To the disappointment of many returning students, the school administration added 20 extra minutes to the daily schedule to comply with State Department of Education rules (refer to 5/10 article). However, to the delight of many students, this year the district decided to shave four days off the academic year. These days off are called furlough days and essentially represent the district’s last feasible option to close a multi-million dollar budget shortfall and avoid further teacher layoffs and increased class sizes.

The district’s decision to shorten the usual 181 days of school to 177 demonstrates just how dire our budget situation has become and shows that even the school year itself, which otherwise would not be susceptible to drastic changes, is not safe from budget cuts. Given the current $10 million budget shortfall, the district made the only plausible and responsible decision left to avoid painful teacher layoffs that would have further damaged education. They made the right choice between two possible evils.

While students may rejoice at the idea of having less school days, it is important for students to realize the implications of having a day off. Furlough days should not be treated as simply part of a long vacation, even though the teacher’s union and district strategically placed the days next to corresponding long holidays such as the Lunar New Year. Rather, a furlough day means the district does not have to pay teachers and administrators for that day’s service; it is a rather desperate way to save money by reducing employees’ paychecks. Unfortunately, that was the only viable choice left on the table after May estimates of 701 layoffs in the district. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, without this 2.2% reduction in all paychecks, layoffs in the hundreds would otherwise have been unavoidable and unfathomable. Assisted by the furloughs, the district averted that disaster and only laid off 180 teachers.

The apparent contradiction of forcing the school to increase instructional minutes yet to remove four days from the calendar shows the misplaced priorities bureaucrats in Sacramento have as they withhold educational funds while giving little help to struggling school districts statewide. Instead of helping districts cope with the massive loss of state tax revenue, the capital has left every district to fend for themselves. Seemingly, the one area where Sacramento has remained prominent in is in making sure rigid guidelines are enforced in schools, spending more man power counting minutes while losing sight of more important aspects of a quality education. The Department of Education’s decision to crack down on our school’s small violation of fewer instructional minutes for some, not all, of our students, shows the state is more concerned about their definition of education instead of taking into account actual school performance.

In a recent update, the emergency state aid bill, which was passed on Aug. 10, offers the possibility of immediate funding to rehire teachers and even avert furlough days, after California receives $1.2 billion in federal assistance. However, uncertainty surrounding the state budget, which still hasn’t been passed, and gridlock politics in Sacramento threaten to derail this gleam of hope, as districts remain in the dark over how much federal funding they would receive. We hope that the state will work to quickly appropriate those funds in a swift and responsible way.

The unprecedented phenomenon of cutting the school year is being felt around the country. States such as Hawaii have already decided to cut seventeen Fridays off the school year, while in Los Angeles district officials agreed to eliminate nearly a week of school. While our district decided furlough days were the best option left, we hope that Sacramento and the district can find other creative means to close the budget hole in the future. After all, without help from a cash-strapped state government as well as looming projected shortfalls in the future, the situation can only worsen, as next year the district plans to continue with the four furlough days. We reluctantly support the district’s decision to reposition these funds, but express grave caution that this policy not become a continuing trend that could further hinder student growth and education opportunity for all.

This article first appeared in the September 10, 2010 issue of The Lowell.