A financially strapped school district in Colorado moved to a 4-day school week. Here’s how it’s working out.
What if your school board declared your kids will only be going to classes 4 days a week, Tuesday- Friday? What kind of effect do you think it would have on your family? You could have long weekends to take family road trips, which is nice. Or, you could have an extra day each week your kids will drive you batty.
The 4-Day School Week Experiment in Colorado
In Brighton, Colorado students now have a 4-day school week and most everyone there has plenty to say about it.
The local school board was having real trouble recruiting great new teachers and retaining the educators already working there. With 28 schools filled with 18,000 students, that’s no small job.
It won’t be at all surprising for you to learn that they made the move because of funding. In other words, they are struggling financially. The teachers in that district are the lowest paid teachers in the Denver metro area. As a result, no one wanted to work there.
The board can get away with shortening the school week because Colorado counts school hours, not days, to comply with education requirements for kids. To make up for missing that fifth day of school, the board has lengthened the school day by 40 minutes.
What kids say about a 4-day school week.
Most of them definitely love it, even with the longer school days.
According to NBC news, one little third-grader said he felt the days were kind of long but worth it because he gets to spend his Mondays at his grandma’s house. (Awwwwww!)
High school kids like it too. They quickly figured out that they can pick up extra hours at work on Mondays. Many of them are saving for college.
What teachers say about a 4-day school week.
The school board says they are receiving more (and more qualified) job applications since the change. There are plenty of new applicants and new hires who applied for the school district specifically because it was only a four day work week for them.
Some say they use their Mondays to relax, others use the day to plan, and still others say they love it because they can spend more time with their families.
What parents say about the policy.
Apparently there are many who truly don’t like it.
For a number of those parents, it boils down to childcare. There are free programs to watch the kids on Mondays, but not everyone thinks that’s enough. They want their 5-day school week back.
Hopefully they’ll be okay with the change for a while because it won’t be changing back any time soon. It’s going to continue on, with a mountain of research data being collected, for at least the next 2 years.
Now it’s your turn.
Are you a teacher or parent? Pro or con? Can’t wait to read your answers.
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10 comments on “Who Thinks a 4-Day School Week Is Awesome?”
It wouldn’t matter to me if everyone had a 4 day week as long as the learning took place. From what I see many schools aren’t doing the job with 5 days a week. I can not believe that children today have to idea about the proper use of nouns and verbs..forget the proper tense. They have trouble with basic math..forget geometry and algebra…
4 days or 5 days..just provided an good all around education to the children.
Of course the parents who are really upset because of day care are the ones who send the children to school to be babysat. What more than FREE programs offered.
My kids are adults now, they went to School 4 days a week for many years (M-T) childcare was an issue. Our town had programs through the Rec. Department.
My kids went to a School in Colorado. North Dakota has Schools going in that direction, It’s great for Sports, after School jobs and Hunting. We all Survived.
Here in Upper Michigan (the UP) one of the schools tried the 4 day week-Mon-Thur through the winter months. It saved on heating costs and also bussing expenses. I don’t know why they didn’t continue that.
Responses all seem to deal with “the kids love it,” or the “teachers need the extra day,” but what about learning? Isn’t that the purpose of school? Reading levels are already in the pits nationwide, so take a day away, the scores continue to plummet, and the teachers get blamed. Yeah–3 day weekends sound lovely, but rather than focusing on what’s best for educational needs and student comprehension/performance, we’ll just cut funds by having a 4-day week. It doesn’t equal out, and our childrens’ education will suffer even more than it has.
Pro, I think a 4-day week for children is fantastic. You have many options to choose from in how to use that free time, and all of them are positive. Whether, it be resting, catching up on projects, family time, vaca weekend getaways, more time with retired grand parents, all of the above. If you’ve ever worked a 4 day week and loved it…I feel it would be reciprocated the same for children as school is hard work for them (especially hormonal teens who also work).
As much as I believe we need choices like this for districts and states, and believe they can make it work if they are commited to it,I don’t think this is going to be a quickly growing trend. Most importantly that is because for areas with high poverty rates, which are increasing at the moment, families already depend so on schools heavily for feeding them and it would create a need for another entire program just to care for them and feed them for that extra time that businesses are used to having parents and mothers in the workplace.. even with food being supplied during that day, it isn’t the same as children getting the safety and consistency that schools provide. The article says something vague about having “childcare” available and that sounds good on the surface but it relates to that same issue, the childcare system is already strained in many areas and in most places, it is absolutely unprepared to make that transition.
I can see both perspectives. We have said for many years that some parents look at school as their child care and not as important education. I give you the example of a snow day in the middle of winter, dangerous weather moves in in the middle of the day and parents become enraged because they have to leave work for THEIR children. Or if the child becomes ill during the day, they literally will not come and pick them up. This community needs to think about their values.
The problem of not enough qualified teachers will hit more school districts very soon.
There are other costs besides staff that confront school boards, bussing, heat and air conditioning, insurance costs, building repairs.
I wish them well.
As a parent and a retired teacher, I think it’s a great idea. The positives outweigh the negatives. Kids and teacher will get used to the hours and probably will not even notice the differences in time. Wonder how much they are saving on gas for buses, electric bills, and such like???
SMART Leadership in Bright, CO!!!
As a teacher, it is stressful to be short one day a week from being able to teach. You already feel like there isn’t enough time to do everything that’s needed to be done. My school district has school five days a week but we do maker space activities on fridays, so I kind of understand the stress of losing a full day each week. However, I would also enjoy having 3 days weekends. I have 2 small boys at home so it would be nice to spend more time with family and use Mondays as a plan day if needed. Its bittersweet I think. Of course its going to be rough on parent schedules but I think if the teachers give a better quality education as a result of it, the parents will like the outcome. There are other districts that do the same thing. Its not as new as some may think.
Wish my district would go to four days. It would cut funding for bussing, heating the building. Those two things alone would save money. It will probably happen the year I retire.