In the latest effort to close the $640 million budget deficit, the Los Angeles Unified School Board unanimously approved a deal with United Teachers Los Angeles to furlough teachers for five days this year and seven days next year. The shortened school year negates lay-offs planned for this year, saving 2,100 school jobs.

"No one wants to shortchange our students or shorten our school year," said board member Steve Zimmer before voting on the agreement that could
save the district $140 million in the next two years. "This was the best of all negative options in a state that has chosen not to prioritize public education,"

A slew of protests against school cuts and teacher lay-offs hit LAUSD in the past year. But this time officials from UTLA and the school board seemed to agree that the plan is the only option to avoid more teacher lay-offs and more crowded classrooms. The agreement will save teachers, nurses and librarian jobs.

Still, the condensed instructional time raises some concern over student learning in LAUSD.

"We are faced with two awfuls: awful and more awful," said school board member Richard Vladovic.

UTLA agreed to the deal over the weekend, with 80 percent of the union's teachers voting for the unpaid furlough days.

"We thought this was the most fair way to do this and it also drives home the message to the public that if they don't get involved in pressuring the legislator, California is going to continue to sink lower and lower," said UTLA secondary vice president Gregg Solkovits.

Even though the district has been floating the plan for weeks, the message hasn't reached all student homes yet.

"That's real bad because it's really important for kids to go to school," said Sandra Serrano who heard of the plan for the first time as she dropped her son off at L.B. Weemes Elementary School this morning. "One day of sickness gets them behind, imagine five days," said Serrano.

Parents will also have to grapple with finding childcare for an extra week and adjust to bumped-up graduation dates for high school seniors.

"We have to make arrangements for childcare and to rework my schedule," said Cesar Ponce as he dropped his 2nd grader off at L.B. Weemes.

In a district already strapped for resources, teachers are now tasked with changing their curriculum to cover the same material in less time. The cut in the school year may have come too late for teachers to modify courses.

"It's impossible to teach the same amount of material, you don't have time," said Chet Hood, Title I coordinator and teacher at L.B. Weemes.

Solkovits thinks teachers are flexible enough to deal with the change with just a few months left in the school year. But he said the district could do more to free-up teaching time.

"Now if the district was smart they could help by rolling back some of their mandated assessments that take up valuable teaching time, and that's something I'm going to encourage the district to do," said Solkovits.

University of Southern California professor of education, Margo Pensavalle, agreed that school days need to be reprioritized, although she doesn't think mandated assessments are the problem.

"It's the teachers responsibility to find ways that engage kids and when kids aren't engaged they aren't learning, and to me that's wasted time," said Pensavalle.

Pensavalle doesn't think the shortened school year will make much of a difference in learning. In her view time in classroom doesn't equate more learning.

"The main priority is quality teaching, and whether that happens five days less a year, I don't think that's going to matter," she said, "Instruction is either too far above or too far below kids, because we are kind of teaching to the one size fits all and there isn't enough differentiation going on in the classroom."

But a district-wide effort to change frameworks to more effectively teach the 60,000 students in LAUSD may get the back burner as the district struggles to close the remaining $500 million budget shortfall.

Preparing for the possibility of more LAUSD proposals to cut the deficit, UTLA leaders say they'll keep on lobbying Sacramento for more money to retain teachers and smaller class sizes.

"UTLA is going to continue to scrutinize the district budget, because part of this deal says that if we find that they've [LAUSD] hidden any money we can reopen, or if they get new sources of money coming in, we can reopen," said Solkovits.