Er, this is kind of complicated.  Bear with us.

At a meeting of the Board of Education Tuesday evening at LBUSD headquarters, the board unanimously approved cuts that will affect athletics at Wilson and Millikan high schools.  Additionally, they unanimously approved putting an end to “high school summer sports clinics,” although we are currently unclear on what programs precisely that entails.  The summer clinics cut is estimated to save $150,000 on an on-going basis.

The cuts to Wilson and Millikan are estimated to save $320,000 on an on-going basis, although prior to the vote Board Member Jon Meyer expressed concern at Superintendent Chris Steinhauser’s lack of presented data as to how the money will be saved.  The issue has already been passed, but Steinhauser pledged that the info on how the $320,000 will break down will be made available in the future.

The changes were made only to Wilson and Millikan, because both schools are on a pure block schedule—meaning their classes are twice as long as those on a traditional schedule, and they meet every other day.  For example, one week, periods 1, 3, 5, and 7 would meet on Monday/Wednesday/Friday, while periods 2, 4, 6, and 8 would meet on Tuesday/Thursday; the next week, those schedules would be reversed.  Currently, most coaches at the school have two coaching periods, allowing them to supervise and work with their teams during school on the odd-centric days as well as even-centric days, in addition to their after school practices.  The cut the school board made was to only allow one coaching period, down from two.

The text of the budget item reads: “Keep the high school sports program within the regular school day.  Modifications will be made at Millikan High School and Wilson High School due to the block schedule.  Sports would meet every other day like all other classes.”  The initial proposal, back in January, called for moving all sports programs outside the school day.  It’s a victory won to have athletics kept within the school day—that will help to prevent Long Beach from turning into LAUSD or so many other urban districts staffed by walk-on coaches with no real hold in the school. 

While backing away from the proposed wholesale change is a positive thing, the cut could still prove to be problematic.  By cutting sports classes down to one day out of two, the Board has essentially pushed athletics to outside school hours on 50% of the school schedule, for two high schools.  Better than outside school hours for 100% of the schedule for all high schools, certainly, but it’s easy to understand why the plethora of gathered Wilson and Millikan coaches and athletic directors are upset at the idea of taking the cuts, when Poly, Lakewood, Cabrillo, and Jordan are unaffected.

Poly is not affected by the cut because they use a hybrid block schedule—they have one half-time period (period 7) that meets every day, so it’s 1, 3, 5, and 7 M/W/F and then 2, 4, 6, and 7 T/Thur one week, and the opposite the next.  The seventh period is the sports period, and it meets every day, meaning coaches have their athletes every day, in addition to after-school practices.  The other three schools aren’t on a block schedule, so all their periods meet every day.

Remaining ways for Wilson and Millikan to fight the cut seem pretty slim, especially since the Board limiting the cuts to two schools will likely quell any kind of massive parental uprising across the city.  The most viable way would seem to be to vote to change their schedule—if they go to a traditional (all classes meet every day) or hybrid system (similar to Poly’s), that would change things.  Votes from the schools on how their schedules will be constructed for next school year will be due March 12—although apparently Wilson has already held theirs. 

While we’re glad to see the major-level crisis (moving all sports outside the school day) averted, it is of course a shame to see two schools bear the brunt of the cuts.  Aside from our obvious pro-sports bias, it’s confusing from a purely journalistic perspective to see a cut like that approved unanimously by a board that acknowledges there’s no supporting data showing how the “money saved” number was created.  This is especially in light of the fact that two of the four proposed reductions on Tuesday’s agenda (the athletics cut, and the “Two-Harbors Classroom” cut) were listed as lower savings than the Board had previously been told they’d be.

Stay tuned, of course, for all your sports and (apparently) board-room updates here at LBPOSTsports.com.