ELECTIONS / MEASURE U : Proposal for Year-Round Schools Stirs Debate : Ventura: Plan’s effects on learning are a matter of debate. It could also change the way youngsters work and participate in sports.

Although it has been overshadowed by the sweeping school-voucher initiative, another proposal on the November ballot could force its own dramatic changes on the Ventura school system.

Measure U, an advisory vote to the Ventura Unified School District board, proposes to put all of the district’s 25 schools on a year-round schedule.

If approved by voters and adopted by the board, Ventura children from kindergarten through 12th grade would attend classes the same number of days as students on a traditional school calendar.

But their summer break would be cut from 12 weeks to about six, with the other six weeks of vacation spread throughout the year.

Half a dozen Ventura elementary and middle schools are already on year-round calendars.

And educators at these schools say they are pleased with the schedules: Students forget less over the shorter summer breaks, and the frequent vacations during the year help both youngsters and teachers avoid burnout.

But even some of the strongest proponents of year-round schedules waver on whether the calendar should be adopted by the entire district.

“The kids love it,” said Trudy Arriaga, principal of Sheridan Way School, one of the six already on a year-round calendar. “The teachers love it. I love it. The parents seem to love it. But I don’t know if that means it’s for everyone.”

As parent of a daughter at Ventura High School, Arriaga said she worries that the year-round schedule would interfere with high school students who work jobs or take classes during the summer.

Indeed, some of Measure U’s staunchest opponents are teachers and coaches at Buena High, one of the city’s two high schools.

Led by Athletic Director Joe Vaughan and math teacher Steve Magoon, opponents argue that year-round schedules would interfere with high school athletic programs, harm merchants who depend on “back-to-school” business and inconvenience teachers who use the long summer breaks to take college classes.

More importantly, opponents say, research is inconclusive about whether year-round calendars improve the academic performance of students.

“The other side says it’s continuous education,” Magoon said. “I call it continuous interruption.”

Under Measure U, the Ventura district would adopt a calendar similar to the one already used at Sheridan Way, E.P. Foster, Arnaz, Oak View and Mound elementary schools and DeAnza Middle School.

Students would start school around the beginning of August, break for two weeks in October and then continue until the middle of December. The Christmas break would last three weeks instead of the usual two. And children get a three-week spring vacation before ending classes in June.

The school district previously allowed schools to decide for themselves whether to convert to this schedule, until last year when six additional schools decided they wanted to switch to the year-round calendar.

Faced with the prospect of having half the city’s schools on one schedule and half on the other, district officials decided the city would be better off if all schools were on the same schedule.

Too many parents complained, school officials said, that they had children at schools with different calendars, giving families little or no time to vacation together.

“In our community, family togetherness is a priority,” school district administrator Arlene Miro said. “I hear it all the time.”

But after school officials put the measure on the ballot, they decided to remain neutral on the issue and let voters decide.

Because educators at the schools that are already year-round will stay on that schedule regardless of the outcome of Measure U, they also have not campaigned on the issue.

So no group has emerged to champion Measure U and counter opponents, who are passing out bumper stickers and posters urging voters to reject the proposal.

“We think, frankly, this is the sleeper story of the election,” said Ed Tennen, a Cabrillo Middle School parent who is working to defeat Measure U.

Opponents point to Fillmore Senior High School, the only high school in the county on a year-round schedule, where teachers recently voted to change their school’s calendar.

Besides the Fillmore Unified School District, the Oxnard Elementary School District is the only other county district on a year-round schedule.

“It doesn’t serve our high school well mainly because . . . other high schools in the county are not on the same calendar,” said Fillmore High Assistant Principal Joseph Pawlicki.

Many Fillmore High students, for example, are in a vocational program offered through the county superintendent of schools. That program allows students to leave campus in the afternoons for job training.

But the county doesn’t begin the job training until after Labor Day, when other county high schools begin classes. So Fillmore High students in the vocational program have nothing to do in the afternoons for their first six weeks of school, Pawlicki said.

Athletics is also a problem, he said.

The Fillmore football team is already in school in August when their rivals around the county are practicing two and three times a day preparing for the season.

Fillmore school officials may solve that problem this year. They will ask the state to allow the area high schools on year-round calendars to begin preseason practices earlier, an exception that has already been granted to some schools in San Diego County.

But Buena High’s Vaughan warns that his school’s thriving athletics program would face similar problems if put on a year-round schedule.

Besides cutting into preseason practice time, a year-round calendar may also lead to a drop in attendance at high school games.

Ventura residents who take vacations during the long school breaks in the fall and spring won’t be in town to attend games, Vaughan said.

Fewer fans at games would mean less money for the school, he said, because basketball and football games now raise about $55,000 a year that is used to finance many school activities.

“If you don’t get the gate receipts,” Vaughan said, “it’s very difficult to fund other sports.”

Despite Vaughan’s concerns and Fillmore High’s unhappiness with the year-round calendar, officials at some other high schools around the state said they are pleased with the calendar.

At Sweetwater Union High in National City, just south of San Diego, attendance has improved and the dropout rate has been cut in half since the school switched to a year-round calendar seven years ago, officials said.

Students on a year-round schedule skip school less, Sweetwater officials said, because the frequent breaks refresh them.

The new calendar has not interfered with attendance at athletic events or student participation in sports, said Sweetwater Assistant Principal Ralph Mora, a former coach. “Year-round does not have any negative impact on athletics.”

Some Ventura business leaders and school officials also dismissed opponents’ claims that year-round schools would financially hit retailers and students.

Merchants “would have three opportunities to promote back-to-school instead of just one,” said Ron Baker, who represented the Greater Ventura Chamber of Commerce on an advisory committee on year-round schools.

And Miro said students who want to earn money could make up for the shorter summer vacations by working longer at Christmas and during the other school breaks.

Measure U supporters admit that a year-round calendar would shorten summer school, which is usually six weeks.

But they say students on a year-round schedule are able to take short two- and three-week class sessions during the fall and spring breaks, where struggling students can get extra help and better students can work toward additional school credits.

Miro said she is concerned that the voters will be ignorant of both the advantages and drawbacks of year-round education because public attention has focused on the school-voucher initiative.

But Ventura Unified Supt. Joseph Spirito said he is confident the community will make its feelings about year-round education known in the coming election.

“If they want it, they’ll come out and vote for it,” Spirito said. “If they don’t, they won’t.”