LA's Expanded School Year Proposal Fizzles For Lack Of Support

LOS ANGELES, CA — Without support from teachers and administrators, plans to extend the 2021-22 school year by two weeks to mitigate pandemic learning loss in the Los Angeles Unified School District fizzled out Monday.

District officials scrapped the proposal Monday with the release of a survey showing that 75 percent of teachers and 62 percent of administrators opposed changes to the instructional calendar for the next school year. On Tuesday, district staff will ask the Board of Education to approve a traditional 180-day instructional calendar. Instead of extending the school year across the district officials propose "a needs-based funding formula that will give additional dollars to schools for the purpose of extending student instructional time and adding time for teacher professional development."

Plans initially called for adding one week to the instructional calendar in August, and another in January. Superintendent Austin Beutner said the weeks would be split "between time for teachers and school staff to plan and participate in additional training and time for students to process the trauma and anxiety they've experienced the past year and work on learning fundamentals."

According to the staff report, two proposals were eventually developed. One would add six additional student instructional days, along with four professional development days for teachers. The other would have three additional instructional days, and two optional professional development days. Both proposals, however, were rejected by the stakeholder groups.

The rejection came despite the district anticipating the receipt of about $400 million in additional funding from the state to provide "additional in-person academic, social-emotional and health supports" in the coming year.

Under the proposal going to the board Tuesday, the first day of instruction for the fall semester for most campuses would be Aug. 17, with the second semester beginning Jan. 10. Winter recess would be from Dec. 20 through Friday, Jan. 7. Spring recess would be April 11-15.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.