Parents and teachers are pleading with Sacramento City Unified trustees to rescind a decision to put the district's last eight year-round schools on a traditional calendar.
District officials argue that the change will save as much as $550,000 – and help them chip away at a $24.5 million deficit.
Year-round scheduling came into vogue in California during a student population boom in the 1990s and early 2000s. It allowed cash-strapped schools to more efficiently use their campuses and hold off on building new schools, said Fred Yeager, assistant director of the California Department of Education's school facilities and planning division.
But the need to juggle students in that way lessened after it became easier for school districts to pass bonds to fund construction and then, later, enrollment began slipping in some areas.
Most Sacramento-area districts have struggled in recent years with shrinking enrollment – not too many students.
At a Sac City Unified meeting last week, several trustees said the district is running out of time to balance next year's budget and that eliminating year-round schedules on a handful of campuses is a viable way to save.
If the district doesn't cut costs on year-round education, Board President Manny Hernandez said, it will have to eliminate class-size-reduction efforts for an entire grade level.
Tascha Hill, a teacher at Mark Hopkins Elementary, told trustees she'll "go kicking and screaming," if the district eliminates year-round schedules. "We're all here because we believe in it," she said.
Supporters like Hill tout the benefits of year-round schedules: Students are less likely to suffer from "brain drain" over the traditional three-month summer vacation. Scattering short breaks throughout the year helps keep children engaged, supporters say, and it offers non-native students more constant exposure to the English language.
District officials say there is no proof that students on a year-round schedule perform better than those at traditional schools, based on a study the district performed in May. That comparison showed traditional students performed "as well or better" than year-round students, said Associate Superintendent Mary Hardin Young.
"I don't think that we're out of the norm," said Hardin Young. "We're certainly not the exception."
Year-round enrollment in California's public schools reached a peak of almost 1.4 million students in the 2002-03 school year; 22 percent of all kindergarten-through-12th-graders went to school on nontraditional schedules, according to state data.
Since then, year-round enrollment has been falling. In 2006-07, it was just more than 1 million students, or 16 percent of all the state's students.
Many families have criticized year-round scheduling.
Unless such schedules are prevalent across a district, families can be inconvenienced by having children on different tracks. There also is often one track that nobody wants – like the one that stretches over popular holidays – and that new kids and new teachers get stuck with, Yeager said.
Hill and other teachers say trustees surprised them with their April vote to eliminate year-round schedules and that there was little – if any – public discussion. They have asked that a task force study both the true costs of year-round education and other potential savings for the district.
Hardin Young said year-round education has been suggested for cuts repeatedly over the years. It's come up again, she said, because "there are fewer and fewer things to look at."
Call The Bee's Kim Minugh, (916) 321-1038.
