Winter Season to Remain the Same for Prep Sports

Winter sports in the Los Angeles Unified School District will maintain their traditional seasons next year despite year-round school.

By a 5-2 vote Monday, the Board of Education approved funding to keep the seasons the same.

Year-round school will begin July 1. The majority of the district’s 49 high schools, however, are not overcrowded and will not be open year-round. Those schools will hold classes from mid-August to mid-December and from mid-February to mid-June.

To open schools during the winter break for athletics, to provide athletes necessary transportation and to pay coaches to come back during vacation time, the board voted to provide an additional $1,237,809 to the district’s athletic budget. Half of that will be used for transportation.

Currently, practice for winter sports begins during the first week in November, and the season concludes by the end of February.

When the board voted in favor of year-round school in February of 1990, there was speculation that winter sports would be moved to the fall because most schools would be closed during the heart of their seasons.

Several public hearings were held on the issue in recent months, and coaches and parents overwhelmingly voted in favor of keeping the winter-season schedule intact.

Hal Harkness, district athletic commissioner, said that could only be done if extra money was provided.

Several coaches addressed the board Monday, urging passage of the additional funding.

“Idle time for kids has proven to be a travesty in our society today,” said Richard Masson, boys’ basketball coach at Carson High. “We definitely need to provide extracurricular activities. Athletics give kids an opportunity to stay busy and do something positive.”

Tak Aoki, boys’ basketball coach at South Gate High, told the board to consider the value ofathletics as part of the entire educational process.

Jeff Davis, boys’ basketball coach at Canoga Park High, added that sports are an important part of the community.

“Although some coaches might not want to come back on their vacation time, I think most of us don’t see it as a problem,” Davis said. “We coach because we love it.”

If the board had not voted to provide the extra funding for winter sports, there was concern that top athletes would flock to schools outside the district to improve their chances for exposure to college recruiters.

Winter sports affected include boys’ and girls’ basketball, boys’ and girls’ soccer and boys’ wrestling.

“It is up to me to finalize all of the dates for our winter-season sports,” Harkness said. “I will attempt to do that in the next two weeks. Right now, though, I see everything staying pretty much the same as it is now.”

Jackie Goldberg, board president, said it was important to keep certain activities the same even though the class calendar will change.