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The Pros and Cons of the Four-Day School Week (LINQ, 2023)

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The Pros and Cons of the Four-Day School Week (LINQ, 2023)

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The concept of a four-day school week keeps gaining traction as it's adopted across the U.S. While it's now a reality for some districts, it remains a curiosity for the rest. In this blog post, we explore the benefits and challenges of adopting a four-day K‑12 school week. Plus, we look at ways to gain similar advantages by improving operational efficiency even if your district isn't likely to adopt a shortened school week in the near future.

In this post, you'll learn:

How States Implement a Shortened Schedule

Pros and Cons of a Four-Day School Week

Achieving Time- and Cost-Savings in a Five-Day Week

Making the switch to a four-day school week is a big decision. Let's start by taking a look at how states go about making this change.

How States Implement a Shortened Schedule

Currently in the U.S., 25 states have at least one district following a shortened school week schedule. The majority of those districts are within western states that are largely rural, like Wyoming, Idaho, and Colorado.

The minimum instructional time required by each state governs school calendars. Funding formulas require schools receive less money from the state if the time requirement isn't met.

Many states allow districts to opt into a four-day school week by offering flexible requirements, definitive rules for the administration, or through a waiver approval process. Legal guidelines don't often list the four-day week as an option, but rather provide flexibility so the minimum instructional day requirement is counted by the hour or minute instead.

Some states offer guidelines on transitioning to a four-day school week and then remain hands-off on monitoring the process. Meanwhile, other states require districts to submit their four-day plans to their state education commissioner or their superintendent for approval.

While the administrative burden associated with switching to a four-day school week varies by state, the change can have a major impact on staff, teachers, and families. These effects factor heavily into any discussion about whether it's the right move for any given district.

Pros and Cons of a Four-Day School Week

Districts making the switch to a shortened school week can realize positive improvements, but tradeoffs exist. Dropping a day from the traditional school week represents a significant change. Many families depend on schools to operate on a similar schedule to their five-day work week, and others rely on schools to help them deal with difficult situations like food insecurity. Inequity is a real concern for any district considering a major shift in their operations.

An alternative tactic districts can consider is how to get the benefits that have them eyeing a shortened schedule without making a change to their traditional five-day week. Improving efficiency can help districts save time and money, helping them give back to teachers so they can better serve their students. In the list of pros and cons below, we'll also include ideas for achieving the pros without cutting a day from the schedule.

The Pros of a Four-Day School Week

Supporters argue that a shortened schedule attracts and helps retain higher quality teachers.

According to a We Are Teachers article, Colorado's District 27J went from a handful of applicants to receiving over 100 applications per posting (including special ed and secondary math positions) after switching to a four-day schedule.

The candidates were also more qualified and had master's degrees or special certifications. On top of all of that, the turnover rate for teachers dropped from 21% to 13% that year.

How to Improve K‑12 Staffing in a Five-Day Week

One of the best ways to address the teacher shortage is to hang on to the ones you have. A smooth onboarding process can be your key to success. Offering teachers and staff a convenient online experience can help them better prepare for their first day on the job, leading to better retention in the long run-up to 82% according to Glassdoor.

Improving your onboarding process with an easier, tech-forward approach can help your team save time and money while reducing recruiting pressure by contributing to lower turnover.
Learn More: Benefits of a Smooth K‑12 Staff Onboarding Process
One of the biggest arguments made for the shortened school week is that it will save money for the district. Proponents say the schedule reduces overhead when you eliminate a full day of bus transportation, food service, and maintenance and operations.

After the Duval County School District in Jacksonville, Florida moved to the four-day schedule, they saved 0.7%. While that sounds like a small return, it actually meant a $7 million reduction in spend for the district.

How to Save Money with Cloud-Based K‑12 Software

Budgets are always tight-that's just a fact of life in education. But the right software solution can help your funding go further by harnessing the full potential of your staff's resources and energy. The best part is, cloud-based K‑12 software maximizes efficiency by giving you powerful software without the need to house, maintain, and secure costly on-site servers.
Learn More: How Cloud-Based Software is Saving School Budgets
A cloud-based K‑12 ERP solution, for example, can help your finance and HR teams spot needs and issues before they become big problems. This could mean getting in front of a staffing shortage at a particular school or adapting and adjusting quickly to spiking supply costs.

IMPROVE EMPLOYEES' WORK-LIFE BALANCE

District 27J in Colorado noticed a large drop in teacher turnover after transitioning to a four-day school week, and this likely attributed to a greater sense of work-life balance.

According to a study conducted in 2018 by the Office of National Statistics in Great Britain, teachers do 20% of their work (10 hours or more) before school, after school and on weekends.

The extra day offers teachers and staff the room to run errands, make personal appointments, complete work-related training or planning. They can also choose to relax, travel, or connect with friends and family.

