4-Day Week Schedule Adopted By More Districts For The New School Year

As children head back to school this year, a growing number will be returning to a four-day school week.

Some larger school districts are making a major shift as a way to cope with a national teacher shortage.

In Independence, Missouri, the school district is moving to a four-day schedule following months of preparation.

Superintendent Dale Herl says his district, with some 14,000 students, is the largest in the state to make the switch.

"In our case, kids are going from 170 [instruction] days to 155," Herl said. "We're adding 35 minutes on to the day, so the instructional minutes will be almost exactly the same."

According to the Four-Day School Week Policy Team at Oregon State University, 876 school districts across 26 states have currently adopted a four-day schedule. That is up from about 650 districts in 2020.

The schedule has long been used by smaller, rural school districts, but now larger districts are shortening the week as a way to attract teachers.

"This was 100% about employee retention and recruitment, specifically teachers," Herl said. "The number of teacher applications that we've received has gone up more than four-fold."

Aaron Pallas is the Arthur I. Gates Professor of Sociology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

He is watching the four-day week trend and argues there are better ways to deal with a teacher shortage.

"The best way is to pay them better. And Missouri as a state ranks basically last or next-to-last in terms of teacher salaries," Pallas said.

Pallas said the jury is still out on the full academic impact of the four-day school week for students, but he is concerned about how it could affect younger students in particular.

"A longer school day may make it harder for them to concentrate. It may mean they're less engaged academically," Pallas said. "On the other hand, for older kids, it's possible that a longer school day can result in fewer days absent because there are just fewer days in the school year for them to be able to cut."

Independence School District chose to have Mondays off because many school holidays already fell on that day. They will offer enrichment programs on some days and fifth-day childcare at a cost of $30 per day to parents.

"If [parents] weren't using any care, certainly that could be a potential cost they otherwise would not have," said Herl.

Herl says it's a step that his district had to take at this point in time in order to hire quality teachers.

He's encouraged by the response and says the district will begin the school year with just one open teaching positions.

"I think this really needs to lead to a bigger discussion nationwide about what we are going to do to support the teaching profession," Herl said.