Windsor first in county to cut school days

<p>Windsor is poised to become the first school district in Sonoma County to shorten the school year to cut costs.</p><p>The district’s teachers’ union voted overwhelming Wednesday to cut two instruction days from the school year and take a commensurate 1.5 percent pay cut. Windsor teachers and support staff previously agreed to cut one staff development day with pay from their calendar this year.</p><p>Other districts may soon follow suit. The region’s largest, Santa Rosa, is mulling a five-day reduction that would save up to $2 million.</p><p>In Windsor, if the proposal is approved Tuesday by the 250-member union that represents staffers who aren’t teachers, the district will close operations on Nov. 23 and 24 before to the regular three-day Thanksgiving holiday.</p><p>The move is expected to save the 5,600-student district $350,000 plus an undetermined savings in bus and energy costs.</p><p>“We are running schools five days a week, but they cut our funding 20 percent,” said Superintendent Steve Herrington, referring to state budget cuts. </p><p>Herrington praised teachers and staff members for working together on a modified schedule.</p><p>“Those were days with high absent rates,” he said. “We had decided if we had to take a day loss, that is where we would take it.”</p><p>Connie Martinez, president of the local California School Employee Association that represents nonteachers, said she expects her colleagues to accept the deal Tuesday.</p><p>“I’m optimistic that it will be a positive because we don’t want to cut our own throats,” she said. “Windsor is kind of unusual: We are not pitted against each other, the teachers against the classified. We are here to make this work.”</p><p>Windsor, one of the few districts in Sonoma County that is not suffering from declining enrollment, cut 25 employees before the start of the year, 18 of whom were teachers, Herrington said. The district employs about 560 people.</p><p>In Petaluma, employees have agreed to eliminate three staff development — but not classroom — days this year, saving the district $675,000. The cut represents about 1.6 percent in lost pay.</p><p>There are no plans to cut student days in Petaluma this year, but discussions are ongoing about the 2010-2011 calendar, said Steve Bolman, the district’s deputy superintendent.</p><p>“That will be something open for discussion in the course of the school year,” he said.</p><p>Most states require a minimum of 180 school days a year, according to the U.S. Education Department. Colorado requires the fewest at 160 and Kansas requires the most at 186.</p><p>Beginning in 1983, California districts were given additional funding if they increased the school year from 175 days to 180. In 2000, 180 days became mandatory.</p><p>In the current year’s budget, the state cut local funding while lifting the 180-day requirement, leaving it up to local districts to determine if they can afford to maintain 180 days.</p><p>“It’s unfortunate that the tough decision has been driven down to the local level,” said county schools chief Carl Wong. </p><p>“If the DMV closes two or three days a month, it just takes us longer to get our car registered. With a student missing out on three days of instruction, that means there is no way to go back and recapture that,” he said. “That is why it is a strategy of last resort.”</p><p>Staff Writer Kerry Benefield writes an education blog at extracredit.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. She can be reached at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield @pressdemocrat.com.</p>