How to Give Back More Time to K‑12 Teachers and Staff
Learn More: How to Cut Down on Meetings While Managing Your School District
Cutting down on meetings might be the lever most within reach when it comes to giving back more time to teachers and staff. Consider if you often walk out of meetings thinking, "Could that have been an email?" If so, you may already have a lot of room to give back time to teachers and staff without needing to drop a day from the schedule.

Giving time back helps teachers and staff focus more of their workday time and energy on students and their work tasks. That translates directly to leaving work on time more often and spending less time at home thinking about work. They gain more time to rest, recover, and balance their lives.

Each year, educators are required to complete a certain amount of training. Often, teachers have to request a substitute to cover them while they are away for training sessions. With a four-day school week, teachers could attend training without any concern on missing in-class time with their students.

The Cons

Sure. A shorter week sounds like an A+ idea for school districts and teachers. However, critics of the four-day school week find it problematic in its inequity, particularly for lower income families.

In many American households, the adults work eight-hour days at least five days a week. Some parents have more than one job to make ends meet. By moving to a four-day school week, a district inadvertently places working parents in a position of doling out more money for childcare-something many cannot afford.

In addition, some families experiencing food insecurity rely on public schools for nearly half of their meals. If nutrition service is eliminated one day each week, those children could miss out on breakfast and lunch as a result.

Opponents have found that while some larger districts may find overhead savings, they warn that most districts do not. This is attributed to one main thing: educator pay and benefits.

This line item accounts for 65% of all educational spending. A common misconception with projections is that educator pay and benefits could be cut by ⅕, and this hasn't been the case for most districts.

When a school switches to a four-day schedule, it adds up to 90 minutes to the school day. Imagine a five-year-old Kindergartner trying to focus on schoolwork for nine hours. That's asking a lot.

Achieving Time- and Cost-Savings in a Five-Day School Week

Not every district wants to make the shift to a four-day school week, but saving time and money always makes good sense. Fortunately, the right technology can help districts realize many of the attractive benefits outlined in the pros above without dropping a day from the traditional five-day work week. In this blog we looked at a few of the pros and cons.
5 Practical Tips to Improve Efficiency in Your District
The next time a conversation comes up about the benefits of a four-day school week, consider sharing some ideas about achieving the pros without risking the cons. A five-day school week is still the reality for many districts across the U.S. Without a drastic change, that's likely to continue. Districts can still direct energy toward ways to save time and money while reducing stress on their workforce and attracting top talent. Technology plays a crucial role here as it continues to give K‑12 teams more power to streamline operations, improve employees' experience, and adapt to changes and uncertainties through sound data-driven decision making.

Get 5 Tips to Improve K‑12 Operational Efficiency

Make an impact right now whether your district operates on a four-day or five-day schedule with these actionable tips for success:

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The Pros and Cons of the Four-Day School Week

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The four-day school week is a hot topic in education. See the pros and cons, plus get tips to achieve similar benefits with a five-day week.

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Is A 4-Day School Week The Next Trend In Education? (TODAY Show)

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Is A 4-Day School Week The Next Trend In Education? (TODAY Show)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMnEE7s5dOg

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Is A 4-Day School Week The Next Trend In Education? | TODAY

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Is a 4-day week the answer to improving education? (Bradley, 2013).

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Is a 4-day week the answer to improving education? (Bradley, 2013).

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https://newsela.com/read/school-fourday/id/1000/

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Newsela | Small, rural schools going to a four-day week of classes

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With their students off on Mondays, the schools have teachers come in for staff development sessions and technology training. Advocates say this means better-prepared teachers.

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4-Day School Weeks: New Research Examines the Benefits and Drawbacks (Sawchuk, 2021).

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4-Day School Weeks: New Research Examines the Benefits and Drawbacks (Sawchuk, 2021).

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4-Day School Weeks: New Research Examines the Benefits and Drawbacks

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More than 1,600 districts have 4-day weeks. While students report more time for sleep and hobbies, academics lag, according to a new study.

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Four-Day School Week Overview (NCSL, 2023)

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Four-Day School Week Overview (NCSL, 2023)

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Shortening the school week to four days has become an increasingly common trend over the last decade.

Reasons for implementing the shorter week vary, but most school districts implement a shorter week seeking to cut costs due to budget constraints. Research shows that the maximum possible cost savings for districts on a four-day week is 5.43 percent, but average savings range from 0.4 to 2.5 percent. The vast majority of four-day week schools are in small, rural districts; however, in recent years some larger, more urban districts have begun to consider the option of a shorter week.

Most four-day week schools operate Monday through Thursday, with a few opting for Tuesday through Friday. School days are lengthened to deliver the same amount of instructional time over fewer days, as required by state law. Some schools may offer optional enrichment activities, tutoring, or schedule time for teacher development during the fifth day.

Best available research indicates that approximately 560 districts in 25 states have one or more schools on a four-day schedule. More than half of these districts are located in four states-Colorado, Montana, Oklahoma and Oregon-where a significant portion of districts have opted into the four-day week.

