State officials say it’s possible that laws can be circumvented — all you need is a waiver.
The local school district may ask for a waiver so it can close school for 10 days this year to cope with a $3.4 million reduction in state funding. However, state law requires that schools be open for 180 days to receive money from the state.
The state’s Department of Education is being inundated with requests from California school districts to be exempt from certain state laws, said Nicole Winger, a state DOE spokeswoman.
“The main issues are about closure or staff reductions,” she said. “Those are the general areas people are looking at.”
Santa Monica-Malibu Unified District Superintendent John Deasy asked the school board on Thursday to consider closing the district’s schools for an entire week and then every Friday for five weeks. That way, the district wouldn’t have to pay employees and would not run the risk of having to lay off hundreds of employees and reduce academic programs.
The move would require approval from the state board of education, which approves waivers from local school districts that are looking for exceptions.
In the past, most districts have asked permission to use state money for things it wasn’t intended for. Now, most school districts are asking about shutting their doors to cope with the staggering loss of state funding, Winger said.
And since the budget deficit seems to grow exponentially on a weekly basis, there hasn’t been too much talk among state board of education members about whether decreasing the required number of school days is an option.
“At this stage, it’s all anecdotal,” Winger said. “We can’t say if there is a wave of support, but we have heard of many different ideas and proposals, and closing schools has been one of them.”
It takes about one to two months for a waiver request from a local school district to be heard by the state board, Winger said.
Winger said there are other ways for school districts to save money. She recommends not to spend anymore money on things like textbooks and other school supplies, as well as paring down the hours of non-teaching staff.
But school districts won’t truly know what types of drastic measures may be needed until Gov. Gray Davis and the Legislature agree on how much funding will be cut this year and next year for education, she said.
“There’s a lot of creative ideas being proposed,” Winger said. “It remains to be seen what will need to be done once the budget is proposed.”
“It remains to be seen what will need to be done once the budget is proposed.” — — NICOLE WINGER State DOE spokeswoman
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 20, 2002. Read the original PDF.