By Nick Casey

For the second time in three years, the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District Teachers Association (DTA) is considering a calendar change. Under the proposal, which would take effect in the 2007-2008 school year, classes would begin Aug. 20 instead of Aug. 24.

Todd Wangsness, DTA president, said the proposed change addresses the inequity in the length of the two semesters. In the current system, the first semester is significantly shorter than the second. The new calendar reduces the difference to ten days.

However, pointing to the fact that a similar proposal was struck down in 2003, some teachers in the union are opposed to the change.

“We voted against this three years ago,” said Frank Navarro, second vice president of the DTA. “A lot of teachers may have childcare issues and will have trouble making arrangements due to the schedule change.”

The reemergence of the proposal came after a group of students at Los Altos High School suggested the change after first-semester finals were moved from mid-January to before the Christmas break. The program was piloted at Los Altos High School for one year.

According to Steve Hope, associate superintendent for personnel and technology for the Mountain View-Los Altos district, this year the district indicated it was open to consider the change for all schools in next year’s calendar negotiation with the DTA.

Gina Dunsmore, physics teacher at Mountain View High School, said the change would leave the calendar incompatible with other schools in the area that are outside the district.

“Our old or current schedules are more closely aligned with the middle schools as well as other schools in the surrounding areas,” she said. “This makes scheduling easier for both parents and teachers who may live or have children in those other areas and allow families to be together.”

Navarro, who is also a history teacher at Mountain View High, mentioned the possibility that teachers may not be compensated for the five days cut from their summer.

Concerns about the calendar are premature, according to Wangsness.

“In the end, the decision (for or against the new calendar) will be made after the negotiation with the district and after a vote among all union members,” he said.

Wangsness also dismissed the objection that the matter had already been voted down in 2003, saying the school calendar was an issue to be renegotiated annually.

Hope, however, said he did not expect the renegotiation of the calendar to be an annual event during talks with the union. “As we are exploring conceptually what our interests are, once we arrive to an agreement that meets both sides’ needs (union and district) it will be an automatic thing from here on out,” he said.

A survey of DTA members will likely give a better picture of the teacher’s sentiments when the results are tallied later this week, Wangsness said.