Cash-starved districts are turning to four-day school weeks. Will that hurt students?

Fiedler is not the only enthusiast of this model of schooling, and in some ways the four-day school week has taken off. When many schools suffer from staff shortages and tight budgets, districts like 27J schools have turned to shorter school weeks to attract and retain teachers. Up to 900 districts have adopted these abbreviated weeks, according to an estimate for 2023 from the Associated Press. (There are around 13,000 districts in the country). Colorado, where 27J is located, has proven to be particularly fertile ground for four-day school weeks, and more districts in the state have moved to a four-day school week than any other state. except Missouri, according to to an estimate.

But while educators like Fiedler trumpet these shorter weeks, others worry they do little to appeal to teachers and could even hurt students and voters.

'Slightly negative'

Interest in four-day weeks often stems from the need to recruit or retain teachers due to lack of funding. Its supporters also value it for giving students and teachers time that allows for a better balance between school and life. But the evidence paints an ambiguous or slightly negative picture, according to researchers such as Van Schoales, senior policy director at the nonprofit Keystone Policy Center, which published a recent study. report in the four-day school week in Colorado. In fact, the state's data does not give supporters or opponents a clear victory, according to the report.

Schoales says he became interested in four-day weeks after noticing his Colorado colleagues were talking about it more after the pandemic. While there was some nationwide research, there still wasn't much within the state, he says.

Some national studies link four-day school weeks with a drop in student academic performance. For example, an Annenberg Institute analysis found that available data show a “relatively small and negative average” on standardized reading and math test scores in districts that adopt four-day policies. Annenberg's analysis also noted that the negative effects of four-day weeks are disproportionately greater in non-rural schools and may worsen over time.

Still, the Colorado Department of Education was “approving” all proposals from districts seeking to switch to a four-day school week, even though some superintendents and school board members were “quietly expressing concerns,” Schoales says.

What did Keystone researchers learn? Generally, superintendents report that they are motivated to try this because they don't have enough money to pay teachers, Schoales says. But even if some districts were optimistic about the policy, the Keystone study found that truncated school weeks were not effective in retaining teachers. It may have worked in some districts, Schoales says, but overall districts that adopted these policies had higher turnover rates.

Previous studies show that the effect of this policy ranges from neutral to negative on students, and most national studies show that it has a small but negative impact on learning, he says. If true, the gaps could accumulate academically over time, and many of the districts that adopt these policies, at least within Colorado, are far from meeting state standards, he adds.

So, you ask, why not find a way to solve the salary problem instead of reducing instructional days?

What are the students doing?

Additionally, there is another possible problem. How do students spend that fifth day, if they are not in school?

By an estimateMore than 60 percent of districts in Colorado are on a four-day schedule, although they tend to be small and rural districts, meaning they only represent about 14 percent of the state's students. But four-day school weeks are spreading to larger, more urban areas. It's unclear how popular afterschool programs are in these regions, Schoales says, adding that it was difficult to conduct a comprehensive analysis of attendance because these programs run outside the district. But, he says, at least one person they interviewed for the report suggested they were having difficulty engaging low-income families on day five.

When asked, Schoales identified Brighton, which has more than 22,000 students and is comparatively large and urban, as the place with some of the strongest after-school programs.

So what does it look like there?

Since the four-day week was adopted, there are no classes on Mondays in the district and the remaining days have been extended to avoid loss of instructional time. But that doesn't mean there aren't students in school even on Mondays, says Fiedler, former superintendent of 27J schools: Extracurricular activities like athletics, student council meetings and choir practice are still held on Mondays. City and community programs, including the Boys & Girls Club, also pitched in when the district made the change, beefing up staff to make programs more available on those days, he adds. An orchestra program was also launched.

But after the first year, the city backed away from its expanded programs, in part because they weren't being used, Fiedler says.

The district also expanded a pre-existing program, where parents pay a fee for daycare, to cover Mondays, she says. Initially, about 1,000 parents expressed interest in the program. But when it really started, there were between 300 and 400 students enrolled, he says. Fiedler suspects that many families who had expressed interest in the program didn't end up using it because they discovered ways to “share caregiving” – relying on neighborhood members, or older siblings or family members to step in and watch the younger students. Monday.

Due to lower-than-expected interest, the district had to abandon its plan to run these care programs in all elementary schools and instead run them in regional “hubs” around the city.

'The second best option'

Compared to other methods of attracting teachers, policy analysts recommend that districts carefully weigh their options for shorter school weeks.

Some have suggested that the practice could even backfire on taxpayers reluctant to increase school budgets. For example, Brighton voters had repeatedly rejected additional funding for schools. But by denying the school district enough funds to adequately compensate teachers, voters ended up reducing the value of their own property, says Frank James Perrone, an associate professor at the School of Education at Indiana University in Bloomington. That's because the district felt cornered, like it really had no choice but to adopt four-day school weeks, he says. A analysisco-authored by Perrone, found that the four-day school week policy actually reduced property values ​​there by 2 to 4 percent, supposedly showing that home buyers preferred to avoid the area.

But 27J Schools, the Brighton school district, is one of the largest districts in Colorado that has adopted a four-day week. And Fiedler, the district superintendent who retired this year, is not swayed by the arguments against the four-day school week.

The district lost staff the first year it moved to the four-day schedule. But in the years since, Fiedler says, it hasn't had the turnover rate one would expect from one of the area's lowest-paying districts. Data Fiedler sent to EdSurge suggests that 27J had a turnover rate of 13.61 percent between 2023 and 2024 with a base teaching salary of $52,002. That puts it in the bottom third for teacher turnover in the area, despite offering the sixth-lowest base salary.

Additionally, Fiedler adds, graduation rates have increased, even among disadvantaged students. Fiedler's data shows a steady slope in the district's graduation rates between 2017 and 2022. That increase may not be specifically due to the shorter weeks, but he says it occurred at the same time, meaning policy did not prevent the district improve academically.

Twice a month, the district also uses those Mondays off for teacher training, which has been good for morale, he adds.

But even if he's not convinced that shorter weeks are bad policy, Fiedler seems to agree that it's not the ideal situation.

And he rejects the idea that four-day weeks save a substantial amount of money. Fiedler estimates he saved the district about $800,000 or so in the first year, mostly in transportation costs but also in food service and electricity salaries. In his opinion, this is such a small amount compared to the overall budget that it is “not worth it.”

The cancellation of the “industrial tax”, which would provide additional money to increase teachers' salaries, finally it happened for 27J schools in 2022. They are still offering salaries at the lower end of the range and the district likely will not transition again. “No one called my office and said, 'Now that you have money, you have to go back to a five-day school week,'” Fiedler says.

Still, he says it feels “like the second best option.” If the district could have found enough money to pay teachers what they're worth, it never would have tried the four-day school week, he says: “But without that, you have to try something new and different to be competitive.”

Now, when other districts ask about four-day school weeks, he tells them he doesn't want them to change because he doesn't want the district to lose its “competitive advantage.”