Spring Break Sought in New School Calendar : Education: The Los Angeles school district plans to put all schools on a year-round schedule. Westside parents and teachers want it modified.

Westside parents and teachers are fighting to add a spring break to the proposed 1991-92 Los Angeles Unified School District common calendar, a schedule that all schools must adopt.

Hundreds of letters from parents of children--mostly from Overland Avenue, Clover Avenue and Westwood elementaries--have been sent to Westside school board member Mark Slavkin imploring the board to schedule at least a week off in the spring.

Slavkin, after meeting with parents from Pacific Palisades schools who also seek a weeklong spring vacation, asked fellow board members on Monday to add at least a four-day weekend, from April 16 through 19. The board agreed to consider it.

The board voted last February to put all the schools on a year-round calendar next year to put them in sync with overcrowded schools that have been forced to go to staggered schedules to increase capacity. That decision is not final. The calendar must be negotiated with the United Teachers of Los Angeles, and then the board must vote on it again after a public hearing.

Under the proposed calendar, students would have a shortened summer vacation of four weeks, but a six-week winter break. The schedule would coincide with one of four “tracks” followed at overcrowded schools where students attend on staggered 90-day-on, 30-day-off schedules. At the Westside schools, which are not overcrowded, all students would attend on the same schedule.

Spring break was omitted because of the difficulty of meshing the disparate schedules that have been the result of a piecemeal effort to alleviate overcrowding.

Westside parents, among others, have resisted the changes, which would abolish the traditional 2 1/2-month summer vacation and could present child-care problems for working parents during the winter vacation.

The proposed winter vacation is lengthy because the 30-day break immediately follows the traditional holiday recess.

Some question the educational sense of a school year split by two lengthy vacations. “Students . . . not only have the summer to forget the material, but will also now have the winter to forget it,” wrote parent Janice Munger Lipeles in a letter to Slavkin.

Parents appear to be split on the new calendar. Some continue to protest the entire concept, while others view it as inevitable but want a spring vacation and assurances about other programs.

Spring vacation is of special concern to many because the calendar now calls for students to return to school from Feb. 17 to June 29, or for 94 days with only Memorial Day off. “Stand in the teachers’ shoes. Stand in the kids’ shoes. Give it thought,” wrote parents Dennis and Steffani Bailey.

At Overland Avenue School in Rancho Park, parents and teachers have accepted the new calendar but are adamant about wanting a spring vacation, said Principal Sue Di Julio. Clover Avenue Principal Karen Rose described similar sentiments at her school, which is near Sepulveda Boulevard and National Boulevard.

Pam Bruns, chair of the Palisades Complex community group, said the district has not resolved problems the new calendar would create at the high school level. These include scheduling sports traditionally played during what will now be winter vacation and preparing students to take spring advanced placement tests after they take January and part of February off.

Other issues raised by board members Monday included having to rethink all of the educational programs evolving from Black History Month in February because students will be on break for much of the month. Also, the long-fought-for Martin Luther King holiday in January would fall during winter break.

Slavkin said his ultimate support of the common calendar depends on the district staff addressing these issues and estimating the cost of the changeover.

Noting that the initial vote was nearly a year ago, Slavkin expressed displeasure that district staff members had not addressed the issues and had no target date for a final decision on the calendar. “We owe people an early answer,” he said in an interview. “For people to know this is real, they need a final decision.”

Although other board members supported Slavkin’s motion to try to add a two-day spring break, several said they would not schedule it if it meant too much disruption at multitrack schools that have already borne the brunt of overcrowding.

Teachers’ union President Helen Bernstein said the UTLA is studying the board’s proposal but has not adopted a negotiating position. However, Bernstein noted, the vast majority of teachers object to a long spring session without a break.

Even with the common calendar, there will still be a hodgepodge of school schedules in the district. Among the district’s more than 600 schools, a group of 37 schools called Concept 6 operates on a year-round schedule that accommodates even more pupils but does not coincide with any of the other calendars.

Concept 6 was an earlier approach to the overcrowding problem. The district has allowed those schools to keep that schedule if they want to.

PROPOSED CALENDAR

* Opening day: Aug. 19

* Winter recess: Dec. 23-Feb. 17

* Last day: June 29

* Spring break: April 16-17

Holidays

* Labor Day: Sept. 2

* Veterans Day: Nov. 11

* Thanksgiving: Nov. 28-29

* Presidents Day: Feb. 17

* Memorial Day: May 25

(Holidays that fall within the breaks, such as Martin Luther King’s birthday, have been omitted from the list.)