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New School Schedule Poses Problems : Education: Officials and parents are seeking solutions about vacation, day camps and child-care programs. The year-round calendar begins next year.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

This is the last long, hot summer for Westside children who attend Los Angeles public schools.

A year from now, when the entire district goes to a year-round calendar, summer vacation will be truncated, with children back at their desks in mid-August, the traditional camp and family excursion time.

The new schedule also calls for a second six-week hiatus, which working parents may come to view as the long, cruel winter vacation. What do you do with the kids for weeks at a time in January and February?

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“We’re finding the winter part is going to be the critical one,” said Jeff Crain, field representative to Westside school board member Mark Slavkin.

The issue is further complicated because three city school districts on the Westside--Beverly Hills, Santa Monica-Malibu and Culver City--as well as private schools, will stick to the time-honored summer-off schedule.

How will day camps accommodate both groups when they are on different summer schedules? Will enough all-day programs spring up to serve parents and children for the first winter vacation in 1991? And where will they find staff in the months of January and February, when their usual college-student labor pool is in class?

These and other concerns were on the agenda at a meeting called last week by Slavkin, who invited a group of professionals involved in child care, camps and other children’s programs to explore what will be a dramatic change in family lifestyle around the district. Some parents also attended.

Some other parts of the city, where overcrowded schools have adopted multitrack year-round schedules with at least four breaks a year, have already grappled with the issue. But given the child-care crisis everywhere, no areawide solution has emerged, and some at the meeting argued that the district has insufficient commitment to find one.

That raises the issue of whether it is the school district’s role to take on the commitment of vacation and after-school child care. “In my view, it should be,” Slavkin said in a telephone interview after the forum. “If we’re not going to do it, no one is. And our ability to serve children from an instructional view is largely diminished” if they are hungry or do not have a supportive environment for the 180-plus days a year they are out of school.

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Even absorbing the idea of a different school schedule takes some doing, according to district official Gordon Wohlers. “I expect you to have an initial horrifying reaction,” Wohlers told the group. “I did as a principal 10 years ago,” when his school went year-round.

Crain said one aim of the conclave is to get past the disbelief and get a jump on the problem and its solutions to avoid last-minute panic. “We want to make sure these services are in place before (the new schedule) starts.”

What they heard from the audience was a litany of complaints about the district’s attitude, rules and level of cooperation about child-care programs. But also, Slavkin said, the group expressed a willingness to make it work, if someone would just listen to their ideas.

Their main concerns were:

Communication: Because of legal concerns, child-care providers cannot communicate to their potential clients through the schools, which won’t hand out brochures or otherwise apprise parents of their availability. Thus, programs can die, while parents in need of them don’t know they exist.

Facilities: The school leases out its facilities at $124 a classroom for four hours, and then only if the principal of the school and the individual teacher agree to make it available. One woman spoke of an after-school program vetoed by a principal that would have served 100 children.

The cost is horrendous, said Patti Tucker, owner of Tumbleweed-Cottonwood day camp in Brentwood. The school district has been “very uncooperative. If it’s a private entity, they won’t even talk to us or take our literature,” Tucker said later in a telephone interview.

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Because the individual schools get none of the revenue, there is little incentive for principals to cooperate. Parents and child-care providers complained that principals don’t seem to view the need for after-school or vacation care as a priority.

Slavkin agreed that the current message from the district is, “You don’t have to,” when it should be, “We want you to make these services available.”

Staff: College students are the labor pool for summer day camps, and many camp directors wonder where they can find a staff available for six weeks in January and February. They also stand to lose summer staffers who may not want a job that ends in mid-August.

Transportation: The school district operates 2,900 buses a day, traveling 41 million miles a year, but virtually none of them are authorized to take children to after-school programs.

Slavkin said after the forum that the “key to success is helping the school district become more open and more proactive in working with these child-care providers.”

The biggest problem, he said, is the lack of communication between the district and the outside world. Slavkin noted how surprised some meeting participants were to learn of a way to obtain a significantly lower rental rate if they are willing to offer scholarships for 25% of those enrolled.

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Tucker said she has been spending a small fortune renting a room at Kenter Canyon Elementary School that she only needed in case of inclement weather. (Her outdoor facility is nearby.)

She said it would be more economical for her to give the scholarships and save on the rent. But no one from the district ever told her she had a choice.

“It’s a blessing,’ she said. “I’m happy to give scholarships.”

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