SCHOOLS PUT OFF CHANGE IN CALENDAR; CAL CITY TO REMAIN YEAR-ROUND.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Daily News Staff Writer

Giving parents and teachers more time to prepare, the Mojave Unified School District will hold off on changing the school calendar for the 1999-2000 school year.

The board approved keeping the two California City schools - California City Middle School and Robert P. Ulrich Elementary School - on a single-track year-round schedule and Mojave schools on a traditional nine-month schedule.

``We're staying pretty close with what we had before. We are going to work on the 2000-2001 calendar as soon as the school year starts,'' Assistant Superintendent Penelope Swenson said.

District officials looked into whether to make all of its six schools operate on the same schedule after some California City parents said they wanted to return to the traditional calendar because their children are involved in Boy Scouts and other organizations that hold activities in July and August.

A district survey found a majority of California City parents with children only at California City schools favored staying with a year-round schedule.

However, of parents who had children at one or both California City schools plus a child at Mojave High School, a majority favored returning to a traditional schedule.

``We have been trying to bring the two calendars closer together so that parents will have the opportunity to be with their kids,'' Swenson said. ``The modified single-track calendar is much appreciated by parents in California City, but often when they have a high schooler, we run into, How do we keep families together?''

The survey also indicated teachers were in favor of keeping the year-round schedule because of the breaks it offers and its academic benefits.

Also, if year-round teachers go back to a traditional schedule, they would have to go one or two months without a paycheck.

``They would not get paid for a couple of months at the beginning of the school year, but those two months without checks, that would have been a terrible burden on our teachers,'' Swenson said.

The schools in Mojave that had been on year-round schedules reverted to traditional calendars because of enrollment declines, while the California City schools kept the year-round schedule, officials said.