Attn: GC Educators......School week shortened to 4 days instead of 5
 

Schools cut costs with 4-day weeks
Districts cite money concerns, fewer absences behind idea
September 11, 2002 Posted: 8:43 AM EDT (1243 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Annie Bergeaux and her high school classmates in Midland, Louisiana, will be taking most Fridays off this year, spending the time swimming, shopping, baby-sitting, playing basketball or just hanging out with friends. It's all with the blessing of their teachers, their parents and school officials.

Bucking a nationwide trend toward bulking up school calendars, dozens of rural school districts are actually paring back their work weeks, cramming more academics into four days.

The trade-off: School days are an hour or more longer than in most schools.

Schools find that by knocking off Fridays or Mondays can save money on transportation, heating and substitute teachers.

Advocates say four-day weeks have other advantages. They leave teachers with fewer interruptions and fewer student absences. They also cut down on teacher absences and allow schools to hire fewer substitutes -- the fifth day is used for teacher training or to free up teachers for personal appointments.

School districts in six states -- Louisiana, Oregon, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and South Dakota -- are trying it this year.

Improving morale, grades
Bergeaux, 15, spent her freshman year at tiny Midland High School on four-day weeks and loved them.

"By the end of the week you aren't frustrated with everybody," she said. "You weren't so stressed and cramming everything in."

In many rural areas, the change allows schools to keep art, music and other classes often cut in tight budgets.

Four-day weeks also improve student morale and behavior, said Clyde Briley, principal of Midland, 150 miles west of New Orleans.

"The biggest problem we had was in motivating students to do their best," he said. "I felt that this was a good motivational thing -- if you do good and work hard and do your best, you can have some extra time to do other things, what you like to do, or to have a part-time job."

Briley said grade-point averages rose "considerably" last year during the first Fridays-off calendar, with failing grades down 50 percent.

"Kids have tried harder," he said.

In most districts, schools reserve Fridays for field trips, football games and special activities such as homecoming; the Monday-Thursday schedule is for academics.

"They are serious about education Monday through Thursday," said Kay Post, who oversees alternative schedules for Wyoming public schools.

Nationwide, about 100 school districts are set to follow four-day schedules this fall, up slightly from last year. All are rural and most are small, each with fewer than 1,000 students.

For the first time this month, schools in Hot Springs, South Dakota, will try four-day weeks, hoping it will help trim a needed $250,000 to $400,000 from the budget. The move will save the schools about $18,000 on transportation costs and more on substitute teachers, said Superintendent Vern G. Hagedorn, who looked into four-day weeks after seeing that other Western school districts liked them.

Child-care worries often scuttle the four-day week, principals said, but in Hot Springs, parents can take advantage of a state grant that will provide licensed care on Fridays.

Even with the four-day weeks, Hagedorn hopes to log about 1,162 hours of instruction time, well above the state-minimum 960.

Turning the clock back?
Critics point out that the 1990s actually brought a push to extend the school calendar past the traditional 180 days, to resemble those in Japan and Europe.

"It's really unusual for people to turn the clock back, in a sense, and have fewer school days," said Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, which studies social, economic and political issues.

"I haven't seen too many people say with a straight face that this produces superior academic performance, so I definitely don't expect this one to take off."

Independent education researcher Joy Dryfoos agreed. "I would think it would wreak havoc with any working parent's schedule," she said.

Briley, who said parents "enjoy having their kids available on Friday," said his school will try the four-day week it again this fall.

Each day, school begins 20 minutes earlier and goes 25 minutes later, with longer classes. Students who are failing a course are required to attend three hours of tutoring on Friday. Students cited for disciplinary problems do maintenance and landscaping work then.

Bergeaux's sister, 18-year-old Casey, who graduated from Midland last spring, said she loved having Fridays off -- the longer school day meant more time to finish homework before going home.

"By the end of the day, we went home and had almost no homework at all," she said. "We were constantly in class."

Students were never absent, she said, and the extra day off gave her more time to relax with friends.

"We were able to do so many things as a class. We'd get together on Fridays and just have fun."

But she acknowledged, "I don't think it would be too good in a bigger school."

Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Would any of you GC educators support this? Why or why not?

I AGREE WITH THIS!! It would help out with a lot of things that the article addressed. I wonder if it will be adopted in my district.

I'm spoiled....
 

It's adopted in Rapides parish. I wouldn't mind working 4 days a week AS LONG AS my last day is STILL June 1, 2, or 3rd.

As educators, my husband and I could go for this! The problem would be what to do about daycare for parents who are at work on Friday.