While the number of districts in these states is significant, the overall share of the student population on the four-day week is relatively small. For example, Colorado has the largest proportion of public school districts with one or more schools on a four-day week at 98. This number represents more than half of the total school districts in the state, but only about 13 percent of the student population.

How States Implement the Four-Day Week

School calendars are dictated by states' minimum instructional time requirements, which are in turn tied to funding formulas. Schools not meeting the minimum instructional time requirements will receive less funding from the state. Therefore, it is likely only schools operating in states where a four-day week does not violate these requirements would seek to do so.

Most states allow districts to opt into a four-day week, either through flexible requirements, explicit administrative rules, or a waiver approval process. The level of legislative involvement in this process varies. Most statutory guidelines do not specifically list four-day school weeks as an allowable schedule, but may allow calendar flexibility by expressing that the minimum instructional day requirement can also be counted in the hour or minute equivalent.

Some states establish additional guidelines school districts must follow to transition to a four-day week, but do not monitor the process directly or track the number of districts opting into such a schedule. Other states require districts to submit their four-day plans to the state education commissioner or superintendent for approval. In California, districts can only be granted permission to adopt a four-day week if specific legislation is passed. California also enacted legislation in 2014 stipulating that any school not meeting its academic performance targets would have its authority to operate on a four-day schedule revoked.

Pros and Cons of the Four-Day Week

Proponents of four-day school weeks say that even though cost savings are minimal, they are achieved. Anecdotal evidence also suggests that attendance improves; parents and teachers can schedule doctor's appointments and other weekday commitments for Fridays rather than during school days. District administrators also claim that the appeal of a four-day work week helps recruit teachers in areas where it is consistently difficult to attract new staff.

Opponents argue that longer school days are difficult for students, particularly those in elementary grades. Four-day school weeks can also pose a challenge to families who are unable to find affordable, enriching care arrangements on the fifth weekday. Further, students who are food insecure may not have access to sufficient meals during the off day. If optional activities are offered by schools on the fifth day, lack of transportation could limit access.

What the Research Says

Education researchers have pointed out that little is known about the effects of a four-day week on student outcomes. While large-scale research studies have yet to be performed, some state-specific studies have been published. The results are mixed; one study of students in Colorado showed a statistically significant improvement in math scores among students on a four-day schedule, while a similar study found no significant differences in student performance.

An report from Oregon State University showed a temporary decline in academic performance among students who switched to a four-day schedule, particularly among minority, low-income, and special needs students. Four years after the transition, student performance in four-day schools was not significantly different from that of five-day schools. These results make it difficult to draw conclusions about the effects on student outcomes.

A recent study in Colorado revealed another potential negative consequence of four-day weeks: increased juvenile crime. The authors estimate that shifting to a four-day schedule increases juvenile arrests for property crime-especially larceny- by 73 percent, but there was no change in drug-related or violent crimes. The increase in property crime was observed on all days of the week, not just spiking on the day when school is not in session.

Future of the Four-Day Week

There is not yet a complete picture of how four-day school weeks impact students and their families, but it is clear that more districts are adopting the schedule each year. While these districts are primarily smaller and rural, a few notable exceptions have raised questions about the possibility of more urban districts moving toward a four-day week.

Colorado School District 27J, located in the Denver metro area, announced that it would move to a four-day week starting in the 2018-19 school year. With an enrollment of more than 17,000, it is by far the largest district in the state to adopt the four-day schedule. For a fee, the district provides full-day child care on Mondays for students age 5 to 12, but the district is still evaluating needs and capacity for these programs. The local Boys & Girls Club also expanded its services on Mondays.

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Shortening the school week to four days has become an increasingly common trend over the last decade. Reasons for implementing the shorter week vary, but most school districts implement a shorter week seeking to cut costs due to budget constraints.

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Colorado now has more school districts on four-day weeks than any place in the nation — with little research on the benefits (Brown, 2019)

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Colorado now has more school districts on four-day weeks than any place in the nation — with little research on the benefits (Brown, 2019)

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https://coloradosun.com/2019/08/27/four-day-school-weeks-in-colorado/

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LA JARA - Down here, where kids ride the bus for an hour through miles of potato and alfalfa fields to get to school, teachers use the term "null curriculum."

It means any part of a class that's considered fluff. And it's not allowed.

Since the North Conejos School District switched to a four-day week last year, teachers cut out the chill afternoons when kids would watch movies, the free time that sometimes filled the space between math and art class. It is bell-to-bell learning.

"We put a little more shoulder into the wheel," said Superintendent Curt Wilson as he drove a pickup truck from the high school to one of the district's two elementary schools on a hot August day. Wilson grew up in this small town in the San Luis Valley, and as the high school principal, knocked on a senior boy's door every morning for four weeks to make sure the teen got out of bed and made it to graduation.

"We have very little wasted time in this district," Wilson said.

