CHANGING SCHEDULES? MORE SCHOOLS MAY DROP YEAR-ROUND PLAN.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Joshua and Desert View schools may drop year-round classes for a more traditional schedule next school year.

Lancaster School District officials want to drop the multitrack year- round schedule at schools because of difficulties in planning for doing construction work on campus and training staff.

``(Multitrack year-round) was not a good program. It's too hard to plan when 25 percent of the people are gone all the time. Logistically it was too hard to deal with,'' Superintendent Steve Gocke said.

A final decision on whether to change the two schools over to a modified traditional calendar with all students on a single schedule, or track, will depend on whether the district can obtain relocatable classrooms to accommodate all the pupils, Gocke said.

An application for the classrooms is in with the state. The district should know sometime by the end of January if the change will be made, Gocke said.

Six of Lancaster's 17 elementary and middle schools started on the traditional schedule this school year, the first phase of a multiyear plan of returning all schools to that kind of calendar.

Under such a schedule, school starts in August with longer Christmas and spring breaks and a shorter summer.

The six schools already on the single-track schedule are Jack Northrop, Monte Vista, Nancy Cory, and Sierra elementary schools, and the middle schools Park View and Endeavour, which is a new pilot school at Jack Northrop's former temporary campus.

Aside from the maintenance and utility costs of running year-round schools, state aid to help districts operate year-round schools has decreased significantly, so there is no financial incentive to keep that format, district officials said.

The Palmdale School District dropped the year-round school schedule in 2003-04 as part of $12 million in cuts to make up for state funding cutbacks to schools.

Karen Maeshiro, [phone]

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com