Reduced School Days Add Strain on Teachers, Aides

Teachers and other educational staff are bemoaning the reduced school days this year, which has forced them to squeeze in more material in less time, eliminate needed staff development days and has added more pressure on students and faculty, they say.

This year, students at numerous Petaluma schools –including Petaluma Unified and Old Adobe—will end the school year on May 27, a full week earlier than in previous years. Add a couple of other “days off” and kids in two of the city’s largest school districts—which together educate some 10,000 students—will have eight furlough days, meaning teachers will take a pay cut and stay at home instead of being in the classroom in order to help school districts save money.

“It’s very tough on morale,” said Charlene Nugent, who teaches at Petaluma Junior High School and is a 15-year veteran of Petaluma City Schools. “We want the best for our students, we do everything within our power to educate these kids with no money, no funding and no days and all the while, they are expected to do better on standardized testing.”

The reduced days of instruction are required because districts in Sonoma County, like others throughout the state, are facing reduced budgets, said Interim Superintendent of Petaluma City Schools Steve Bolman. Districts are also bracing for an estimated $23 million in cuts, if voters fail to extend taxes to fund education.

That means teachers are now racing  the clock to pack in the required curricula, while dealing with the uncertainty of what will happen in near future.

“It seems like it’s just a little here, a little there, but if you look at it as a week per year over five years, that’s five weeks of education of a student that we’ve lost,” said Ted Russo, president of the Petaluma Federation of Teachers, which represents about 430 teachers and classified staff at Petaluma schools.

Schools already dedicate two weeks each year on the state-mandated STAR testing, part of No Child Left Behind, which many educators grumble about as detracting from a more comprehensive and well-rounded approach to learning. That leaves just 165 days of instruction in one school year, not nearly enough to impart everything students need to know, say many.

“These furloughs are awful for teachers, awful for students and for our community,” said Russo, who also teaches physical education at Kenilworth High School. “This is devastating and if we continue this way, it’s going to have a negative effect on students being able to retain information.”

One of the things that has been lost with the reduced days of instruction is staff development days, a time when teachers, aides and other meet to assess classes and programs to see what was working and what could be improved, Russo said.

And the solution?

Support schools at the polls, Russo said.

“I know we are all in tough times and our community is very supportive of our schools and it’s totally appreciated, but we hope that they push hard for the tax extensions because it’s going to be get real bad if we’re going to have to take another $5 million (district wide) cut.”

If taxes extensions are not approved, Petaluma City Schools, for one, will face even more drastic cuts including laying off teachers, increasing class sizes and cutting electives. Additional days will not be deducted from the academic calendar because, by law, California schools have to provide at least 175 days of instruction per year.

"Our students are suffering and the district knows that they are suffering when they have fewer days," said Nugent.