better at building a real circuit than students
doing a lab but not using the simulation. This is in their 2005 Phys Rev article.
It might be worthwhile having a discussion about the purpose of labs with the other
instructors.