I am so down with the idea....BUT in Michigan we don't get out of school til June 13th, so if we tack on an extra hour until the end ofthe school year we would be July almost before we get out of school.

This would be a WONDERFUL idea!!! I would have no problem with working just four days with the students, but I would still want to get out in late May. The students might be willing to learn as well.

Re: I'm spoiled....
 

Our district is "looking into" this concept. I doubt that it will become a reality. At least, not while I am employed here. :p

Re: Attn: GC Educators......School week shortened to 4 days instead of 5
 

This might be the most important benefit. The School District of Philadelphia has cut down the art and music programs so much that they are almost nonexistent. There are probably a whole of bunch of kids walking around with the talent of Jacob Lawrence or Jill Scott but they don't have the opportunities to explore the arts.

Re: Re: Attn: GC Educators......School week shortened to 4 days instead of 5
 

That's very sad. Didn't a lot of celebrities today get their start in Performing and Fine Arts High Schools in Philly? :confused:

Re: Re: I'm spoiled....
 

KEEP HOPE ALIVE, 2D!! KEEP HOPE ALIVE!....Unless this is your last year..... :cool: It's looking like my time is almost near too....

I'd like to segue off this subject. . .
 

I'd like to ask a question for those of you that teach early childhood/elementary education. . .

I did a 'baby' search and didn't really see too much on this topic. But my question to you is, where should my daughter be academically? She is 8 years old and in the 2nd grade. She's a very bright child (and I'm not just saying that because she's my daughter) but I am concerned about her math "skills". She reads very well and is attending a private school where they focus a lot on reading. Most of the homework that she has is vocabulary and the like, but she doesn't really bring home much math or science homework. I've seen some of her classroom work where they are doing some science, but never any homework in these other subjects. My husband says we need to work with her more, and I agree, but what should she know at this age?

I am planning to take her out of this school and place her in a charter school where they have more afterschool activities. She can learn Spanish, do computer projects, play musical instruments, etc. Any words of wisdom?

ttt. . .

Interesting Article with Heavy Ramifications
 

School Is Out in Oregon, but Not Everyone Is Rejoicing
Sat May 24, 9:00 AM ET Add Top Stories - The New York Times to My Yahoo!


By SAM DILLON The New York Times

HILLSBORO, Ore., May 23 This affluent Portland suburb shut down its schools today for the summer, three weeks early, becoming the first of 84 Oregon school districts to close ahead of schedule this year for lack of money.

The early closing here left thousands of parents scrambling for emergency child care, hundreds of teachers seeking temporary jobs and at least a few of the students believing they were shortchanged.

"I feel kind of cheated," said Chris Pitts, a graduating senior who took his last English final, bought a yearbook and bade farewell to teachers at Glencoe High School here today. "I'm not going to be as prepared for college as I should be."

Across the nation, schools have been struggling with budget cuts forced by the recession, and thousands of districts have laid off janitors, canceled school plays or shut down libraries. But only in Oregon, where there is no sales tax to compensate for declining state income tax revenues, has the recession caused such havoc that 84 of the state's 198 districts have been forced to lop off the end of the school year. Six other districts cut days from the year, but not from the end.


Joseph Rodriguez, the Hillsboro superintendent, said each school day here costs $400,000, about 87 percent of which pays salaries. After the Legislature cut 10 percent of state school aid, Hillsboro's financial shortfall forced him to recommend that the local school board cut 17 days from the calendar, about 15 of which were instructional days.


"We made the best decisions we could, given very poor resources," Mr. Rodriguez said. "The people of Hillsboro have every right to be upset. I certainly am."


Teachers have been forced to make compromises. John Gibbs, a high school science teacher, said the shortened schedule permitted him to discuss the solar system in his astronomy course but not the stars or the evolution of the universe.

Few students seemed upset by the premature onset of summer.

"Yaaaaaay!" shouted Justin Flock, a 7-year-old at North Plains Elementary School. "Sometimes the math they do in school is kind of hard, and now I won't have to get up early in the morning."

Justin's mother, Jamie Flock, the manager of a flower nursery who volunteers at her son's school each Wednesday by grading spelling tests, rushed to qualify his views.


"He's a typical little boy with better things to do than go to school," she said. "But the rest of us think this is really a shame because the students needed the time in class."


Nowhere but in Oregon has the school calendar been so disrupted, but a majority of the nation's 15,000 public school districts are facing financial difficulties of varying severity, Dan Fuller, a lobbyist for the National School Boards Association, said. He estimated the 50 states' combined budget deficits at $52 billion to $82 billion.


