TEACHERS BALK AT PLAN TO ADD 17 SCHOOL DAYS.

Byline: Helen Gao Staff Writer

With support from union-backed school board members, the powerful teachers union will try today to overturn a highly touted plan that extends the number of school days at overcrowded elementary campuses by shortening vacation periods.

Opponents argue that the union, United Teachers Los Angeles, is fighting for longer vacation breaks for its members at the expense of improved education for students, while union representatives claim there is no proof that a longer school year is educationally advantageous.

With the support of board members Julie Korenstein and David Tokofsky - long-time union allies - and board member Genethia Hudley Hayes, whom it helped defeat for re-election, the UTLA has called for suspending the implementation of a 180-day calendar at 31 elementary schools, including nine in the San Fernando Valley.

The school board today is scheduled to vote on whether to suspend the plan, approved last year, and stay with the current 163-day calendar.

The vote comes less than a month before union-backed candidates Jon Lauritzen and Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte are sworn in, giving the UTLA four of seven seats on the board.

``Obviously, we are going to have a different dynamic on the board starting July 1,'' said board member Mike Lansing. ``You could expect there could be more of a push for union issues - and just supporting things the union wants to pass - versus looking at what is best for everybody, the way we did in the last four years.''

Lansing, who was part of the reform slate elected by former Mayor Richard Riordan's Coalition for Kids, is outraged by the union's opposition to the 180-day calendar, saying it's driven by what adults want, not what is best for students.

``The bottom line is about working an extra 17 days. ... (It should be) about students' having an extra 17 days to go to school,'' he said.

School board President Caprice Young also condemned the union's argument on the calendar as ``an adult agenda versus student agenda'' position.

``I think that when you go to a 163-day calendar, you lose a lot in those 17 days,'' said Young, the mother of three small children. ``It's a full year that you lose over the course of K-12, which is tremendous.

``It's not just the minutes in the classroom. It's also about homework time, time to digest the information.''

Union officials and board members who support keeping the status quo, however, argue that district officials have not thoroughly studied the operational and instructional implications of making a calendar change. They claim the district has failed to provide empirical data showing that a 180-day calendar is educationally superior.

``If you take a look at a 180-day calendar and 163-day calendar, many schools do as well on 163 days as on 180 days,'' said John Perez, UTLA president.

The proposed 180-day calendar, also known as 90/30, is spread over four tracks, giving students two 90-day blocks of schooling, split up by two 30-day blocks of vacation, during the academic year.

The 163-day schedule, called the Concept 6 calendar, is spread over three tracks and gives students a two-month vacation during the school year. Students on the 163-day calendar get the same number of instructional minutes as those on a 180-day calendar by spending longer days in the classroom.

Studies and opinions differ on whether a 180-day calendar is superior to a 163-day calendar.

According to a 2002 study conducted by the district's program evaluation and research branch, students on the Concept 6 calendar outperform students on the 90/30 calendar. However, an analysis of standardized test scores in the last three years showed that students fared better in 90/30 four-track schools than in Concept 6 schools.

But students on each of the multitrack calendars lag behind those in schools on a traditional, single-track calendar. Researchers in the 2002 study also said most of the differences in test scores among schools with different calendars can be explained by student demographics.

Parents who were picking up their children Monday at Hart Elementary School in Canoga Park, a Concept 6 campus, expressed mixed feelings about the 90/30 calendar.

Parent Kassandra Proctor, who has a daughter in second grade, applauded the proposed change to a 180-day school year.

``I think it's better. Right now (the students) have six to eight weeks off. I think they forget a lot in six to eight weeks,'' she said.

Working parent Miriam Romeiro frets about juggling work to accommodate her daughter's new schedule.

``I don't have anybody to pick up my daughter,'' she said. ``I have to find a baby-sitter.''

Opponents of change also contend that switching from a 163-day calendar to a 180-day calendar would result in fewer students per track and so require more combination-grades classes that they say would hurt children's education.

``I think there is a lot more subtlety in this issue than just saying this is an adult agenda,'' said Tokofsky.

Helen Gao, [phone]

helen.gao(at)dailynews.com