@@ More schools move to 4 day week despite harm

[neverfstop]

I like a 4-day WORK week or at least the flexibility...
This seems to be a bad idea for kids, working parents, businesses, and only has marginal intended impacts (saving $$). 
My kids are already gone from home long hours, with little play/free/sport time at night....I can't imagine a longer school day.
I'd much prefer a 1-month summer break, shorter school days, more frequent & longer year-round breaks....


www.axios.com/2023/05/08/4-day-school-week-study


School districts nationwide are rapidly adopting 4-day school weeks as they seek to cut costs and fill teacher vacancies by dangling 3-day weekends — despite research showing meaningful learning losses that result.

Why it matters: Less classroom time correlates directly with progressively lower test scores and academic achievement, studies of the 4-day school week ("4dsw") have found.

Driving the news: Nationally, 850 school districts — representing thousands of individual schools — have dropped the 5th day of instruction, up from 650 districts in 2019.

That's according to yet-to-be-published data compiled by the Four-Day School Week Policy Group at Oregon State University and shared with Axios.

Four-day school weeks are most popular with rural, Western districts, though the trend — which gained steam during the COVID-19 pandemic — is also catching on in metropolitan areas.



Almost 60 Texas school districts have made the switch or approved it for the 2023-2024 academic year, along with nearly a quarter of those in Missouri.

Suburban districts in metropolitan Denver, Independence, Missouri, suburban Phoenix and metropolitan San Antonio are now taking the plunge.

[sugarbear1]

I don't understand how parents who work outside of the home (or even at home, with small kids) can make this work.

[penguingrrl]

That sounds terrible for all involved. Longer days for kids sounds like it would be less productive based on how tired my kids are when they get home. An even longer day, especially for older kids who are adding theater and music rehearsals or sports at the end of an already long day sounds terrible.

But can we please discuss paying teachers more and doing away with 11 weeks of hot misery every summer?

[Jalapeñomel]

Yes because fixing the teacher shortage is to make them work longer hours, with more exhausted kids.

[mpm]

May 8, 2023 11:14:26 GMT -5 sugarbear1 said:

I don't understand how parents who work outside of the home (or even at home, with small kids) can make this work.

This would 100% drive us to private school. The random 4-day breaks throughout the year and a massive summer break are bad enough. I don’t see any way to make 4-day schooling work with two parents working full time.

School is not daycare, but we also need to keep in mind that more families these days have two working parents and the current school calendar model is absolutely not set up to support that.

[meganew]

May 8, 2023 11:23:54 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

Yes because fixing the teacher shortage is to make them work longer hours, with more exhausted kids.

Or they could just PAY US MORE MONEY PLEASE OMG

[icedcoffee]

Yeah--no. Not to add food insecure families need school. As well as kids who are abused at home.

I'm also not ok with getting rid of summer break though. We're a camp family. We love summer camp including sleep away camp.

Just pay teachers more and trust them to pick out books for the children. For the love of god.

[StrawberryBlondie]

May 8, 2023 11:30:06 GMT -5 mpm said:

May 8, 2023 11:14:26 GMT -5 sugarbear1 said:

I don't understand how parents who work outside of the home (or even at home, with small kids) can make this work.

This would 100% drive us to private school. The random 4-day breaks throughout the year and a massive summer break are bad enough. I don’t see any way to make 4-day schooling work with two parents working full time.

School is not daycare, but we also need to keep in mind that more families these days have two working parents and the current school calendar model is absolutely not set up to support that.

Ugh, the random breaks... In the fall, our school district has a Thursday/Friday off one week for teacher professional days. The next week is a full week, then the week after is Mon-Wed off for parent/teacher conferences.

Is there some sort of data out there that shows this sort of thing is better for kids or better for education than just taking one week and having the whole week off?

We're lucky in that we have a really good before/after school program that does full day programs for *most* days there isn't school, but it's somewhat random the days they don't so sometimes it'll be a situation where they have care for 2 of the 3 days the kids are out of school.

[taratru]

Anecdotes: I went to a 4-day week school, 8-4 each day. I loved it.

Now we get out at noon on Fridays, and as a teacher, it'll be hard to let that go.

Once again, if schools were funded properly...

[icedcoffee]

May 8, 2023 11:30:06 GMT -5 mpm said:

May 8, 2023 11:14:26 GMT -5 sugarbear1 said:

I don't understand how parents who work outside of the home (or even at home, with small kids) can make this work.

This would 100% drive us to private school. The random 4-day breaks throughout the year and a massive summer break are bad enough. I don’t see any way to make 4-day schooling work with two parents working full time.