Third-grade teacher Marsha DeHerrera supervises her students as they work on a "Fabulous Me" assignment at La Jara Elementary School. The school is part of the North Conejos School District, which operates on a four-day week. (Mike Sweeney, Special to The Colorado Sun)

In Brighton, north of Denver, where students switched to four-day weeks last fall, teachers say their lessons have become "more intentional." And in Leadville, which will make the change next year, Superintendent Wendy Wyman calls the four-day week a "healthier, more balanced approach" to school and life.

Colorado now leads the nation in the number of districts that have moved to four-day school weeks - 111 out of 178 districts in Colorado. Nationwide, about 600 districts have gone to four-day school. The vast majority are rural - and many of them poor - but also include Pueblo and Brighton, which with 19,000 students and 26 schools is the largest district in the country to hold classes four days instead of five.

The trend has ramped up in recent years, with 27 Colorado districts switching all or some of their schools to four-day weeks in the last four years. The number has doubled in Colorado since 2005. The reasons are most often financial - budget constraints that have pushed districts to look for savings in transportation or building costs like air conditioning and heat. Several districts said they dropped the fifth day because it helps them recruit teachers to schools that can't afford to compete on salary.

Switch to four-day requires a one-page application

The most comprehensive research on four-day school weeks tells us this: adults love it, according to parent satisfaction surveys. What researchers don't know is how it affects children's academic achievement over the long term, and as experts across the country try to get a handle on that question, they are raising alarm about how quickly the phenomenon is taking hold.

At least 25 states now have at least one district on four-day weeks, but the bulk of the districts that have dropped a day are in four states: Colorado, Oklahoma, Montana and Oregon.

For Colorado, the rise of the four-day school week is tied to the state's poor rank in education funding and teacher salaries. A new report says Colorado has the worst pay gap for teachers in the nation, at 40 percent less than the average salary in the state. It's also connected to Colorado's local-control status, meaning school boards can mostly make their own decisions. To switch to four-day weeks, school boards simply must file a one-page spreadsheet showing they still will provide the required number of hours of instruction.

The Colorado education commissioner has denied no one since the state began accepting applications in the 1980s.

But districts need to meet standards for hours of required instruction. To do so, most have added minutes to the school day, though Leadville is instead shrinking summer vacation and adding about a month to the school calendar.

Among education experts, the four-day week is seen as a phenomenon that's taken off without much debate and ahead of any conclusive research. In some states, the state education department does not even track which school districts have moved to four-day weeks, leaving researchers to attempt to count themselves. Colorado began keeping track in 2000.

Bryson Schneider, a sixth grader at Centauri Middle School, takes a science pre-test. (Mike Sweeney, Special to The Colorado Sun)

"I take this as a little bit of a wakeup call," said Georgia Heyward, a research analyst for the Center on Reinventing Public Education, based at the University of Washington. "We should think harder about how it is happening and why is it happening."

Higher juvenile crime, fewer working moms, conflicting test data

The research on the four-day school week is limited and, in some cases, inconclusive, but these are the highlights:

- A 2011 report by the Colorado Department of Education found no significant difference in reading or math scores among four-day and five-day schools. At the time, there were 67 school districts on a four-day calendar. A 2015 study of Colorado schools, published in the journal Education and Finance Policy, found four-day weeks have a positive impact on student achievement, noting slightly higher scores in math and reading.

- A 2019 report from Oregon State University, however, found that four-day weeks have "detrimental effects" on the achievement of Oregon students. The study was different from the Colorado research because it looked not at schools' average test scores, but the scores of individual students. It found that both boys and girls saw math and reading scores drop on standardized tests, but that boys' scores dropped more. It also found reading scores dropped more for students who were eligible for free or reduced lunch compared with students who were not eligible. More research is required, but among the possibilities is that students from impoverished homes fell further behind in reading because of a lack of books or help with reading at home.

- A 2016 Cal Poly State University study of 47 rural counties in Colorado found that juvenile crime, most commonly property crime and theft, increased after schools switched to a four-day week. The study examined crime data from 1993-2009.

- A 2019 University of Illinois at Chicago study that looked at four states, including Colorado, found that four-day school weeks caused an 11% decline in employment among married mothers of children age 5 to 13. Single mothers, however, were no less likely to work and in fact more likely to work year-round. Employment of married fathers was not affected.

A Colorado Sun analysis of state education data found that school districts that have switched to four-day weeks typically have a higher number of impoverished students, based on the percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced lunch. That's not surprising, considering the bulk of the districts on four-day weeks are in Colorado's rural counties, places where the cost of living is lower and, often, so is spending per student.

Among all four-day districts, 51% of students qualify for free lunch. And for five-day districts, the average was 43%.

The Sun's analysis also found that four-day districts had slightly lower scores on average on statewide standardized tests. Yet education experts noted the correlation is likely related to poverty, not necessarily that students are attending school only four days. Poverty is the biggest single factor in student achievement, in Colorado and across the nation.
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In other words, some of the poorest districts in Colorado are the ones choosing to go four days instead of five. What worries education experts is whether kids who in some ways are already at a disadvantage will be further so because of fewer days at school. It's a question that comes amid a national debate about whether American children should go to school more days - not less - than the typical 180.

