District Blames Teachers Union for 5,000 Student Absences

Leaders of the teachers union are to blame for causing more than 5,000 student absences throughout the Newport-Mesa Unified School District on Monday by using the federal holiday as a "bargaining chip," district officials said today.

However, the Newport-Mesa Federation of Teachers is disputing that claim, saying school was in session because of the union's jam-packed to-do list.

District officials and school board member Karen Yelsey have pointed the finger at a scheduling error and the teachers union for failure to make Jan. 2 a non-classroom day to observe the federal holiday.

"It seems to me that because the district felt it was in the best interest of the students and parents to change the date, the union obviously saw this as a bargaining chip in negotiations and refused to move," Yelsey said.

"The calendar issue could have been resolved with just a basic agreement that we take off on Jan. 2, a national holiday and make the day up somewhere else," she said.

Nicholas Dix, executive director of the teachers union, said that wasn't the case. He said the union simply didn't have enough time to reach an agreement with the district because its agenda was full.

“It was a very cumbersome issue. The district made proposals that we didn't feel fit the best interest of our members and we made proposals to the district they didn't agree to," Dix said. "Additional time was the factor and the fact that we had other issues on the table like benefits that we were discussing. We had a lot of issues to resolve with the calendar being only one of them."

N-MUSD spokeswoman Laura Boss said the academic calendar was given the stamp of approval three years ago. When officials realized the error 13 months ago, Boss says the employees' unions were asked to convert the date to a non-classroom day.

"Mr. Dix is correct that there were other issues on the table to discuss. However, resolving the calendar issue was a priority for the district because of its impact on student and parent schedules," Boss said. "Unfortunately, it wasn’t a mutual priority."

Final numbers released Wednesday afternoon showed absences for 2,764 elementary students, 1,607 high-schoolers and 753 middle-schoolers, totaling  5,124 absences districtwide. The results are an increase from reported by the N-MUSD earlier in the week.

Parent Jessica Villasenor said her daughter, Olivia, a sixth-grader at Newport Heights Elementary, was one of the absent students who suffered because of the lack of agreement.

"Olivia said she had school, but I kept her home thinking there was no way school would be held on a federal holiday," Villasenor said. "It just wasn't well-communicated to parents; I didn't receive a flyer or an email about it," Villasenor said.

"Olivia had to stay in from recess to make up the work she missed, and was up on Tuesday night until about 11 p.m. doing homework. On Monday, her teacher even introduced a new project so she missed a lot."

Boss said although Monday was a high-absenteeism day, the district did not cancel a full day of school, therefore it is not an issue that will rise to state education involvement.