Year round premature

We hate to say we told you so. We will just say what we said before. Year-round schooling is going to be problematic.

With about half of the Cal State University campuses moving toward year-round operations this summer, administrators are not sure where funding will come from.   In fact, Keith Polakoff, Cal State University, Long Beach vice president of academic affairs, said the CSU system has committed to a goal the state may not be willing to pay for.

Considerations about the financial impact of the conversion include compensating professors for teaching an extra semester while receiving less money in tuition.

The universities will have to lower summer tuition to make it on par with winter and spring semesters. As it is now, summer classes offered through University College and Extension Services cost more than regular sessions.

To interest students, tuition would have to fall. Without additional funding from the state, it would be difficult to run a bare bones semester. In addition, students have not expressed an interest in summer sessions until they are ready to graduate.

The need for professors has not even been met as of yet. How do CSU administrators expect to convince professors to teach an extra semester? Ken Swisher, spokesman for the Chancellor's office said that some options include providing financial compensation to teachers that continue through the summer or hiring additional faculty to take over the summer sessions.

That should be painfully obvious.

The CSU has no choice but to compensate teachers for an additional semester's worth of work. The real problem is passing this by the California Faculty Association, the faculty union that represents many of the CSU faculty members.

This union is in long-running contract negotiations with the CSU. Just last year, negotiations involving merit pay and retroactive pay raises nearly brought the union to strike.

We can't be expected to believe the union members are going to be happy that after a long and painstaking agreement process, the CSU is going to ask them to move to a year-round schedule, which is not currently part of the contract.

The conversion to year-round operations was reduced from five years to two years, which is creating another set of problems. Without an extra three years to finalize the conversion, less time is available to put into planning, generating funds and negotiating teacher contracts.

The seemingly never-ending increase in enrollment at CSU campuses and universities nationwide needs to be addressed. Creative solutions are needed and year-round schooling maybe the best. But there are too many issues still up in the air to try and make the conversion this summer.