"I don't see that it's harmful, but that's probably too low a bar when we are thinking about rural education," Heyward said. "One of my real concerns is that, overall, it may look like there isn't much of a change," yet certain students - perhaps those less likely to get help with schoolwork or reading time at home - will fall behind.

The largest district on four-day in the nation

While a handful of rural Colorado schools dropped a fifth day back in the 1980s, and an increasingly steady stream of districts has followed, it was the suburban Denver district in Brighton that made national news.

The district, called 27J, has the lowest local funding per pupil in the metro area and pays teachers a starting salary of $40,400, about $10,000 below neighboring school districts.

So when the community failed for the sixth time to pass a mill levy increase - one that would have, among other needs, boosted teacher pay - the superintendent began exploring a four-day school week. The district announced it was a possibility soon after the November 2017 election, then kicked off a series of community meetings and surveys.

Barbara Haggerty leads her third-grade class at Pennock Elementary School, where students attend school Tuesday through Friday. (Kathryn Scott, Special to The Colorado Sun)

Parents were at first skeptical. Some worried about the expense of daycare. Teachers wondered if they would face a paycut. (They didn't, but they were required to work four longer days, with the payoff of three-day weekends. The district's first job fair after the change attracted 500 people, more than twice as many as typical.)

Now, parent feedback reveals overwhelming support. Teachers love the schedule, and there's an energy among them to teach better than before, or as third-grade teacher Barbara Haggerty puts it, "We became more intentional."

Here's what that looks like in her classroom at Pennock Elementary: the old curriculum suggested teaching the addition table for two days and the subtraction table for another two days. Haggerty knew her kids could learn it in half the time, so she designated one day for each.

Worried the 8- and 9-year-olds would grow restless with the extended school day, Haggerty saves science for the end. This year, her third graders are making root beer floats to study the properties of matter.

Third-grade teacher Barbara Haggerty, left, offers some assistance as Rylan Watson, right, and Scarlet Hood work together on fact strategies with addition and subtraction. (Kathryn Scott, Special to The Colorado Sun)

Last Thursday, the second week of the school year, Haggerty pushed play on Ed Sheeran's "What Do I Know" and the kids sang along. She calls it "traveling music," an interlude while they quickly clean up their math flashcards and line up for art, filing out of their Hawaiian-themed classroom in an orderly queue.

As a parent, Haggerty finds the four-day school week has changed her family for the better. At first, her mind was spinning with the big plans of a supermom - museum day and aquarium day and hiking every Monday! In reality, she and her boys, ages 7 and 9, do those things sometimes, but they also sleep in and go to piano lessons and to the dentist. Their days off from work and school include a bit of curriculum too, often the weekly science-experiment kit that comes in the mail.

About 350 of the 27J's 19,000 kids come to the district's Monday daycare program, which costs $30 per day. Some working parents have formed co-ops to cover the days, including a group of five moms who took every fifth Monday off last year to take their pack of kids on field trips.

The change - one that district leaders say has attracted more experienced teachers and motivated local businesses to offer Monday music lessons, science and art clubs - is considered permanent, officials said. It's unclear whether it has saved money, but teacher recruitment was the larger point.

The district had hoped to improve its standing to an accredited level school - the second-highest level in Colorado - when statewide scores were released this year by the state education department, but 27J fell short. It remains on an improvement plan.

"If scores were to drop immensely, obviously that is something we would have to look at, but we are not expecting that to happen," said Tracy Rudnick, the district's public information officer. "It's going to take a couple of years to really create the concrete data."

Substitute teacher costs are down 50%

The North Conejos district, in far south-central Colorado, is seeing most of its savings in transportation and substitute teachers. Now the buses run four days each week instead of five, and teacher attendance has improved dramatically - so much so that expenses for hiring substitute teachers are down 50%.

All but one of the 14 districts in the Valley had dropped Fridays before North Conejos. And all of them were scheduling sports on Fridays, which meant huge numbers of students and staff were missing Fridays to travel sometimes three or four hours away for football, basketball and track.

Nikol Kelley, a language arts teacher at Centauri Middle School, lectures her class of seventh graders on how to read an essay and intuit an author's intent, as well. (Mike Sweeney, Special to The Colorado Sun)

Consider the middle school track team, which includes 80 of the school's 275 students. Plus three coaches who are also teachers. And two teachers who are parents of athletes. So many people missed school on Fridays that by noon, kids were texting their parents to ask if they could bag the rest of the day.

The town revolves around high school sports - more than half of the district's staff grew up in the county and many are alumni. "You could rob the local bank during an activity here and no one would respond," Wilson said, mostly kidding. "It's extensive travel. And playoffs? Everybody goes to playoffs."

Test scores in North Conejos have been rising, and the district wants to see them continue upward, even with four-day weeks. "All of the studies I looked at prior to the switch were inconclusive at best," Wilson said. "That was scary for our board. But it hasn't affected it. We attribute it to more quality instruction time and less disruption."