School is not daycare, but we also need to keep in mind that more families these days have two working parents and the current school calendar model is absolutely not set up to support that.

So--I agree it's not, but it hasn't been as bad as I thought.  I thought it was going to be horrendous, but we have our kid in the school's aftercare program and in combination with that it's been totally fine.  But yeah, obviously going to 4 days a week would be horrendous.

[curbsideprophet]

I think it could work if the school year was extended or basically year round. It did mention potential childcare programs for the off day. I could see this being an extension of an after care program.

[sugarbear1]

It sounds awful -- and I'm a teacher! Though I will say, mpm, we have random 4-day weekends in private school too (often for professional development). I still find myself scrambling sometimes and my kids have spent a LOT of time alone in my classroom while I'm doing some PD down the hall.

[abs]

No thank you. The days are already so long!!

A district close to me has adopted this for next year. I assume by the time DD graduates it will be standard but I hate it.

[mpm]

May 8, 2023 11:51:34 GMT -5 abs said:

No thank you. The days are already so long!!

My kid starts at 7:45 and is done by 2:15. Lol that’s a pretty short day. If I had an unlimited budget for a wish list, it would be for a longer school day, with more recess breaks, more specials, multiple teachers per class with staggered start/end times, and a school year with maybe a four weeks break in between, not ten.

[abs]

May 8, 2023 12:00:15 GMT -5 mpm said:

May 8, 2023 11:51:34 GMT -5 abs said:

No thank you. The days are already so long!!

My kid starts at 7:45 and is done by 2:15. Lol that’s a pretty short day. If I had an unlimited budget for a wish list, it would be for a longer school day, with more recess breaks, more specials, multiple teachers per class with staggered start/end times, and a school year with maybe a four weeks break in between, not ten.

That is short!

Our district moved to minimum instructional minutes per year instead of days so it lengthened our school day. My junior high kid gets to school at 8:30, classes start at 8:50, school ends at 4:15, and she gets home at 4:45. Add homework and activities and there is very little downtime. I’d way prefer a shorter school day and shorter summer but it won’t happen.

[NewOrleans]

May 8, 2023 11:35:06 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Yeah--no. Not to add food insecure families need school. As well as kids who are abused at home.

I'm also not ok with getting rid of summer break though. We're a camp family. We love summer camp including sleep away camp.

Just pay teachers more and trust them to pick out books for the children. For the love of god.

but they’re still food-insecure and at risk of abuse in the summer, though.


I personally think a 4 day week sounds great and would love that for my family, but I’d defer to the research on learning.  Although, the research in the article is predicated on less classroom time which is not necessarily how it would be implemented. 

I’ve heard of this but only in rural areas, particularly in Missouri lately, before this article mentioned suburbia. 

[Michelle]

I'm interested in more studies on this. I know of a district in my area that has block scheduling across 4 days. It can take a bit of time to get kids into the class material - so longer class time blocks are being received well. Of course, impact on some neurodivergent kids may make that even more challenging...

I can imagine that for HS kids, having a day where kids can focus on extracurricular activities like band, theater, art, languages, etc. might actually make managing the volume easier with a 4 day schedule if they don't have those activities every day during the week.

[arehopsveggies]

Most of the districts around me are 4 day, but mine isn’t

4 day weeks would be nice for planning Dr appointments- especially for kids it’s a long drive to see anyone besides primary care. Even a dentist cleaning visit is a full day off school because of the drive.

I also think it’s easier as a parent to plan for every Friday off and find a regular babysitter vs all the random days off here and there.

I’m not commuting to go have 4 day weeks but every spring I think about it

[ssmjlm]

I cannot imagine. The school calendar is already hard enough to navigate. There's also the assumption that working parents can now shoulder the burden of some sort of daycare of the 1 day a week off and that there are programs that can fit all of the kids that need it.

We have longer days from a years ago hurricane that lost instruction time. I can't imagine lengthening the days more into 4 days.

[livinitup]

As a parent, I pay out of pocket for any non-school hours/days like after care, vacation camp, summer camp, etc. There are entire private pay sports groups/camps that rotate exclusively around non-school days. So, at first glance, it’s just shifting funding dollars from the tax base/community to the parent/guardians.

Which is complete and utter bullshit. Again.

And it’s pretty obvious to me that this shift is heavily based on the out-dated assumption that it works on the backs of non-payed labor of mothers. Because “working mothers” are just for shits and giggles and pin money, right??

