School District Ponders Shorter Classroom Year : Education: As a money-saving measure, terms would be trimmed and students’ days would be lengthened by 30 to 40 minutes. But the plan may violate state law.

Faced with an ever-worsening financial crisis, Los Angeles Unified School District officials are considering a drastic plan to shorten the school year by 17 days beginning this fall.

The district would compensate for the abbreviated academic year by tacking an extra 30 to 40 minutes onto the school day. The overhaul would save the district about $160 million in staff and teacher salaries, as well as costs in transportation, utilities and other daily expenses, officials said.

But the proposed plan would very likely violate state requirements that the school year span 180 days and could mean the loss of state funding, state Department of Education officials said. A high-ranking district official said the district would ask for special consideration because its financial problems are so severe.

Although the conversion is in the preliminary stages of discussion, the proposal comes on the heels of a widely unpopular districtwide switch last August to a year-round schedule and would probably spark the ire of parents weary of change. But several officials said the magnitude of the district’s budget shortfall--estimated at up to $600 million next year--requires extreme measures.

“Because of the budget crisis we may have to implement plans we never would have dreamed of,” board member Roberta Weintraub said Thursday. “No one is going to think it’s a wonderful idea, but nothing would illustrate to the public the fiscal crisis more than shortening the school year.”

Under the plan, introduced this week by Supt. Bill Anton, students would effectively lose no instructional time, but teachers would most likely be forced to give up paid conference and preparation sessions and teach during those periods.

The loss of 17 days of pay would amount to slightly more than an 8% salary cut--on top of a 4% reduction imposed last fall. One district official who asked not to be identified said that even the 8% savings would not be sufficient and that salaries and benefits may have to be reduced by as much as 15%.

Helen Bernstein, president of the teachers union, called the plan unacceptable unless the district--the nation’s second-largest--first slashed administrative spending. Anton is expected to announce Monday his recommendations for such cuts in next year’s budget.

“I gave a 4% pay cut last year. I volunteered to help the district out in exchange for a better way to run the district,” she said. “If they do not cut a single administrator and every single piece of fat, (but instead) run to me with another pay cut, they’ll have a strike on their hands.”

Any move to alter the school calendar must be done by July 1, when the new school year begins. Some officials said six weeks represented an impossible time frame for the district to complete negotiations with its unions, much less notify schools and parents of the change.

“It’s ill-advised,” Eastside representative member Leticia Quezada said of the proposal, which would likely be voted on by a sharply divided school board. “It’s impossible to propose something like this and implement it 45 days from now.

“The concept is something that would be impossible to sell to the parents,” Quezada added. “The repercussions of it, including decreasing the number of instructional days, would be a difficult concept to justify at a time when the people of Los Angeles want more education, not less.”

About 40 of the district’s 625 schools have instituted the longer school day, largely in an effort to relieve crowding on campuses in areas of the district west of downtown and in the southeast cities of Bell, Huntington Park, Cudahy and South Gate, which are part of the Los Angeles school district. The schedule, which is known as Concept 6, divides students into three groups, which attend school throughout the year on a staggered multitrack schedule.

School officials said instituting the Concept 6 schedule throughout the district would most likely require special approval by the state, which has been pushing for a longer school year. But John Gilroy of the state Department of Education said chances of the district being granted a waiver to allow students to attend only 163 days are virtually nil.

The State Board of Education has the authority to waive some attendance requirements, “but specific areas are off limits to that general waiver authority and this is one of them.” Extreme extenuating educational circumstances would be required to justify such a waiver, “and I don’t think school finance would be one of them.”

Bernstein said her union has supported the extended school day in the past for educational reasons. Teachers interviewed Thursday said longer class periods allowed them greater scope in planning their lessons.

“I appreciate the longer period--I’m able to do more with them,” said English teacher Cynthia Shelton of Huntington Park High School, which has operated on the shortened calendar for more than a decade. “With the younger students it involves different techniques. . . . (But) there’s nothing automatic that says a 16-year-old cannot pay attention for an hour.”

“We’re able to get in much more of a curriculum program because we have 30 more minutes,” said Michael Rosales, principal of State Street Elementary School. “With 30 minutes less you have to shorten up on every single subject.”

But Quezada pointed to studies that showed many teachers used the additional time for non-academic activities, such as arts and crafts.

She and other board members did get a glimmer of good news Thursday: Budget officials reported that they expected the nation’s second-largest school district to end this fiscal year in the black without further reductions.

Chief financial officer Robert Booker, in an interim report to the board, said the district “is able to meet its financial obligations for the remainder of this fiscal year” and also has “sufficient funds” in benefits, workers’ compensation and insurance accounts to cover losses and claims.

Board members were able to keep the district’s 1991-92, $3.7-billion budget in balance by making midyear cuts of $130 million after an unexpected shortfall was revealed in January.

Times education writers Jean Merl and Sandy Banks contributed to this story.