The district holds the state's top rating of "accredited with distinction," though scores on standardized tests show an achievement gap between white students and the district's Latino children. About 55% of the district's students are minorities and 68% qualify for free or reduced lunch.

Middle school science teacher Andrew Shelton now teaches "bell to bell." Students often find a question on the white board when they walk through the door and understand it's "bell work," meaning do it immediately, as the bell is ringing.

"We keep our education time sacred," Shelton said, as his students answered written questions about ecosystems.

Reducing transportation costs was factored into the North Conejos School District's decision to move to a four-day school week. (Mike Sweeney, Special to The Colorado Sun)

The district has color-coded its curriculum - red is must-do, blue is next-level priority, and black is OK to skip.

Another San Luis Valley district, the Center Consolidated School District, was also among the last in the region to switch to four-day weeks. That lone status resulted in Center's relatively abrupt adoption of the four-day week two years ago simply so it could compete for scarce teachers - who, all things being equal, liked the idea of three-day weekends.

For counselor Katrina Ruggles, who had for years been fighting to fend off kids' substance abuse and teen pregnancy, moving to a four-day week raised concerns about how an extra day off from school would affect progress. "I was scared of what might happen, knowing kids would be free on Friday," she said.

North Conejos School District Superintendent Curt Wilson has spent his entire career working at the schools in La Jara. In addition to his role as the district's top administrator, he's also been a teacher, coach and principal. (Mike Sweeney, Special to The Colorado Sun)

With the help of a grant from the Donnell-Kay Foundation, the district launched a program to help occupy middle- and high-school age kids. It's filled some of the void, but Ruggles said gains in curbing risky youth behavior have eroded since adopting the four-day week. The influx of opioids and legal marijuana, and shifting social norms, have likely had an effect, she said.

"But having that Friday available has probably impacted that some. I think we've had a little bit of a slide," she said.

Future study explores student health, diet, sleep

A team of Oregon State researchers, including those who studied the academic effects of four-day weeks, is attempting to gather data on all of the nation's four-day schools. So far, they've counted about 600 districts and 1,500 schools.

The goal is to learn more about student achievement, but also nutrition and diet, physical activity and sleep, said assistant professor of economics Paul N. Thompson, who noted a "massive growth" of four-day districts in the last two decades. They intend to learn more about how students are spending the fifth day and how it impacts their health.

The Centauri campus in La Jara is composed of the high school, left, the North Conejos School District offices, center, and middle school to the right. The district is one of 111 in Colorado that operate on a four-day school week. (Mike Sweeney, Special to The Colorado Sun)

Also, the team wants to know how state policies regarding four-day weeks affect student outcomes. In Oregon, students at four-day schools are losing about three and a half hours of instruction per week. Some states - including California - require districts to return to a five-day schedule if their scores drop.

Minnesota ordered seven districts to return to a five-day schedule after failing to make academic progress and the state is no longer accepting applications for four-day schedules, according to the Center for Reinventing Public Education. New Mexico last year used a state funding bill to quash district plans for four-day school.

Other states - including Oklahoma - require an extensive application process, including a written proposal to explain why a four-day week is better academically for their students.

Across the board, schools are talking about money, Thompson said. "Voters aren't raising property taxes. Do we fire teachers? Do we cut extracurricular programs? Start pay-to-play athletics? Or do we go to a four-day week?" Thompson said.

Schools need metrics so they can weigh the impact on students' academics and health before they decide on four-day weeks, he said. "We really don't know much about it."
Colorado Sun staff writer Kevin Simpson contributed to this report.

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Colorado now has more school districts on four-day weeks than any place in the nation - with little research on the benefits

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LA JARA - Down here, where kids ride the bus for an hour through miles of potato and alfalfa fields to get to school, teachers use the term "null curriculum." It means any part of a class that's considered fluff. And it's not allowed.

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25 States Are Testing 4-Day School Weeks—Will Yours Be Next? (We Are Teachers, 2024)

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25 States Are Testing 4-Day School Weeks—Will Yours Be Next? (We Are Teachers, 2024)

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https://www.weareteachers.com/4-day-school-weeks/

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Making the switch to a four-day school week is a growing trend in districts across the country. Once a practice reserved for rural districts, the idea is catching on in suburban and urban areas as well. Research by The National Conference of State Legislatures estimates 560 school districts in 25 states have at least one school with a four-day schedule. Leading the charge are Colorado (55%), New Mexico (43%), Idaho (38%), and Oregon (32%).

SOURCE: Center on Reinventing Public Education

While the majority of districts cite financial reasons as the major reason for making the change, the concept has issues on both sides, from academic achievement and equity issues to life-work balance and teacher retention.

