The ad hoc committee responsible for exploring the idea of a four-day school week presented some of its findings during a school board work session on Monday afternoon. According to the committee, the initial pros outweighed the cons enough that it asked district administration to create models of a potential four-day school week.
No decision has been made, and the school board will not be implementing any changes to the district schedule at this time, but the administration did accept the committee’s advice to move forward by further fleshing out the concept of a four-day school week.
Presentations during the work session showed several pros to the shorter school week, including decreased district costs, increased attendance rates, increased teacher recruitment, the opportunity to reintroduce fine arts programs in longer school days, and more.
In total, the committee compiled a list of about 18 pros, compared to only seven cons. Cons, however, included the potential for decreased test scores–which happened in some districts with four-day weeks–and concerns about what to do with children on Fridays in families with two working parents. The latter concern was challenged by observations that working families manage unschooled children during the summers and on in-service days during the school year.
Initial indications were that the committee was leaning toward presenting positive findings to the board. “We’re far enough along here, and it appears to me that [based on] the pros and cons list, there’s enough pros for us to further consider this. We should loop in more people, namely the board, into gathering more information,” said KPBSD Director of Human Resources Nate Crabtree.
However, after further discussion, it was decided that building a four-day school week model first would be a better course than going directly to the board. “We have to have a model there as to what we’re looking at so we can bring in the people and the professionals to give us quality discussion opportunities,” said Tim Daugharty.
Ultimately, the committee decided to pursue the model request.
In building models of a four-day school week, district administration will factor in several key components, said KPBSD superintendent Clayton Holland. “There’s a lot of different models out there. You know, how it looks; is it four days for everyone? Is it four days just for the students? Is it a mix of those? How do we meet the minimum minutes?” said Holland. “The state requires all of that, and so that’s what we’ll go next and start looking at that, and it’ll be a process.”
Discussions on advancing the idea of a four-day school week have been around in the district for years but took a big step forward in June of last year when the school board hosted a planning session intended to facilitate a conversation on the viability of such a schedule.
Currently, one district in Alaska, the Southeast Island School District, uses the four-day school week model.