California Budget Cuts = Much Less School
For most California schools from K-12, local districts have had to make deep cuts into their operating budgets. Even at the college level, many classes are not offered although tuition and books skyrocket. Some school districts have fared better than others due to their local economies and this allows some school districts to avoid making cuts. Among the list of cuts most have made in the State (cuts in teachers, services, sports, music, choir, library) the worse is in the number of days of instruction for the coming school year.
It use to be that a typical school year was 9+ months long. In our local district, Sonoma County, the school year is 175 days long. While this may appear fine, the actual number of fulltime days of instruction, 8-2:30 pm, is really only 125 days or 6.25 months. This is due to 50 half days, 8-12:30. All because of the California State and local budget issues. Let's face it, every Wednesday is a half day, and many subjects and time to teach is either cut short or not at all. Thus, not a lot of instruction occurs on those days. Also because of the cuts, now students receive a full week off for Thanksgiving and a whopping 14 days off for Christmas (up from 7 days last year). At Easter, they are off another 5 days.
The increase in the number of half days is simply extraordinary from last year, not only do the students suffer but parents suddenly find themselves having to deal with these half days and are a great inconvenience making finding daycare a big issue.
It would be interesting to hear from others across the globe about the number of days of FT instruction other students receive, minus holidays and half days. California cannot continue to cut education as they have to balance the budget.