[DotAndBuzz]

I mean, if we're going to have a wishlist, a 4-day work and school week would be on my list. They would be standardized so parents wouldn't have to be in a constant state of juggling work/school schedules/finding childcare for ONE day a week.

As for the concerns about the safety net schools provide for food insecurity, etc, I'd argue that schools have been forced to take on WAY more than they should be expected to manage. Those issues need to be resolved without schools being expected to figure out how to bridge the MASSIVE gaps in our social programs (child care, food insecurity, etc). But until we're willing to fund/facilitate them outside of school (not that they're currently getting adequate funding *in* school), I don't think a 4 day school week is realistic for where we are without even more kids and families falling through the cracks.

[pugz]

My district has the longest days in our area (8:20-3:40) for elementary as well as over 30 days off throughout the year. They did consolidate a couple of weeks this year though, finally.

Some districts on the MO side of the state line are going to 4 days next year and I'm curious about how people will like it and what if anything the district will offer for Fridays for families that need childcare. I have seen teachers in neighboring districts say they wanted to move to those 4 day a week districts.

Overall I mostly see parents that think their kids are already in school too much and need more time to play and be unscheduled and I don't know that they are really thinking about big picture or about families that are in need of services.

[neverfstop]

May 9, 2023 8:23:53 GMT -5 pugz said:

My district has the longest days in our area (8:20-3:40) for elementary as well as over 30 days off throughout the year. They did consolidate a couple of weeks this year though, finally.

We go 8:40 to 4:10...bus doesn't get them home till 4:45 to 4:55 some days, so the earliest activities we can do are at 5:30. 

While we are discussing schools, I'm encouraged to see more school flipping start times so elementary goes earlier and MS/HS start and end later. I wish ours would do that...I  see HS kids catching the bus at 6:30 and think how brutal that must be for them.

[dale]

SIL taught at a school about 15 years ago that went with longer days for Monday - Thursday and on Friday the kids left right after lunch. Parents loved it because it was easier to find care for half of one day or even just work their schedules around it rather than needing care every day after school.

[shortcake2675]

They've released the times for our 4 day week, which ended up adding 70 minutes per day for my 8th grader. 75% of 25% of parents polled wanted it. A lot of the 7-12 grade kids (something like 90%) wanted it. The teachers wanted it too. 7:30-3:10 is about what my daughter spends at school during drama season with play practice. But it's what school will be now. Meanwhile, my 6th grader will start at 8:30 and go to 4:10. A 4 day 10 hr week is pretty typical among the mine salaried people. The miners all work rotating day and night schedules. The Boys and Girls Club has already said they will be offering full day care on Fridays. The district is short on subs, the teachers are burned out, and I hope it helps. It's gonna make for some long damn days.

[Deleted]

Many districts already do early release one day every week (so, a 4.5 day school week). Next year our district is going to two teacher work days each month, so essentially two 4-day weeks and two 5-day weeks…except the month of January that has 4 teacher workdays! I have no idea how we’re going to swing this with two working parents (one of whom is a teacher and has to be physically at work those days). The workdays are ostensibly a to benefit the teachers, except they make them so mandatory in-person training all day, that is exactly the same content as mandatory computer-based training that they have to do ahead of time…so not only can they not use those days to plan, but they also have to take more unpaid time to complete redundant training.

[abs]

May 9, 2023 18:16:15 GMT -5 shortcake2675 said:

They've released the times for our 4 day week, which ended up adding 70 minutes per day for my 8th grader. 75% of 25% of parents polled wanted it. A lot of the 7-12 grade kids (something like 90%) wanted it. The teachers wanted it too. 7:30-3:10 is about what my daughter spends at school during drama season with play practice. But it's what school will be now. Meanwhile, my 6th grader will start at 8:30 and go to 4:10. A 4 day 10 hr week is pretty typical among the mine salaried people. The miners all work rotating day and night schedules. The Boys and Girls Club has already said they will be offering full day care on Fridays. The district is short on subs, the teachers are burned out, and I hope it helps. It's gonna make for some long damn days.

My 6th grader is in school that long with a 5 day week.

[abs]

Moral of the story: education is a mess. Ugh.

[fortnightlily]

Found out at a PTA meeting today that my elementary school's cluster only has the funding to offer 3 weeks of half-day summer school and to only the bottom 3% of students. And unless 50% of them qualify for free-and-reduced meals there will be no breakfast or lunch available on that site at all. And we're in what's considered an affluent county. The difference from what was available in the past 2-3 years thanks to Federal grants is stark.

[sonrisa]

Our school district just agreed to a raise for teachers. Which feels like the better solution (10% this year and another 8% next year)