Schools Won’t Fight Ruling Against Shorter Semester : Education: Blocked by state, L.A. district will restore eight days that had been dropped to make teachers eligible for jobless benefits.

Los Angeles school district officials agreed Monday not to fight a state decision that prevents them from shortening the spring semester by eight days, and said campuses will return to the original schedule beginning Wednesday.

About 200 of the district’s 700 schools resumed classes last week on a new schedule that extended the school day about 30 minutes to make up for instructional time that was to have been lost by trimming the eight days.

Last Friday, the State Board of Education withdrew its support for the controversial plan, saying that district officials misled them about the savings that the schedule changes would generate. The state board rescinded a waiver of state policy that allowed the shortened calendar.

Supt. Sid Thompson said Monday that notices will be sent to parents today informing them about the abrupt schedule change and that parents should contact individual school principals if they have questions.

The majority of schools are on winter break until mid-February. Their schedules will remain as they were set at the beginning of the school year.

The shortened calendar was approved 4 to 3 by the Los Angeles Board of Education last month in a move to allow 58,000 full-time employees, who have been stung by deep pay cuts, to be eligible to apply for special unemployment benefits.

Thompson said that teachers will not be paid for the extra hours they have worked over the last seven days, but that the minutes will be taken off their workday later in the year. This will mean some shortened days for most schools.

The state action means that teachers will not be eligible to apply for the unemployment benefits for the eight days that schools were to be shut down. Under the state Workshare program, furloughed employees could receive up to $46 a day for the time not worked.

However, most of the district’s 38,000 classified employees--including cafeteria and clerical workers--have already been guaranteed the eight furlough days in union contracts and will take the days off.

United Teachers-Los Angeles President Helen Bernstein said it is unfair that teachers cannot be granted the eight days off like other employees. Thompson countered that it was the teachers union that had opposed the calendar change, despite the district’s resolve to make the move to help cushion the blow of salary cuts.

While Bernstein had signed an agreement that permitted teachers to apply for the unemployment benefits, she said the union informed the state board in writing of its opposition to the calendar change.

Thompson stressed Monday that a return to the original calendar represents no change in the cumulative 12% salary reduction for teachers this year.