Schools cut costs with 4-day weeks

[The1calledTKE]

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."

[OrigamiTulip]

Bump.

Anyone know what happened with this?

[GeekyPenguin]

No clue what happened with this, but I think it's a really cool idea. As for the child care concerns, a lot of employers now offer several ways to get your 40 hours in - my daddy worked 4 10 hour days a week for a long time, and now he's switched to 4 9 hour days and then Friday mornings. I know my mom also has this option.

[sigtau305]

it wouldn't surprised me if more school districts adopt this.

[swissmiss04]

I honestly think this is a great idea. If the teachers and students actually had one day a week to go to dr. appts or maybe leave early for a weekend trip, the absence rates would drop considerably. Not to mention it would give the teachers an extra day to grade papers. I'm for it.

[aephi alum]

Originally posted by GeekyPenguin
As for the child care concerns, a lot of employers now offer several ways to get your 40 hours in

True. Also, I'm sure that in and around any school districts that go to 4-day weeks, day care centers will start offering packages that include all-day care on the off day. It would probably cost parents about the same too, since the kids would be arriving at day care later on school days.

I'm a bit concerned about homework and extracurricular activities, though. I know that a lot of kids these days, especially on the high school level, get an awful lot of homework and end up working into the wee hours as it is. With the 4-day week, kids are dismissed later, meaning they have fewer hours in the afternoon and evening to devote to their homework and extracurriculars - and they may have to give up their extracurriculars to get that hour or two back for their homework. That would be a shame...

[sugar and spice]

I actually really like this idea, especially if the academic level doesn't change much or actually improves. I think the idea of having class on Monday-Thursday and then tutoring and field trips and other out of class learning opportunities on Friday is great.

And while I think that the concern over extracurriculars is a valid one, I also don't think it would make that much of a difference. When I was in high school, I knew of some schools that ended their school days at 2 PM -- we went until 3:30. There's already such a wide variation in when school days end that I don't think an extra half hour will hurt that much. Not to mention the fact that a free Friday leaves an extra day for meets. When I was in high school, our track meets usually started at 4:30, and we had to get there by 4 to warm up, so that meant getting excused from last hour for every meet, sometimes more than that if the meet was far away. If you could hold meets on class-less Fridays, that would eliminate that problem.

[AXO_MOM_3]

I think it is a great idea, and am all for it! As far as homework goes, I see no reason why schools can't assign weekend work for the Friday they are out. They can do it all on Friday and get it over with, or draw it out over the weekend with an hour or so a day. I have to do work on the weekends as a graduate student - why can't they?

[lifesaver]

Originally posted by GeekyPenguin
No clue what happened with this, but I think it's a really cool idea. As for the child care concerns, a lot of employers now offer several ways to get your 40 hours in - my daddy worked 4 10 hour days a week for a long time, and now he's switched to 4 9 hour days and then Friday mornings. I know my mom also has this option.

Not that this is necessarily about education, but it is sort of related. There is a large insurance and financial services company here that has 15,000+employees and they allow their salaried, non-customer service relations position employees choose their schedule; Traditional 5-day (8 hours) - 40 hour week, Flex schedule - 4 day, (9 Hour days) - 36 hour weeks or Super Flex 3-day (12 hours) - 36 hour weeks. 75% choose flex and everyone on this side of town is used to the schedule and knows they are off on Fridays.

(Personally, I'd take the Super-Flex in a heartbeat if I could. 3-day work week? 4 day weekends? Hell Yeah!)

That's pretty much how the school i work at runs.

We have classes Monday through Thursday. Friday mornings the kids come to school, have morning prayer, then are split into boys and girls. Then they have Lakota heritage presentations. These usually last until 11, when they go to lunch. After lunch, from 12:30 until 1:30 is Eagle's Nest time, where each faculty member has a small group of 7 students to mentor/lead activities with. Then they go home at 1:30.

Of course, i teach on a reservation, so it might be different at the off-rez 4 day a week schools.

Kitso
KS 361

[Optimist Prime]

States and local districts have way too much power. I think state gov'ts should only exist to help out the Federal Government, and I think anyone at any level in any branch of the Federal gov should have the power to overturn any state government action.

[AGDee]

There are a few things that sounded questionable to me about this, primarily, the student's comment about not having homework because they do it in school now. That makes me wonder if that extra hour is just a homework hour and not really an extra hour of actual teaching/instruction.

Also, as a mom of elementary students, the day care issue is definitely an issue. The way *my* school district charges, I think it would cost me a lot more. The article did say there is a grant that is covering it, but I don't think that would happen nationally. And, if they are still providing day care for the kids, then don't the savings for heating, janitorial services, etc go out the window? My kids begin school at 8:30 and get out at 3:10. Latch key charges by the hour. If I drop them off at 7:30, I pay for an hour in the morning. If I pick them up by 5:10, I pay two hours, but if I pick them up at 5:15, it's 3 hours (which is why I hate traffic jams!). If they started school 30 minutes earlier, I would still pay an hour in the morning. If they stay in school for 30 minutes later and I picked them up at 5:10, I'd still pay for 2 hours. I would have until 5:40 to be late. That still wouldn't cover the cost of 7:30-5:10 on Fridays though! My company doesn't offer a 10 hour workday either and I don't know of many that do around here.

My other concern for elementary students is whether they have the attention span to focus and truly learn for an extra hour each day. My 7 year old son is busting at the seams with energy when he gets out of classes. I'm not sure there are many 7 year old boys who can handle an extra hour of "sit down and listen" in a day!

I can see going to a schedule like this for middle school and high school students. I would love that.. when the kids got to be that age, they could clean the house and do the laundry and EVERYTHING on Fridays! Woohoo!

Dee

[Eirene_DGP]

Originally posted by AGDee


My other concern for elementary students is whether they have the attention span to focus and truly learn for an extra hour each day. My 7 year old son is busting at the seams with energy when he gets out of classes. I'm not sure there are many 7 year old boys who can handle an extra hour of "sit down and listen" in a day!

I can see going to a schedule like this for middle school and high school students. I would love that.. when the kids got to be that age, they could clean the house and do the laundry and EVERYTHING on Fridays! Woohoo!

Dee

In South Carolina, students in critical need areas already go to school all day if they are in elementary or middle school. From what I have seen, the longer day is beneficial to the students even if they just catch up on work or do homework because most of the children would not have gotten the homework done at home anyway. I really think longer school days are beneficial to inner city kids especially because they are at school longer and are off the streets at least until their parents get home.