Pros to a Four-Day School Week

Financial Benefits

Most school districts cite budget constraints as the top reason for making the change. Cutting back services to four days a week helps districts reduce overhead costs, particularly in the categories of building operations and maintenance, transportation and food service. Although a report from the Education Commission of the States declares the overall savings small (an average savings of between 0.4% and 2.5%) the difference can lead to big savings. In Duval County School District in Jacksonville, Florida, moving to a four-day week produced only a paltry-sounding 0.7 percent savings. But that figure translated to a budget reduction of $7 million.

More Teachers

Proponents claim a four-day work week helps attract and retain quality teachers. After Colorado's District 27J switched to four-day school weeks, their recruiting prospects jumped from a handful of applicants to over 100 per opening. This includes what superintendent Chris Fiedler calls "harder vacancies," such as special ed and secondary math positions. In addition, the pool included more highly qualified applicants with master's degrees and special certifications. Most impressive, the district's teacher turnover rate dropped from over 21 percent to just 13 percent this year.

Improved Quality of Life

Compacting school into just four days a week leaves more time for kids to spend with family, friends and outside interests. Older students can spend time engaging in resumé-building public service or paid work. Teachers have more time to prepare lessons and collaborate during the day.

In addition, having an extra day each week to schedule appointments and family trips results in improved attendance. After all, when each day counts as 25% of the learning, students are less likely to miss a day. Looking forward to a three-day weekend each week leads to greater work-life balance for teachers, which leads to improved staff morale and a positive impact on what is taught in classrooms.

Cons to a Four-Day School Week

It's inequitable.

Opponents of the four-day school week point out the difficulties for lower income families. Finding childcare for just one day a week is often difficult and costly. And since most adults work five days a week, chances are that many children will simply find themselves in non-school "school" settings, like daycares, on the remaining day. It's not exactly the idyllic three-day weekend that proponents of the adjusted schedule put forth.

Not to mention, many students rely on school food services for the majority of their meals. For these children, adding an extra day to the weekend comes at a real cost.

Longer days are tough on the youngest learners.

School days are long enough for preschoolers, kindergarteners and primary students. Switching to a four-day school week extends the school day by an hour to an hour and a half. With limited capacity for learning and retention, these long days may have negatively affect achievement and students' attitudes.

Extracurriculars are adversely affected.

Students who wish to participate in after school sports and clubs may have fewer opportunities, especially if other schools in their district operate on different hours. In addition, transportation may not be available because of late start and finish times.

Kids need structure.

Some opponents worry about the unstructured, unsupervised free time that goes with a shorter school week. One study of schools in Colorado showed a direct correlation between a four day schedule and juvenile crime. Juvenile arrests for property crimes, especially larceny, increased by 73%, although no change was reported in drug related or violent crimes.

When it comes to academic outcomes, the jury is still out.

Opinions differ when it comes to measuring student achievement in the context of the four-day school week. One study, reported in Education Finance and Policy, reports a positive relationship between the four-day week and student performance in reading and math, using standardized test results. Another study, cited in Rural Educator, found no significant difference in the mean levels of overall academic achievement between four-day districts and five-day districts. However, an unpublished Oregon study found a temporary decline in academic performance among minority, low-income and special needs students, in particular. Time and more research are needed to determine whether the change leads to positive or negative results.
Has your district made the move to a four-day week? If so, come share your experience in our WeAreTeacher HELPLINE group on Facebook. Plus, what teachers need if the U.S. ever wants to see another globally-competitive generation.

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25 States Are Testing 4-Day School Weeks-Will Yours Be Next?

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Making the switch to a four-day school week is a growing trend in districts across the country. Once a practice reserved for rural districts, the idea is catching on in suburban and urban areas as well. Research by The National Conference of State Legislatures estimates 560 school districts in 25 states have at least one school with a four-day schedule.

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Schools that Switched to a Four-Day Week Saw Learning Reductions. What Does that Mean for the Pandemic’s Lost Instructional Time? (Mahnken, 2021)

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Schools that Switched to a Four-Day Week Saw Learning Reductions. What Does that Mean for the Pandemic’s Lost Instructional Time? (Mahnken, 2021)

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https://www.the74million.org/article/schools-that-switched-to-a-four-day-week-saw-learning-reductions-what-does-that-mean-for-the-pandemics-lost-instructional-time/

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Get essential education news and commentary delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up here for The 74's daily newsletter.
K-12 schools that cut instructional time by switching to a four-day week see meaningful reductions in student learning, according to recently published research. The effects are similar to those resulting from other common approaches to cost reduction, such as increasing class sizes, and the negative academic effects may intensify with the passage of time, the author finds.

The trend toward closing schools for one day each week - or at least replacing academic programming during a fifth day with enrichment, field trips, or professional development for teachers - was spreading quickly before the arrival of COVID-19. But the pandemic's effects, including significant drops in test scores, also point to the damage wrought by lost hours in the classroom.

The study, originally published in January and featured today in the journal Education Next, looks at the academic outcomes of nearly 700,000 Oregon students between the 2004-05 and 2018-19 school years. The total number of schools in the state using a four-day week fluctuated from a low of 108 to a high of 156 during that period, with a large surge in adoption during the budget crunch that followed the Great Recession.

