Teachers in Las Virgenes Unified School District will be required to take unpaid days off to help balance a district budget that has been decimated by state cuts over the past three years.

The district has lost $13 million in state funding since 2007.

A tentative agreement between the district and Las Virgenes Educators Association, the teachers union, will shorten the school year for students and reduce teacher salaries by 5.4 percent. But the move also allows the district to rescind almost all of the layoff notices issued to teachers in March.

Furlough days this year will be May 24 through 27. An additional eight days will be shaved off the school year in 2010-11. Next year school will start later and end earlier than is customary.

Teachers aren’t the only ones taking a salary hit. Superintendent Donald Zimring said counselors and administrators will take the same pay reduction, effective May 1.

Karen Kimmel, chief business official, said the 5.4 percent pay reduction will save the district $2.7 million over the course of two years.

Zimring said reducing teacher salaries and the school year was one of the most difficult decisions he has ever been required to make in his years with the district. The call to shorten the school year points to the “dismal” condition of California’s budget, he said.

Zimring said he was proud of how the teachers union leadership “set aside anger” to do what is best for students.

When faced with the prospect of a pay cut through furlough days, teachers unions in other California school districts have called for a strike. Teachers in the Capistrano Unified School District went on strike April 22, and according to some reports only 39 percent of students showed up for class. The schools lost per-pupil funding for a reported 20,000 students, and the district had to hire up to 600 substitute teachers to replace those on the picket line.

Assistant Superintendent of Personnel Dan Stepenosky said he was pleased that the teachers union in Las Virgenes negotiated with district officials but added that the tentative agreement will not solve the budget problems and will undoubtedly create other challenges for staff, teachers, parents and students.

Sandra Pope, union president, agreed there was a need for teachers to agree to the furlough days. Had the school district not been able to save 63 teacher jobs, Pope said students would have had to endure significant increases in class size.

“It is a pitiful and shameful message to our students that there was a greater public outcry against the possible closing of state parks than to the losses suffered by cuts to public education,” Pope said.

“No one in the Las Virgenes School District is hiding money or misspending funds. Living in an affluent community and scoring highly on the state tests has been used against our children since many of our schools are denied access to funding that is often given to underperforming schools,” she said.

In a letter to the school board, parent Pamela Evans asked that a solution be found for parents who must find additional day care for their children on the extra days off from school.

Evans said that many families will not be using the time for vacations but will instead struggle with “a huge child care crisis for the week.”

School board member Lesli Stein said that while the budget issues that caused the district to reduce the school year represented a “sad time in the state of California,” the collaboration between union representatives and the district to find a solution was “unprecedented” and a “good day for Las Virgenes.”

Board member Dave Moorman said, “We’re just kicking the problem further down the road. The challenges are certainly not over, (but) every little bit counts.”

Moorman said although the teachers won’t be coming to school, their work load hasn’t changed

Pope sarcastically suggested that there was a “plot to dumb down education to create a populace that will reelect representatives that have such a low regard for education.”

But she praised the educators, saying, “Teachers, counselors, and specialists will continue to strive for academic excellence in our classrooms and hope that our community will join together to find ways to provide the financial and emotional support needed to maintain the integrity of our district.”