By Kathryn Baron and John Fensterwald
California’s 30 largest school districts are about evenly divided on whether they plan to further shorten this academic year if Proposition 30 fails next week, according to a new survey by EdSource Today. A third of the districts have already negotiated with their unions to lop anywhere from a week to a month from the school calendar if the initiative is defeated. Slightly more than a third report that they do not plan any more furlough days, and the rest say that a shorter school year remains an option that they plan to raise with their unions.
Responses from the 30 largest school districts, enrolling a third of the state’s 6.2 million students (see chart below), represent a snapshot of how school officials and teachers unions will deal with the consequences if Prop. 30 is defeated. However, the picture remains fluid. Some districts shifted their positions during the two weeks that EdSource Today collected information, and others offered ambiguous answers, reflecting uncertainty over how they’ll respond to a sizable cut to their budgets.