Study author Paul Thompson, an economist at Oregon State University, said that most of the schools making the switch were highly rural, enrolling as few as 20 students. The change was implemented differently across districts, he added.

"These are unique situations, and after surveying these schools and talking about why they adopted this four-day week, there's no one-size-fits-all approach in terms of why they adopted it or how they structure them or what they do on the off day," Thompson said. "That makes it difficult to think about one blanket type of policy for these schools."

One consequence that doesn't vary much, however, is lost learning time. Even though schools tend to expand the remaining school days by roughly 50 minutes to compensate for the missed day, that still leads to students losing out on three to four hours of learning each week.

By studying districts that switched to a four-day week during the period under study and comparing them with other districts that did not, Thompson found that the reduction in teaching resulted in lower test performance for both math and reading. The decline was particularly pronounced for students in the seventh and eighth grades; those larger impacts may result from the earlier start times necessitated by lengthening the other four school days, which could disrupt adolescent sleep schedules.

But the average loss in learning may mask even greater detrimental effects. Some schools in the study shortened their week for a year or two as a result of financial necessity, then quickly returned to a standard schedule when their circumstances permitted it. Those schools still experienced a drop in student achievement, but it faded over time as things reverted to the status quo. For those that stuck with the four-day week, learning loss grew considerably as the years passed.

"The important piece here is that if you're losing instructional time year-over-year, that learning loss is growing over time," Thompson said. "For schools that continually have reduced instructional time year over year...relative to what they would have had if they'd gone back to the five-day schedule, they see this compounding negative effect."

The movement toward reducing instructional time is by no means exclusive to Oregon. According to analysis from the Center for Reinventing Public Education, half of all states are home to at least one school running on a four-day week; in five states, all in the West, over 20 percent of all schools have followed that course. Examining the policy's nationwide spread, Thompson found that the number of such schools grew from 257 in 199 to over 1,600 in 2019. While some provide office hours or other supplemental learning options on their fifth day, others are fully closed to staff and students.

Pre-COVID, the trend had already grown so quickly that researchers at CRPE called it a " contagion"; in one state they studied, Idaho, 42 out 115 districts had changed to a shorter schedule. And while the arrangement is often popular with both teachers and families, who can struggle to commute long distances to reach schools in rural areas, the hoped-for cost savings don't necessarily arrive as advertised. In a 2011 report on six four-day districts, Learning Policy Institute analyst Michael Griffith found they saved between .4 percent and 2.5 percent of their total budgets by instituting the change - largely because they continued to keep schools open for a fifth day to allow for teacher training and student extracurricular activities.

The negative impacts measured by Thompson may also hold ominous implications for students who spent months out of school during the pandemic. Even those who were long ago allowed to return on a hybrid schedule experienced disruptions to the traditional rhythms of school that far exceed those imposed by a shorter week. According to RAND's ongoing surveys of American teachers, just 12 percent of respondents said that they had covered all of the curriculum that they would have if their schools had stayed open. A California analysis published last fall found that as many as 20 percent of low-income students received no live instruction during the course of a given week.

To address the huge needs faced by families and schools looking to get back to normal, Democrats in Congress passed the mammoth American Rescue Plan, including over $120 billion in new funding for K-12 schools. The money can largely be used at the discretion of states, and may ultimately be spent providing summer programs and intensive tutoring that effectively lengthen the school year.

Robin Lake, director of CRPE, compared the "heavy burden" borne by families struggling to adjust to four-day school schedules - and often left without child care coverage for part of the week - with the challenges posed by the year of COVID. Contemplating what it would take for kids to recover from being separated from teachers and classmates, she argued that the solution "can't be less of anything. It has to be more of everything."

"I look out at the next couple of years, and I see an almost impossible problem to solve," she said. "A very concerning lost instructional time, especially in math and especially for certain kids. Extraordinary challenges for kids when it comes to mental health and social-emotional learning. Lost therapeutic services and other supports for students with complex needs. It's just an extraordinary challenge, and how do we solve that without maximizing the time that kids have in school with teachers?"

Thompson said he was optimistic about the evidence from schools that only temporarily used a four-day week, which ultimately saw "minimal" learning losses as a result. But the long-term consequences for the students involved, including on important benchmarks like persistence in school and high school graduation, still need to be closely studied, he cautioned.

"That's good news to think about, and it's what we're hoping will happen if schools are able to open full-time and kids can get back to instructional time consistent with what we saw pre-pandemic. Hopefully some of these knowledge losses can be caught up. But there are questions about some of the long-run ramifications on outcomes besides achievement."

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Schools that Switched to a Four-Day Week Saw Learning Reductions. What Does that Mean for the Pandemic's Lost Instructional Time?

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Get essential education news and commentary delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up here for The 74's daily newsletter. K-12 schools that cut instructional time by switching to a four-day week see meaningful reductions in student learning, according to recently published research. The effects are similar to those resulting from other common approaches to cost [...]