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L.A. Unified may cut school year by 6 days - education - Los Angeles - California - USA

L.A. Unified may cut school year by 6 days

Los Angeles schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines proposed Friday cutting six days from the school year to help reduce an estimated $640-million deficit and avoid the need for widespread layoffs in the nation's second-largest school system.

Jason Song and Howard Blume | Los Angeles Times | Published: 02/13/2010 12:53
The move, announced by news release Friday evening, would save the district $90 million and could spare up to 5,000 jobs, Cortines said. The alternative to this drastic action, he said, would be to let the district go bankrupt.

"Do I think [this] is good education policy? No," he said. "But we are in a real crisis."

Cortines has repeatedly said that he did not want to shorten the school year. This is the first time in recent history that a Los Angeles school superintendent has made such a suggestion.

Five of the affected days would be classroom days and the sixth would be a noninstructional day.

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