"Those deficits are putting enormous pressure on school boards," Mr. Fuller said, adding that many local board members have been calling the association's office in Alexandria, Va., about federal help. "They're asking, `How can I talk to my congressman so they'll understand our problem?' "


But some national experts said unions and other special interest groups were exaggerating the financial crisis of the nation's schools, as well as the consequences of shutting some schools early.


"The sky is not falling," James Guthrie, a professor of public policy at Vanderbilt University, said. "As a nation we've lengthened the school year, and nobody can see that achievement has gone up. Twenty years ago the school year was, on average, 170 days long, and now it has risen to 180 days. But I haven't seen any startling increases in student achievement in that period."


Oregon law permits local districts to apply for waivers from minimum classroom instruction requirements, which are measured in hours and vary by grade level but are roughly equivalent to 175 days. In most states, laws require a minimum of 180 instructional days, so hard-pressed districts outside Oregon have mostly cut costs in ways other than shortening the school year.


In Hillsboro, 16 miles west of Portland, where 31 schools dot a landscape of rolling farmsteads of red clover as well as several high-tech plants, the early closing has meant a considerable cut in the pay of teachers, administrators and other staff members. According to the local teachers' union contract, a rookie instructor with a bachelor's degree earns an annual salary of $31,174. A teacher at the top of the pay scale, which requires a master's degree and at least 14 years of experience, earns $62,498, Margaret Doherty, an official at the Hillsboro Education Association, said.


But Scott Ellis, a Glencoe High School history teacher who has taught for 23 years and whose pay is at the top of the scale, said his monthly paychecks of April through August were to be reduced by $600 each because of a lost 17 days.

Like his colleagues, Mr. Ellis was obliged to cut back his curriculum, which is organized at Glencoe on a trimester system. Surmising by early spring that the authorities would shorten the school year, he eliminated a two-week overview of early American history that he has traditionally taught at the beginning of his third trimester American Studies course. That meant cutting out the American Revolution, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and picking up the nation's narrative at the beginning of the 20th century.

Five miles to the north, at North Plains Elementary School, Nancy E. Scheele, a second-grade teacher, said she had eliminated the study of magnets in science, monetary calculations in arithmetic and had shortened her lessons on telling time.

Such curricular triage has demoralized most Hillsboro residents, including not only the parent and student groups who have pressed for stable state education aid, but also the antitax campaigners who have helped to defeat ballot initiatives to raise school funds.

"Cutting the school year is a horrible idea," said Tom Cox, a Hillsboro management consultant who ran for governor last year as the Libertarian candidate and who helped to defeat a Jan. 28 ballot initiative that would have raised Oregon's income tax to finance schools, jails and other agencies. "Kids need to be in school. But our taxes are being eaten up by the educational bureaucracy. I would have gone after more concessions from the teachers and kept the schools open."

Ian Atkins, a graduating senior who has organized student protests against the school cuts at the Oregon Capitol in Salem, expressed mixed emotions about the shortened year, which eliminated his final exams.

"I have a giddy feeling that says, `Great, no finals!' " Mr. Atkins said. "But the adult growing inside me says this won't be great for college transcripts."

Re: I'd like to segue off this subject. . .
 

Sorry I never saw this post in the thread and while I taught high school, I would say math is just as important as reading, especially when it comes to all of these tests that our disctricts shove at the kids.

Back when I was in third grade, my mom used to buy every freaking workbook under the sun :mad: :p :o -- but you know what it was my own doggone fault. At any rate as an 8 year old TODAY, kids are more advanced than we were, but make sure she can add, subrtract 2 digit and 3 digit numbers, multiplication tables and division -- 1 - 10 at the least.

Also I would get her started on basic fractions as well as telling time. Those are the foundations of good math IMO. I would also talk to your child's teacher about things you and your husband could be doing at home, especially over the summer.

If your child likes the computer, check out different websites that offer games and stuff for kids. I had a thread in DST where I posted several websites for parents. Do a search under American schools. Also check out computer software that will work with math skills for your child's age level and BEYOND. Take her one step further than what she needs to be at. Kids are sponges at her age. Make learning fun for her. It won't always be.

If you need any more just PM me or IM me. :)

CT4, that article that you posted was interesting. I hadn't heard anything about this. The sad thing is that it is a reality. I think that articles like this and letters from teachers, students, and parents should be sent by the millions to the President. While he is out spend BILLIONS of dollars on chasing bin Laden, Saddam, and the Boogeyman, education is going down the drain. I'd be a monkey's uncle if I, as a teacher, had to find a temp job because of budget cuts. :eek: They wonder why the students aren't passing achievement tests and things. There is no money and resources to do it. Oh, but lets just take $9 trillion and search for a few gallons of non-existant weapons of mass destruction. :rolleyes: