The Winter Break That Never Ends : Schools: Many families are only now beginning to face the reality of the two-month vacation and what it involves.

The exact moment may be hard to pinpoint, but the reality of the new and controversial two-month winter break in the school year will hit most parents early this week.

With the holiday bustle over, private and parochial school students as well as those who attend public schools in Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and Culver City will strap on their backpacks and head back to the classroom.

But not most Westside public school students. All Los Angeles Unified School District schools on a single track will remain closed until Valentine’s Day, much to the dismay of bored kids and frantic parents who are unable to find good, affordable programs for their youngsters.

Despite the highly publicized debate surrounding the new year-round schedule imposed throughout the district this year, aimed at putting underpopulated suburban schools on a common calendar with overcrowded inner-city schools, many parents are only now realizing that the break is a fact.

“We’ve had dozens of calls from outraged parents asking ‘How can you do this to us? Eight weeks is ridiculous. What am I supposed to do with my kids?’ said Jeff Crain, deputy to Mark Slavkin, a school board member from the Westside. “We didn’t know what to say,” after months of discussions, news reports and school flyers.

School officials had predicted that entrepreneurs would race to come up with new programs to fill the gap created by the new schedule, but that didn’t happen. Some traditional summer vacation camps said they could not switch schedules because they depend on college-student counselors and reliably good weather for outdoor activities and comfortable sleeping, and day camps are sticking largely with supervised play and amusement park field trips.

Crain said, however, that lack of counselors is a flimsy excuse when many colleges now have extended winter breaks and there are 10,000 unemployed teaching assistants willing to work for low wages.

He said the transition to the new schedule is understandably difficult for both the school district and the agencies that provide youth activities during vacations, both because the schedule is new and disruptive and because of the economy.

“These programs are very expensive to run,” he said.

“It’s not the best education solution,” he said of the new schedule. “The decision was not made on an educational basis but to coordinate with other (schools’) calendars. Kids should go more weeks, not less, and should not have long breaks that interrupt the momentum of learning.”

Plenty of child care programs are available but few, two weeks into the vacation, are filled. Most are costly or offer little more than baby-sitting, and many have age restrictions.

For $500, your youngster can participate in a four-week acting workshop at the Santa Monica Playhouse or train at the Broadway Gym for $225 a week. Forty-nine dollars buys a one-day ski trip to Wrightwood with the Sierra Ski and Pack Club. The Palisades Enrichment Programs at Palisades Elementary offers three weeks of half-day workshops for $350; PTA-sponsored programs at several schools cost about $85 a day. Bruin Kids/UCLA offers two-week sessions at $300 each.

Slightly less are YMCA and city Recreation and Parks day camps in local parks, as well as weeklong winter day camps offered by Mitch Miller’s popular Westside Baseball School. The Ys also offer resident camps at Big Bear.

And playgrounds at many schools are open and supervised for a few hours each day, although some have been rented out to private camps.

Regardless, many families are still without firm plans.

Some working parents are simply leaving their children home alone, unattended. Palisades mother Melodye Kleinman says she was not impressed with the programs being offered and solved her child care problem by “hiring” her 15-year-old son, Ben, to keep an eye on his younger brother, Andy, 9.

Whitney Hubbs, 14, says she is “taking it easy” but may sign up for swim lessons later, while her brother, Cary, 9, will begin three weeks of folk dancing and computers at Palisades Elementary on Monday, in a program put together by the booster club called STEPS (for Science, the Arts, Enrichment Programs & Sports).

“Our program offers three solid weeks of real enrichment, built around themes such as self-esteem, community awareness and the environment,” STEPS director Jane Keeve said. “With a two-month winter break, we wanted to create programs at a different level--drama, arts, reading--that focus on things kids don’t usually get in summer, when sports are central. STEPS will offer a whole different experience.”

Forty children have been given full scholarships for the program and more are available, Keeve said.

Westwood mom Karen Delshad recently began a new job and says she needs reliable child care. Her youngsters, Lauren, 10, and Jeffrey, 6, will begin the Bruin Kids camp at UCLA this week.

But even two-income families are finding the costs steep for several children.

Marika Gerard-Tur figures it is cheaper to have her housekeeper work extra hours to watch Katy, 8, and Jamie, 6, than to place them in a structured program.

Still others are scrambling to find--or create--interesting, affordable programs. One disgusted mother says she may offer a small poetry-writing workshop based on visits to the ocean in early February, after many programs end.

Not all parents are opposed to the long intersession.

Carmela Stein, whose boys Dan, 9, and Jeremy, 12, attend the Brentwood Science Magnet and Revere Middle School, doesn’t work outside the home and plans to travel and spend more time with her family. “We’re going to try to set aside two hours each day without TV for reading or educational computer games.”

A Mar Vista family says the extended break will allow them to take a vacation to New Zealand that couldn’t be crammed into the usual two-week break.

And Marion Hogue of Westchester, who doesn’t work outside the home, said she relishes the extra time “to do the kinds of things we say we are going to do but never get around to”--amusement parks, children’s movies, even leisurely trips to the barber. The state of the economy rules out a ski trip, but she says the family--which includes Brian, 12, who attends Walter Reed Junior High in the Valley, and Kevin, a fourth-grader at the Brentwood Science Magnet--go with their father on a business trip to Florida.

But even the Hogues aren’t entirely happy about the school calendar. “A lot of their friends are going back to school Monday,” she said.