The Contagion of the Four-Day Week

School District No. 1 is rural but not remote. The small farming town is within five miles of several other school districts and only 30 minutes from a city with a community college. Despite its proximity to resources, the area has high unemployment, and 80 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Twenty percent of adults in the community are foreign-born.

The 600-student school district, motivated by the prospect of saving money, recently moved to a four-day school week. There were other pressures, too. Neighboring districts already had adopted the four-day week, and being on the same schedule as its neighbors made professional collaboration and sports scheduling easier.

The superintendent considered the four-day schedule a success. Teacher and student attendance rates have improved, community feedback has been positive, and student discipline problems have declined. The middle and high schools went from three- to four-star state ratings.

On the day without regular school, Friday, the superintendent added nine professional development days throughout the year. The district also offers enrichment activities for students every fifth day — sometimes by partnering with local businesses. A group of high school students take dual-enrollment courses at the nearby community college.

But not everything is rosy. The district did save some money by cutting the salaries and benefits of bus drivers, lunchroom staff and paraprofessionals. An elementary school teacher noted drastic changes in her school as the state rating for the school had declined.

The district is spending to support Friday programming. Grants have covered the costs of enrichment activities for now, but no long-term sustainable plan exists. While the charismatic superintendent has been able to marshal teachers and the community to get behind Friday activities, there have been no formal contracts.

A Contrasting Picture

Now consider School District No. 2. In this large, remote region, ranching is the primary occupation. The population is white and poor, with an estimated median income at nearly half the state average.

The superintendent of the district, which enrolls a few hundred students, inherited the four-day school week 10 years ago. He thinks the schedule is compatible with the realities of remote, rural living. Parents like having their children at home to help with chores. Some students have an hour and a half commute to school each way on dirt roads, so they appreciate the four-day schedule.

In the past, the district used the additional day for student intervention. Recent budget cuts eliminated this, so Fridays now are being used for detention, sports travel and in-service professional development five times a year. The district uses homework for direct instruction and classroom time for assignments and intervention.

The superintendent, an educator for nearly 40 years, is resigned to the four-day week, but he imagines a future schedule where students attend four days a week year round.

Spreading Interest

Both School District No. 1 and School District No. 2 are real entities. We granted them anonymity because they were part of a study in which we interviewed 20 superintendents in Idaho and Oregon. Some of the districts were using the four-day school week, while others had considered the schedule but chose not to adopt it. We are drawing on those candid discussions and related research to provide insights into this scheduling phenomenon.

Over the past decade, schools around the country have come under increasing performance pressure. In response, many urban and suburban schools increased teacher and student workloads, cut recesses and added learning time.

But some rural districts have had a different response. New performance pressures came at the same time as fiscal tightening following the Great Recession, so rural schools in some regions turned to a four-day school week to reduce spending.

In some states, budgets have stabilized, but in others, rural districts continue to face constraints, driven by rising energy costs, declining enrollment and longevity-based salary increases. 

The four-day week has continued to spread. Consider two states in the Rocky Mountain region. In Idaho, nearly a third of the state’s districts and a quarter of all charter schools now operate on a four-day school week. Between 2008 and 2017, four-day weeks increased from 14 to 44. In Colorado, 98 districts are on a four-day schedule (constituting 55 percent of all districts in the state), with at least 10 adopting the four-day plan in the past year. A fast-growing 18,000-student district near Denver is poised to make the move this year after voters turned down a request last November for increased tax support.

Known Effects

What do we know about the effects of moving to a four-day week?

In terms of student learning, the four-day schedule causes a global change in school-level instruction. The school schedule — the organization of classes and the minutes of instructional time for each course — is adjusted to account for the longer school days. In some cases, this helped teachers focus their instruction. In others, courses were cut and teachers no longer had time to fulfill curriculum requirements.

We don’t really know the impact of the schedule on student learning. In our interviews, no school district had rigorously assessed the effects on student achievement. The one serious study of achievement effects, in Montana, showed that achievement rose slightly during the first year of the four-day week and subsequently fell. Though we cannot say for sure why this has happened, it is consistent with the idea that good intentions about a four-day week may erode over time.

There are no conclusive data that the four-day schedule has a greater negative impact on certain student populations, but teachers and administrators fear this may be the case for elementary school students, English language learners, special education students and students who struggle academically. A 2018 study in Missouri surveyed parents in three districts with four-day weeks. Parents of elementary students receiving special education services were about twice as likely to say they prefer returning to a five-day week.

Studies of the four-day school week show it reduces behavior referrals and, in some cases, it has been correlated with increased graduation rates. This schedule also can reduce absences of students and staff.

A four-day schedule tends to be popular with teachers, who like the reduced travel time and increased personal time. Many small, remote districts face extra challenges in attracting and retaining teaching staff, and some see the schedule as an attractive feature. This also holds true for student enrollment. In states with inter-district choice, some rural districts believe the four-day schedule will attract students, which can increase income for the district.

Practical Concerns

In districts with four-day schedules, teachers are encouraged to use the fifth day for their personal appointments, and athletic directors schedule interscholastic sports competitions so schools can use the fifth day for game travel.

Of course, the benefits aren’t automatic. At the high school level, teachers must plan to use class time differently and give students valuable assignments for the fifth day. For this to pay off, teachers need to collect and comment on student work, and someone needs to think ahead about fifth-day enrichment activities.

Some leaders in our study noted it took students and teachers extra time to bring themselves back up to speed on Mondays. Schools need to prepare for this inevitability.

There also are practical concerns about the consequences of lost school days. In a four-day schedule, a single eliminated day cuts learning time by 25 percent, not 20 percent as in the five-day schedule. This means that teachers and parents must commit to reducing absences on a four-day schedule.

Staff Unpreparedness

Superintendents assume the burden of explaining the idea to parents, gaining teacher cooperation, rearranging bus and activity schedules, adjusting the hours and pay of non-salaried workers and tracking spending closely to wring out financial benefits.

One burden local administrators often do not take on, however, is preparing teachers for the transition. Few administrators or teachers said their districts provided any teacher training or planning templates before moving to the four-day week. Teachers were left to invent or discover the changes in class and student work assignments.

Families also vary in how aggressively they plan and oversee children’s use of the fifth day. Communities differed in whether churches or civic groups had created fifth-day learning or recreational activities.

A Local Call

There is nothing wrong with the four-day week per se. Everything depends on how it is done.

When a school is designed around a four-day week, it is more likely to reap the benefits and hold itself accountable for results. A four-day International Baccalaureate charter school in Idaho uses the fifth day for student internships and teacher planning. The school’s contract outlines expectations for teachers, students and parents, and there are clear consequences of non-renewal if the school does not abide by the requirements it has established.

At a time when rural and small-town communities are suffering in many ways, nobody should be complacent about changes that could make things worse. Some localities might look at all the facts and decide that a four-day week will work for their students. That’s their right in an era of local control. But any local leader considering the schedule should commit to evaluating its effects and build in the possibility of returning to a five-day week.